108
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The goon squad. Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation.
Link information
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- Title
- The Goon Squad, by Daniel Kolitz
- Authors
- Daniel Kolitz, Joy Williams, Rowan Jacobsen, David Wingrave
- Word count
- 5895 words
I’m honestly really impressed with this piece. This is obviously something the author spent a lot of time and effort researching. These days it feels like that kind of journalism is dead, replaced by millions of mass produced “someone called me and told me this” or “I searched social media and found this” style stories.
I’d heard of gooning but didn’t know how far the rabbit hole goes. I thought it was just a way to say edging. I’ve seen a PMV before but I didn’t get it. It seems like the antithesis of pornography. If you’re not already “in heat” it seemed to be kind of repulsive.
I appreciate the authors attempts to keep his descriptions of the people sympathetic and understanding. And I think that I can understand what gooners are going through from his writing. Strangely enough the most shocking and weird thing for me was something the author described as a “normie” thing: women “brushing their teeth while drooling erotically”. I don’t want to know. It was also very weird when he used the term “BNWO” unqualified.
In any case it feels like the world of gooners is one being fueled by the ever-widening fractures in our society. In my youth I spent a lot of time online because the real world didn’t have seem to have much of a place in it for me. I spent a lot of time in furry communities because they tend to be extremely friendly, welcoming, and understanding. There are some specific parts of that corner of society where people are just constantly going through something, and people are there to be sympathetic to their stories; one person I made friends with was mourning the death of her cat for over a year, partially by role playing as the cat. In my youth I was definitely someone who was going through many things and being there was an importing coping strategy.
But in my youth there was a degree of optimism that I think today’s youth don’t have; the idea that if things are bad where and when one was, things were better somewhere or when else. Gen Z seems to be a whole lot more nihilistic. And who can blame them? We are watching society collapse in realtime. Falling into a gooner “cult” seems pretty understandable or even reasonable in that light. It’s an intense escape that is easily reachable without illegal drugs and even more dangerous behaviors.
...for a very long while, belief in a better world, either to be found or to be made, was the only thing which sustained me through very dark times and places...somewhere along the way, that horizon of the unknown preceded into here and now and that belief dissolved into nihilism...
If you're looking for a bit more levity, I think absurdism is a much nicer place to end up that nihilism. Sure nothing matters, but it's all absurd!
I'm there with you. I tend towards optimism not because I think there's some great bright future ahead of me, but because it genuinely feels better to be that kind of person. I'm the only one who has to live with me for the rest of my life, so I'd better be optimistic about myself.
Man, me too. I still think that, if you could zoom out far enough and see all of future history, you'd see that the line does trend upward. But we are certainly in a very deep, dark pit right now.
The pendulum always swings. These fucks out there right now are going to lose their grip on power sooner or later, and when they do it will be glorious.
Consider how much worse the downward trend looked during WW1 or WW2.
I'm sure many of you have at least heard the term gooning but the complexity, history, and practices was completely unknown to me. Definitely stranger and not for everyone but regardless of subject, I really enjoy it when prestige publications cover subcultures with the same seriousness they cover anything in the mainstream. Like with all niche online subcultures, I take the actual practices with a grain of salt (like are these people making shit up for this "normie" reporter? Is this like butt chugging or the knockout game? The author expresses their own concerns) but I there definitely seems some truth behind is being discussed here. I also find this comment towards the end quite poignant:
Kind of a weird but fun article, thanks for sharing.
I don't even know how to react to this. Great writing on such an odd topic.
Edited to add: the article is really good. Much better than one might expect.
I think the veracity of the claims are rather easily confirmed by joining and lurking those Discord servers. It does indeed sound like the reporter did their due diligence and went in the deep end.
Perhaps some overstating with regards to the importance of the "goon state", but otherwise these porn parties and PMVs are verifiably there.
Your highlighted quote also jumped out to me. I thought it was very well reasoned, by comparing it to other short form content they immediately humanized the gooners.
I didn't think I'd read it until the end but I kept getting back into it. Like @R3qn65 said: it's a very well written article.
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, the Atlantic and I'm pretty sure the New Yorker do too. Weird article for sure, but knowing about the Bizarre things habits and subcultures that define our time will be film plots of tomorrow.
I'm here for it, even if this particular edition is... Icky???
Certainly sticky. Very, very, sticky.
I was thinking "wow, these people all share photos of their spaces with each other? I totally want to see one."
