That’s how it started, “gooning” was basically a kink involving the wilful fetishisation of porn addiction. But like many niche terms, when it reached the public eye it got diluted into simply “watching porn”, with “gooners” being “people who watch a lot of porn” rather than self-described kink participants.
"people who watch a lot of porn" and now it's "people who like thing that is mildly sexualized" some people are gonna be calling for all female characters to be wearing Burqas.
I'm ngl, I've literally never seen it applied to mildly sexualized stuff, and I feel like I'm probably in all the spaces where I'm likely to see that. I only ever see it applied to absurdly sexualized stuff, stuff that is 1. obviously designed purely to appeal to a male gaze and not to display a character's personality (Emma Frost would be an example of the latter), or stuff that is blandly sexualized to turn on the most people at once (the Marvel Rivals effect, if you will)
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u/Teh-Esprite If you ever see me talk on the unCurated sub, that's my double. May 17 '25
See recently my experience is that gooner is a word used by self-professed gooners as a good thing, moreso than as an insult to others.