You're Wrong About Gooning

It's okay to be wrong, we're all wrong about some things sometimes, but I admit that seeing so many people being wrong about gooning has joined my list of perpetual irritations.

On the scale of things that displease me it's not quite up there with the people who think any opposition to their view equates to being "canceled" (shout-out JK), and people who think they're an expert on a topic because they watched a YouTube video. But this little annoyance has now reached the status where I'm ready to invest some time in calling it out.

Being as "chronically online" as I am, and being an adult male in this business, I spend a lot of time in the adult spaces around the Internet. I have numerous feeds on all kinds of sites and a lot of it focuses on what I do for a living.

As such, I am forever seeing people making the same mistake over and over again.

Fapping is not Edging and Edging is not Gooning.

Are you shocked by this revelation? Are you befuddled?

It's easy to see why a guy might be, even Google has apparently convinced itself that all of these terms are synonymous and as such it keeps misinforming the average searcher into thinking they're interchangeable.

They're not, so stop it.

Granted, it's not quite on the scale of foreign disinformation campaigns using X and Facebook to screw around with our elections, but it doesn't make it less annoying to me when self-appointed arbiters of fact continuously get basic things wrong.

So, unfold that camping chair, brush off the cobwebs and take a seat. Let's go through this nonsense, shall we?

What is "fapping"?

Simply put, fapping is masturbation. Doesn't matter whether you're male, female or non-binary. If you're human and you masturbate then you're fapping.

People seem to think this term is a new one, perhaps invented in the last 15 years or so.

You would be wrong.

Like a lot of terminology we imagine to be brand new the term fapping is actually older than you perhaps thought.

With the risk of going off on a complicated tangent, did you also know that modern "txt spk" is often not new at all, either? Use of OMG didn't arrive with the cell phone. There is recorded use of it in letter way back in 1917.

Use of the abbreviation LOL apparently goes back to the mid 1980s, when a Canadian programmer was using it in communications with a colleague.

It's very likely other common terms were abbreviated long before this, also. The wireless telegraph inherently encouraged such abbreviation of commonly used terms and operators who found themselves in regular contact would have found their own ways to shorten their work.

Okay, tangent over.

Fapping is an instance of onomatopoeia. It's named such because of the sound you make while masturbating, although It really depends how you do it. But you probably knew that already.

While it might not be possible to trace the origins of every term and it's likely someone, somewhere, used it without it catching on, the term "fap" seems to originate from a Japanese comic in 1999. The artist used the words "FAP, FAP, FAP" in repetition to indicate a character jacking off, and thus a new terminology was officially born.

It's important to remember that the internet of 1999 was much smaller than the internet of today. Enough people saw it that it was repeated by others, and as such it became a thing.

It wasn't until the "Fappening" in 2014 - in which the private media of various female celebrities was illegally accessed and distributed online in what can only be described as one of the most misogynistic and abusive invasions of privacy ever witnessed -  that the term really hit the mainstream lexicon, with news outlets having to explain the meaning of the term.

You can imagine the red faces of the polite writers of the New York Times having to consider how to present it. That was of course back when the NYT was a credible outlet, but I digress.

The term "fap" (to fap, I fapped, we fapped, I was fapping) just covers everything. If it's masturbation, it's fapping. It's wanking. It's Bashing the Bishop and Choking the Chicken. Rubbing One Out and Jacking Off. Every term for stroking your dong or flicking the bean is included under this one.

Okay, so that's fapping dealt with, let's move on...

So, what is Edging?

Now we're getting into the real informative stuff. I'll try to avoid tangents here but no promises.

Edging - also known as "surfing" (because that's not complicated, especially for Australians) - is a form of masturbation. Some might even refer to it as advanced masturbation.

The simplest way I can explain it is that it's a lengthened form of onanism. This isn't your quick jack off in the gym shower before the aching of Leg Day sets in, or your hasty tug and spurt in a bathroom stall at work while you're waiting for Nina to get her sh*t together and send you the Weekly Estimated Net Usage Statistics (RIP Matthew Perry, you are greatly missed)

Edging requires practice, stamina and self-control.

The act requires you to take yourself as close to the point of climax as possible and then stopping. Every guy reading this will know how hard that is. Most men are just working for that pay-off, they're not holding back when they reach that moment. So, managing to stop yourself just as you're about to reach that goal is not easy.

Many men who are good at it can repeat this for hours.

You might be asking yourself why.

While the best practitioners can experience multiple "mini" orgasms this way, similarly to practitioners of Tantric sex, most men can reach a level where their penis is so sensitive to the impending release they can coast - or "surf" - that constant sensation for many minutes.

Even those who aren't able to reach that level yet can still enjoy intensely more powerful climaxes when they finally do allow themselves that big release. The intensity of the climax and the amount of cum shot usually increases the more a guy repeats the process of stopping and starting. There is a limit, of course, but it can be a very fun experience.

This is all made easier with the use of masturbation toys, and some men use prostate massagers to develop the pleasure level even more. Using cock rings or even ball stretchers can greatly increase the power of an eventual climax after a session of edging.

It should go without saying that using a good lubricant while masturbating also increases the pleasure experienced.

Okay, so that's edging, now we need to learn why Gooning is different and why people need to stop using it the way they have been.

Gooning is an extreme exaggeration

If there's one thing you can expect the Internet to do extremely well it's take something completely to the limits and run with it until they're faceplanting.

As far as we can tell Gooning began with a bastardization of the term "Gurning".

Gurning is the act of making an "ugly" face, with extreme contortion of the muscles, usually jutting out the jaw, sometimes sticking out the tongue. There are traditions going back decades, especially in rural England, where this is an actual competition. Who would have thought that in a country where chasing cheese down a steep hill is an annual event this would also become a staple of the village fête?

Okay, it's not common at all these days, but between the 1950s and 1980s it was the kind of event that local news would report on.

Gooning involves the same kind of performative facial expressions while masturbating.

Sources (such as Google) incorrectly believe that this is the same as Edging, that these two things are somehow interchangeable. They're not, at all.

Enjoying masturbation and trying ways to increase the pleasure or develop stamina is not related at all to the performative, comical and (let's face it) ludicrous act of Gooning.

Linking Edging with Gooning is about as sensible as linking sex with pegging or CBT. Pegging is an activity some might enjoy, but it's not synonymous with sexual intercourse. Not all men who enjoy sex also enjoy pegging. CBT is an activity that a very small minority of men enjoy, but you wouldn't consider all bondage and domination to automatically include that extreme form of sexual play.

Personally, I think Gooning has kind of developed its own ridiculous trolling mythology. It's not a real thing (like birds? lol) it's just a bizarre prank that took on a life of its own and now it's become canon. Enough guys thought it was real or had a kink for this kind of bizarre exhibitionism and they turned it into a real thing.

Apart from a tiny minority of guys who engage in it because they view it as a kink of some kind, no one is really at home doing this. They are fapping, and they are edging, but they're not gooning.

Will it go away?

Damn, I hope so, but probably not.

Once something is "endorsed" (again, incorrectly) by online powers like Google it's hard to shake it. Maybe if enough people write posts like this one pointing out how Edging and Gooning are not the same thing Google will eventually get the message and stop repeating the falsehood.

But, just as too many people now call every masturbator a "Fleshlight" when they're categorically not one, I think this is probably here to stay.

So, that's it, topic over.

If you want to try actual edging and need more information you can find a good article from our friends at BuddyBate (NSFW).

If you've already got the jist of it, you can check out our range of masturbators to get to it for yourself.

Drop a comment below if you have anything to add. Are you an Edger, or a Gooner?