Then I didn't because these most definitely aren't the custom man caves or Pinterest hobby rooms I was imagining lol.
Not gonna lie though, I've seen pictures of those "goon caves" once, and no matter what you think of them, it's still very impressive
Everything thing is in its proper space. Now the wanking can commence!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Consoom/comments/13av0vd/battlestations_will_never_not_be_funny_to_me_its/#lightbox
What a fascinating essay on a culture I never intended to learn anything about
I'm right there with you buddy. I sort of reflexively clicked on this and did not expect to enjoy the read so much, but I was cackling with my wife at the absurdity of this.
I would have never known this existed in such form. I feel so completely lost and in the dark.
It's sometimes a controversial opinion in some spaces (pro sex-worker spaces) to say that this sort of content being actively fed to people is... problematic. There is a constant battle between how much of this is the agency of the user versus the freedom of the creators. In my opinion, we should be treating this closer to gambling & smoking, frankly.
As much as I can manipulate the algorithm because I understand it... it makes perfect sense that people drown in sexual content. And none of this even touches on how porn stars are more of a fixture in mainstream content. Of course we can't just exclude them from society & media because they are porn stars, but the funnels feels a bit too visible at the moment.
As a final point: Paul Graham's article on addictiveness is just... so goddamned salient.
This reminds me of the strangest things I came across when I started to browse TikTok. There was a surprising amount of sexual content on it even though it's not strictly allowed. When I first started scrolling through it there was a trend of "white shampoo" videos (maybe don't look that term up), followed by videos of guys doing handstands with baggy shorts, a bunch of guys who talk about their lives as sex workers and adult performers, and people talking about cruising sites and sex parties.
But to be honest, I don't know if this kind of thing is actually harmful. There are some things I think about this new paradigm are actually positive; I prefer a world where sex workers are empowered over one where they are being secretly abused. For the gooners in particular, is their marathon masturbation sessions a worse form of addiction than, say, social media or TV addictions? It's not nearly as personally damaging as gambling or smoking. The problems I have with these people as described have more to do with the social aspects and their implied sexism than the actual sexuality of it.
I don't agree with most of the internet safety and censorship laws passed under the pretext of making children safe, and I don't know how to fix it. But this quote from the article really does bother me
Watching hardcore pornography regularly since before you've even hit puberty must have some effects on your mental development. I don't think we can completely attribute the phenomenon to consenting adults spending their time in the way they enjoy. Though I'm not sure how much of that should be attributed to the normalization of softer sexual content on most platforms either.
Not to say I think it's good that children are watching porn before puberty...but is there evidence that there is some serious negative effect on people who have grown up watching porn from a fairly young age?
Or is this something we just say because we, as a society, have traditionally thought that sex is something that we need to hide away, because it's "bad," especially from children?
OK, many of these gooners have have been watching porn regularly since they were 9-10yo. Does that increase the likelihood of becoming a gooner? Looking over all people who started watching porn at a young age (as an aside, that sounds so weird to say), what percentage of them have become gooners?
Obviously this is a relatively new phenomenon, so there's probably not that much research quite yet. But I'm sure there is some evidence for just porn and child/teen mental development over all, I just haven't seen it (not that I've been looking for it; not my field). But I'd be interested in seeing this.
The newspaper I subscribe to have been running a series lately where they have people from the boomer generation and some from gen z talk together about sex. Of course it is all anecdotal in nature, so not proper research as such, but it has been really interesting. Suffice to say, the culture around sex was also pretty damn problematic in the 60s to say the least. One older guy told that they knew absolutely nothing about sex at all, so their approach wasn't exactly built around consent or mutual respect. He told that they once held a girl down in the schoolyard to force her skirt down so they could finally see what was underneath. Those sort of things was mostly shrugged as "boys will be boys". Compared to the gen z young man, acknowledging that porn addiction can become problematic at a young age, it also removes some of the mystery of it all and it does seem like young people have created a much safer consent based culture around sex. It was also eyeopening to read several encounters from elder woman who have been straight up raped in their youth, and only in recent years have actually realized what they have been the victim of.
This is not to downplay potential issues with porn influences these days, but lets not think it was much better a generation or three ago.
Sorry, maybe I misspoke, because that was not at all what I was trying to convey.
