"Gooning" Has People Scratching Their Heads, but What Does the NSFW TikTok Term Mean?

There have been countless new words to surface on TikTok since the platform became one of the best known social media platforms in the country. Although it's not the only social media site in town, it has certainly become one of the most common, especially among young people.

One of the new terms to come out of TikTok recently has been "gooning," and it's a term that has baffled users who don't understand what it means, and has even confused some people who understand it. Here's what we know about the term, but warning, this definition is definitely not safe for work.

The term gooning as it's used on TikTok typically refers to a person who is, in essence, addicted to porn and is also not working that hard to hide it. You might say that you are gooning if you watch six hours of porn in a row.

It basically describes a person who has been totally consumed by a porn addiction and isn't all that interested in escaping from that cycle.

While that definition may explain what the trend is about, it doesn't necessarily explain why so many people feel comfortable talking about it. It's possible that, in an attempt to destigmatize the notion of porn, these users are discussing their own habits, and as is often the case on TikTok, they've come up with a new word to describe it. When you see the term referenced on TikTok, though, that's what people are talking about, whether you want them to be talking about it or not.

Although this one is less common on TikTok, there's also another definition for gooning that basically describes a legal form of kidnapping. In this version, people essentially hire rehabilitation organizations to take their kids to bootcamp or another form of rehab designed to get them back on the right path. It's certainly a controversial parenting technique, but one that is definitely described by the term gooning.

We're in an era when porn is more available than it has ever been, and porn addiction has become a growing concern among some experts in the field of mental health. While the question of whether porn can actually be addictive is still up for debate in scientific communities, some believe that over-reliance on porn can damage a person's overall sexual health, and start to have an impact on their relationships as well.

Gooning may be helping to destigmatize porn online, and most people agree that porn can be a healthy part of a person's sex life. What's less clear, though, is whether spending hours a day watching porn is actually a good way for a person to spend their time. Gooning may have some pretty serious ramifications, but that isn't stopping many of the people who talk about it online from doing it anyway.