Marriage and motherhood kept Joanne busy over the years, but by early 2020, all of that had come to a sudden end.
In 2019, she had divorced her husband after 25 years of marriage, the majority of them sexless. By the following year, all three of her children had left the nest.
To help her quell the boredom of long evenings spent alone, Joanne found herself drawn to online pornography. She was pleasantly surprised by what she found.
“I was expecting tacky storylines, lousy acting, and fake orgasms. But how times have changed,” says Joanne, now 47, who lives in England. (Joanne and most of the other women in this piece requested that Input withhold their last names for privacy reasons.) “I was led down the rabbit hole of sexual discovery through more porn films than I can count, and I developed an infatuation with porn that reignited my sex life.”
In the months that followed, Joanne’s new-found obsession with porn made her feel insatiable. She found herself attending sex parties and swingers’ clubs in a bid to live out the hardcore liaisons she watched on the internet each day — but it was never enough. “Then I discovered the goonette lifestyle,” she says. “I reached out to other goonettes for advice to help sink me deeper into debauchery. They were more than happy to do so.”
Goonettes are women who gather on sites like Reddit and devote themselves to porn and sometimes IRL sexual escapades. These women view pornography addiction as a fetish they engage in — not an ailment that besets them — and they pride themselves on their lengthy masturbation sessions, during which they consume as much adult content as possible — the more graphic, the better.
Catherine Duffy is the leader of the sex-crazed Reddit community r/Whoreurope and runs an online magazine aimed at pornosexuals — individuals who feel sexual attraction to pornography, rather than people — called Whoreuro. The self-described “sex addict” explains that “gooning” is mostly conducted from the safety of a person’s home. It revolves around prolonged indulgence in hardcore porn and a delayed orgasm technique called edging.
“Goonettes will edge themselves on the brink of orgasm through intense masturbation to pornography, sometimes for hours or even days, until they transcend arousal into a gooning state,” explains Duffy, who is 34 and from Ireland. “In this state, the pleasure experienced is beyond that of orgasm. Your body ends up shaking violently, you struggle to talk, and the only thing that matters is consuming more porn and maintaining your edge.”
The term “gooning” stems from the undignified facial expressions and bodily poses that result from this practice, which has grown in popularity over the last few years. Duffy created her r/Whoreurope page in 2021, the same year hubs like r/GoonetteHub and its male counterpart r/GOONERS_PARADISE were launched. (Male practitioners are called “gooners.”) r/GoonetteHub now has more than 31,000 members.
The Goonette demo varies, attracting women of all ages and backgrounds, although they are often united by sexual fluidity and an attraction to extreme forms of sex — whether virtual or IRL. “There are quiet types who only practice their fetish online and active types like myself,” says Duffy, whose activities have included gloryholes and gangbangs. “The latter [group] will actively seek to live out their porn fantasies in person. They wear words like ‘whore,’ ‘slut,’ and ‘bimbo’ like a badge of honor.”
“Most times I’ll create a ‘goon cave,’ where I have multiple screens going with different kinds of porn, because I love being surrounded by it.”
Goonettes like Violet, a 24-year-old university student from Canada, say that online communities play a crucial role in enabling this lifestyle. “The internet plays a huge role in my gooning life. It’s how I found out it exists and found communities of people like me on Discord, Twitter, and Reddit,” she says.
Violet, who’s relatively new to gooning, now spends hours at a time masturbating to fulfill her fetish. “Most times I’ll create a ‘goon cave,’ where I have multiple screens going with different kinds of porn, because I love being surrounded by it,” Violet says. “I love being consumed by it and going brain numb to porn.”
Deniska, a 29-year-old goonette and bar manager from the Czech Republic, says it’s the community’s online interactions that bring her the most satisfaction. “We give each other daily challenges, like seeing how long we could watch porn and edge without having an orgasm,” she says. “The girls who do the best are given Reddit awards.”
Blurred lines
Duffy says that the gooning community’s structure — in which more experienced women like her rule supreme — is one of her favorite parts of the lifestyle. “Porn mommies, like me, are often older women who play a matriarchal role over gooners and goonettes, encouraging their fetish, and rewarding them if they impress us,” she explains.
Duffy says that “porn mommy” goonettes are responsible for welcoming others into the fold. “Many new people approach me for advice on the lifestyle, and I’m proud to give it to them,” she says. “I love being seen as an authority figure in the community.” Duffy hosts virtual masturbation sessions through platforms like Discord, in which gooners and goonettes convene to pleasure themselves en masse.
Despite her pride in the scene, Duffy says there are still some issues that could be better addressed. “There needs to be more awareness about how to enjoy gooning safely and responsibly. The responsible fetishization of porn and sex addiction is fine. But actual addiction is not,” she says.
“It’s difficult to find a boyfriend who is happy with his girlfriend living this life.”
“The lines between the two can easily become blurred. Guys and girls can do silly things when they’re horny,” Duffy adds. Joanne, unfortunately, has been witness to such things: “I’ve seen girls leave their partners ‘for porn’ and then instantly regret it when the lust wears off.”
For Deniska, who is thoroughly enjoying her goonette lifestyle, the main issue is finding a willing partner who accepts her choices. “It’s difficult to find a boyfriend who is happy with his girlfriend living this life,” she says. Deniska worries that her extended masturbation sessions, and the sex she now engages in with other women and trans people through the gooning scene, have hindered her chances of finding a relationship. “I love my goonette friends, but a boyfriend would be really nice.”
Joanne’s hope is that women interested in the scene will seek advice from experienced goonettes and tread carefully when they engage in the lifestyle. Ultimately, though, she believes the pros outweigh the cons. “When you compare my current life of relentless sex and pure erotic discovery to my old life of a dead-end marriage, I honestly can’t think of any negatives,” she says. “My life has been changed for the better.”