This is kinda what what I'm getting at. That because sex was bad, we didn't tell children about this stuff. And that affected those then-children the rest of their lives, even into old age. Now a kid today (or even a kid 20yrs ago, aka GenZ) can watch porn so easily, that as you say, that there might be some unintended positive consequence? At least in terms of sex positivity. I feel like I have to say it, because it's the Internet, but I am of course not at all saying we sit kids down in kindergarten and show them porn when the teacher doesn't want to teach that day. That'd be absurd. Teachers, please stick to Sesame Street and Bluey!
I've seen it said across the site, multiple times, in the context of social media bans and online age verification, that kids watching porn is bad. Potentially the worst the thing ever. Which is why we need online age verification,; privacy be damned. I don't think it's great, either, but it feels like one of those things that keeps getting repeated over and over with no evidence shown -- not saying it doesn't exist. And since that many of us on this site seem to be Millennials or older, that we still have some of those, Idk, "hang-ups?" about sex that maybe younger people don't. Ironically, because of porn.
But again, if there is evidence that watching porn regularly from a young age affects mental development or something, I'm all ears.
I would imagine a study of this nature would be highly unethical and that is why we don't do it.
Perhaps a sideways angle: the affect of widespread violent pornography and its affect on young people who have freshly come into legal consenting age.
Pornography Consumption and Sexual Choking: An Evaluation of Theoretical Mechanisms, Paul J Wright et al. Health Commun. 2023 May., PubMed
We know sexually grooming kids is bad why? Because it normalised relationships in a sexual dynamic, before the child has had adequate time to put all relationships in context and has an array of different tools to deal with life, how to be safe, how to make someone happy, how to get out of trouble, how to negotiate for what one wants, how to tell if someone loves you how to show love etc. A groomed child has been taught to use sex to resolve many if not all of life situations.
It is my belief that one can inadvertently self groom into using sexual escape/gratification as the hammer to solve many of life's problems. And that the longer one uses the hammer, the less time one spends time mastering other crafts that a normal childhood offers.
Let's leave morality aside and think about a child piano or chess prodigy who spends all day every day doing nothing but chess/piano. Or imagine a child who is kept home from school to do Bible study all day. We know that's bad too, right, but why? Because it limits their world and it teaches a narrow set of skills with which to navigate the world, and the child can grow up with a sort of myopia, unable to relate to peers or analyze the world outside of the one honed angle.
I think we are pretty aligned. It all comes down to proper sex education of teenagers, porn or no porn. They could also have used some of that in the 60s, and every decade later. Remember my own sex education in late 90s was still mostly about STD and pregnancy. Today of course it needs to involve a non-judgemental healthy critical view of porn and how it differs from the kind of sex most teenagers will have. I can personally attest to having some concern on the increased violence in mainstream porn, combined with reports of many saying they have been choked during sex without consent definitely sounds alarming. Though it all comes back to forming a proper culture around sex education, and from what I can gather just from reading interviews in my newspaper, it does seem like gen z is forming a way better consent based approach to sex these years. Where talking about boundaries and asking before acting is seen as attractive, which is all kinds of amazing. Just looking back at my own teenage years, the mainstream media depiction of sex was extremely problematic. Like with how big magazines ran massive articles on which underage girls they were "willing to wait for" with countdowns to them turning 18. There is still ways to go, but we have really come a long way with criticizing the whole woman as just objects in the last couple of decades and just talking about consent means a whole lot.
I don't have time to write a proper comment right now, but I'd like to point out that porn and sex are two almost completely different things. There is very little overlap.
My personal opinion on porn is fairly (not completely) negative because I am a sex-positive person.
Always amusing when people who don't understand how TikTok/reels work say stuff like this. "I watched a bunch of porny videos and then the app kept showing me more porny videos, what a scandalous app!"
The author certainly understands that, I don't think that changes the point. When so much of our culture is built around algorithms that detect if we're interested in addictive content, be it porn, gambling, outrage, or any number of things, and continue to feed us more of it, that's not a good thing.
For some reason this comment reminded me of this (NSFW) work of art that feels distillation of short form social media content. The entire account is just that concept, but taken to ludicrous levels.
That's a part of it, sure. But the algorithms can get a little overzealous. When I look at an interesting video on YouTube that also happens to have a pretty lady host, the YT algo goes bonkers and decides I want those weird wet try-on clothing videos too. Which I truly don't, I just want to watch funny or interesting economics or defense economics videos.
Opening my YT app right now shows rather skimpily clad cosplayers in my YT Shorts. For starters, I don't watch shorts, but the algorithm probably decided that a 30-35 year old male wants to see these porn funnels.
Because let's be real, they likely have a linktree or something similar in their video description.
Genuinely I've watched videos with attractive presenters and never gotten the types of videos you've described. Similarly, while I get the occasional "thirst trap" on Tiktok which is primarily queer women and the occasional guy being fully dressed but wearing suit or something, never actual weird fetish videos (with the hands and the goo or whatever), and many more are poking fun at the "genre."
Tiktok thinks I'm a guy in its documented assumptions about me and sometimes thinks I speak Spanish or that I'm Black but the sexiest thing I get is a lumberjack now and again, and I follow him for his political views!
YMMV I guess.
I have it under control now but I had to frequently start with a relatively fresh front page on YouTube for.. adblock reasons, and a fresh YouTube is wildly out of sorts to begin with.
At this point it's all about making sure I don't accidentally scroll and autoplay something I don't want.
You don't even have to watch any to get that sort of stuff popping up though. For example i have snapchat installed but have not used it for anything but a group chat with work colleagues (definitely not sexual) and the occasional message with friends asking about help with day to day stuff. A few months back snapchat must have decided my usage wasn't engaging enough and started sending me regular notifications for highly sexualised stories, including ones from literal porn stars (and pretty quickly got denied notification access). It'd be pretty easy to start down that rabbit hole when an app is so blatantly pushing such content at you...
I mean... I know how it works and I still think it's highly problematic. You can accidentally (or even once out of morbid curiosity) view something and the algorithm sudden veers deep into stuff it knows is addictive because it gets more engagement. It's way easier to get sucked into the cesspool than it is to dig your way out. You have to actively prompt 'do not show me this' over and over, which is of course hidden away in a small corner because that's not good for the engagement bottom line.
Great article, I wish it had focused more on community. I've recently joined some of the named servers and have found the patronage friendly and focused on health and safety.
For me, it gives me the only space in my life to fully explore sexuality, crucially, with others. The article kept hammering in over and over you're totally alone when you do it, but that's not usually true. It is social, and it offers a judgment free space that's hard to come by. Very very trans and queer friendly, too.
Happy to answer any questions. The most interesting bit to me what the author trying and failing to join in. They describe solo sex as being fraught with anxiety, panic, existential dread, and that's much the point is to enter a meditative state where the world and it's worries don't exist.
They could have gone down that path more of they had more experience with the whole thing, but, great article.
I would imagine there are also folks along the asexual spectrum who see the exercise as being pointlessly over complex. Humans are interesting
@okiyama, I want to start by apologizing. Re-reading my comment I came across very short and judgemental, for that I am very sorry. What I had meant to do was to say "hi~~!" quickly before reading the article and then coming back to ask you a bunch of questions because I'm fascinated. I wanted to ask questions right away but felt disrespectful not having put in the time, but I didn't want to not say Hi first because I knew the article was going to be long and bewildering, and then you got my weird non-sequitor of a comment @..@
This is what you were hinting at, right? That folks want to do something that's rewarding, that most people (except some aces) know about and are interested in, that's deep enough to explore, wide enough to encompass come one come all attitude, and something you can do safely at home by yourself, with alongside a million other like minded individuals. I'm very little part of the way in but if I haven't completely offended you I would love to chat when I'm done
Oh no, not at all, you're right, and an asocial person would be confused further yet!
You basically got it, yep. One aspect that wasn't brought up is that these servers have SFW areas too, I just hopped out of one with about a dozen people (real queerdos I'll add) just hanging, chatting, streaming games. It also didn't really mention that voice is really prevalent, and in many ways it's just another way for people to meet up, watch a thing, and talk together. Of course, in the NSFW side, "talk together" can vary wildly, but for example, among 5 or 6 streams a few nights back, someone came on to show off their halloween costume.
That's what I've been enjoying is it's a judgement free sex-positive safe space with like minded people. The people really are just people that do people things together. Two random thoughts, first, probably not millions, at least not on Discord. Second, I would hazard a guess that the social experience is the minority of the "community" and the majority are indeed 100% solo, just surfing the internet, never interacting with anyone else. In that sense, the article was well balanced to the reality of the situation for society.
I'm an open book, and DMs are open as well if you prefer.
I want to know more about the cultural attitude of the community. Certainly, like any large community, there's going to be a spectrum of attitudes. The article mentioned underaged stuff is chased away. That's positive. I want to know your guess of the composition, rough percentage of those who are "anything goes" hedonists who don't care about social morals or damage to others or consent or safety, vs those who are seeking pleasure but within the framework of wishing for all to have the same freedom. The article mentioned NoodleDude giving credit to creators whose likeness were used in his compilations, and that there's some vetting for age. WristbandGuy's parties seem far more responsible and wholesome than raves of the 90s.
Do you agree such efforts are futile and in the extreme minority? Is there healthy going and if so how common?
It sounds like, more than pleasure, gooners are looking for a way to escape the fear of harm. They sound like they're after safety. Safety from pathogenic harm of STDs isn't weird for the generation that grew up during the pandemic. Safety from malicious intent or miscommunication. From judgement and criticism. Perhaps safety from the gnawing feeling of being ignored by parents who themselves are glued to screens, an attempt at being completely self sufficient in soothing oneself without having to rely on other human beings with competing needs or vanishing attention spans.
Why are gooners choosing to be in the community?
And last question for now : how seriously are people taking this, or is it the usual teenaged / youthful trying on of a persona?
first off, disclaimer, I've been loosely part of this for a long while but only into the social aspect the last few weeks.
Never in my limited experience, I can attest to the "we really take moderation seriously" attitude. For example, there was a post that had a social media tag that was (apparently, I only saw the aftermath) taken down quickly to avoid harassment. That sort stuff is what I mean by health and safety, it's very... mature? in that sense.
I have actually looked into this and there's an annual party of a similar breed in my city. From what I read, it's very chill. Everyone is vetted pretty hardcore, and you get very explicit instructions who is looking for what.
I expected the level of femboys and trans people but the number of cis women actually is a bit of a surprise, especially how many hop on voice. As you can imagine, it can feel very powerful the effect that a voice can have on someone, live no less.
Yeah I think that's fair to say. People are complicated, and, though social, it's on pretty strict terms.
Bit of a stretch to me, I don't think people avoid sex because of STDs, generally speaking, it's more social and community contact oriented.
Maybe but I cannot speak to this as a millenial.
The simple answer is, community is good. It is mutually beneficial for the members, who get to socialize when they would (let's be honest) be otherwise on Instgram, Youtube, etc...
That loops back to your first point. I think it's a lot like any hobby, people who make it their entire identity (especially when it's something more fringe like this or LMAO 420 WeeeeeeDDD HAHA) it gets... weird. Like the article said, they spend something like 2-3 hours a day at it? It's not crazy to do that as a hobby, and, without getting too gory, there's levels. You can chill for a while before hopping into the deep end.
This is a lot of fun, I'm happy to share my discord as well if you prefer to make things private too :D
I came across this on Reddit. Weird shit.
My wife and I were discussing the phenomenon. Specifically the part where the author says,
Before the rise of social media, before the rise of Internet forums and message boards (I say, on a message board), it was hard for the instincts that drive all of this to reach the critical mass necessary to start forming a sort of community. Maybe one in, what, 10,000 men has the latent predisposition for this? One in 100,000? What was the likelihood that even two such men would meet each other, much less a bond over an extreme interest in pornography? But the Internet brings everyone closer together, so makes reaching that critical mass possible. Once it does, the community becomes a self-sustaining reaction and, in cases of bizarre niches like this, one of seemingly never-ending escalation.
In response to this article, someone on Reddit posted the following.
Oof. Guilty as charged!
Right? Even the rooms aren't new. I remember seeing my first Planet Hollywood restaurant thinking, who would want to be in a place like this? Sportsball and pop Idol group people are another form: spend hours upon hours a day, buy a buncha stuff, go to these things together.
For me it was game conventions and playing D&D for an entire weekend. Human beings Love this stuff.
I had initially only heard of this term in reference to a group via this animation from Meat Canyon. I am reluctant to post it since it is a lot. NSFW. But fascinating to watch with context. Enjoy at your own risk
https://youtu.be/N-s5YdmgKgY
I like the article, for reporting on a weird subculture and doing a lot of research. But I started feeling like the tone was kind of moral panic.
I wouldn't grant that, unless "gooner porn" is specifically snuff films or something, I took it as just weird porn edited to be more intense. I don't see how that's soul poisoning at all.
If people want to average 2-3 hours a day masturbating to porn, I don't see that as any less healthy than sports, video games, baking, crocheting, or whatever humans choose to do with their lives. We're a bunch of brilliant, abusive, weirdos. It takes all kinds.
A few of the most intense fans of gooning are going down a weird, untrodden path into the wilderness. In the best-case scenario, society at large can respond like WristbandGuy. Offer support and guidance as best we can, so they can travel as safely as possible. It's probably a pointless waste of resources, but maybe they'll find something interesting.
A huge population and communication technology mean way more weird paths to go down, and more interesting things to find. We just have to worry about keeping people safe while they do their weird shit.
I don't see any moral panic in the statement that unboxing videos aren't precisely as hazardous as porn. The statement seems perfectly logical to me.
I think all of these represent different degrees of 'healthiness'. From healthiest to least healthy:
If I can choose which of these to get addicted to (or spend more than 14 hours on every week), I choose from the first two categories.
The article mentioned a few things that make this sport / hobby like: competitions, creative personal set up, meet ups, trading / sharing, PMVs, artwork, a sort of meditation, some mention of self care like hydration and rest.
Once upon a time whilst visiting a sex store, I saw a guy come in and ask the front desk staff for lube. Desk guy says there's a wide selection in that section, as well as these single use samplers at the counter. Patron says the girlfriend told him to get lube, and chose one tiny sample about the size of one individual condom or ketchup package, paid, and left.
If gooners choose to never touch a real woman in their lives, cool. But if they ever get to know, date, or have play dates with women, I am willing to bet that they would know about about being gentle, going slow, having good lube, than that guy I saw at the shop. Straight men exploring their other equipment safely and tenderly is a good sensory learning hobby, I would venture.
At the absolute minimum, even if crippling and passive, this hobby is a much safer hobby for women than the ancient hobby of going out trying to get women too drunk and/or isolated to consent.
The tag 'wankbattling' gives me some idea. :D
Sure, I'd say it qualifies as a limited-range sensory activity and obviously masturbation has its place and purpose in people's lives/health/self care. I am fairly adept at the art myself! Porn isn't necessarily a part of masturbation though. (I still haven't read the article so I have no idea whether that's relevant.)
Masturbation also involves movement and improves your physical health. It gets the blood pumping and can be thought of as lightweight cardio. For men, regular ejaculation is thought to help prevent prostate cancer. Masturbation is also positively associated with many other health benefits; reduced stress, better sleep, better self esteem, and even pain relief are associated with people who do it regularly, and even improve sexual function. It improves mental, emotional, and physical health.
I honestly wonder how you think these people see pornography from your description of it. They are masturbating. How are they not using their senses, exactly? How are they not exerting themselves? They're doing this for hours; how are they not delaying gratification if they're basically edging themselves for hours? What use is pornography if you are not imagining the situation you are seeing?
By no means am I saying that gooning is better than any other hobby. obviously, there's points where doing this kind of thing becomes detrimental to your health. But like everything in life, the dose makes the poison. Some of these people may be living very healthy lives, and others less so.
The older I get the more and more I hate people using the word "healthy" to describe things. There is no "healthy" except for the sum total of one's lifestyle. If I eat a chocolate bun in a day, it's not going to kill me. If I eat nothing but chocolate buns, it will. Everyone's life is different and they all have different parameters by which they run their lives with, and we should generally respect their decisions as long as there is no harm being done.
My point was merely that unboxing videos are not precisely as bad for your health as porn, and that saying so does not imply moral panic.
I agree that masturbation is a healthy habit that has a place in life and society. Masturbating to porn? I'm not completely against the idea, but if taken to the extreme, I do find it iffy in a similar way than being a diehard sports fan. That is: not very iffy.
And all I was saying is that this point comes sooner with masturbating to porn than it does with crochet or cooking. Expressing that opinion shouldn't be taken as disrespect.
I never thought you were being disrespectful. It just seemed that you might have been trying to make a different point with the way you worded things.
what a great day to have eyes
I'm interested but intimidated by all the brand new phrases just in the list of tags. Human beings are so strange
It was a kinda tough read, I'll tell you that.
But in some ways, highly enjoyable. The author clearly had a good time writing this (although perhaps not in the researching).
I'm glad to see that you all enjoyed that one as much as I did. It was grim and long but also funny, interesting and very eloquent. None of my IRL people are going to read it, but I sent it along to them anyway.
Wow, I had seriously misunderstood what gooning meant, that was a really eye opening piece. I really enjoy this authors sense of voice and the depths of research and thought too. 10/10 great read, thanks for sharing.