Is Gooning Bad? What It Is, the Risks and How to Stop

Is gooning bad? Not automatically. Long sessions that keep escalating, and that you can’t cut back, are the pattern worth watching, and control and cost are the best test.

Gooning is internet slang for long masturbation sessions with porn, often with edging and several videos open at once. Our guide to quitting porn covers the wider process of change, and this one focuses on whether gooning is harmful and what to do if it has become hard to control.

Gooning at a Glance

Question	Short answer
What is gooning?	Internet slang for long masturbation sessions with porn, often with edging.
Is gooning bad?	Not automatically. How often people watch porn doesn’t reliably show problems.
Is it a sign of porn addiction?	Not by itself. Withdrawal and tolerance are linked with problematic use in a survey, which doesn’t establish addiction.
Can it cause erectile dysfunction?	The evidence is mixed and mostly cross-sectional, so no cause has been shown.
Does it lower testosterone?	No evidence shows that gooning or masturbation does. In 10 men, orgasm left testosterone unchanged.
What does it do to the brain?	Brain studies show associations, and their direction is unknown.
How do you stop?	Set one goal, track your sessions, make long ones harder to start, and see a therapist if control keeps slipping.

What Is Gooning?

Gooning is internet slang for long, often hours-long masturbation sessions with porn. No published study has measured gooning itself, so the research here is the closest available.

As the term is used online, a session can run for hours, include edging (getting close to orgasm and stopping), and involve several videos at once. Some community accounts describe a trance-like state. Those are descriptions of community usage, not clinical terms.

The closest research uses different names. A 2018 study combined interviews with a 10-week diary of nine men seeking treatment for compulsive sexual behavior at treatment centers in Warsaw. The authors called the pattern “pornographic binges” and didn’t use the word gooning. The binges took the form of continuous viewing with several masturbations, usually for more than six hours at a stretch with breaks under 30 minutes (Wordecha et al., 2018). Six of the nine men had binges of multiple hours or multiple times a day. Those numbers describe nine men. They don’t mark a point at which use becomes harmful.

Is Gooning Bad for You?

Not on its own. No study has tested whether gooning harms health, and frequency alone doesn’t settle the question.

Frequency is the question most people ask first, and a 2020 study gives a useful answer. Researchers used latent profile analysis on three nonclinical samples, the largest with 14,006 people, and identified three patterns: low-frequency use without problems (68 to 73% of people), high-frequency use without problems (19 to 29%), and problematic high-frequency use (3 to 8%) (Bőthe et al., 2020). The authors concluded that frequency “should not be considered as a sufficient or reliable indicator” of problems. The survey measured how often people watched, not how long each session ran, so it can’t say what a gooning session does.

The closest evidence on sessions comes from men in treatment. In that 2018 study, binges were tied to a feeling of losing control, and the authors suggested they may be among the most characteristic behaviors of men seeking treatment (Wordecha et al., 2018). The authors also said the causal relation between binges and their correlates, such as low mood and anxiety, “remains undetermined.”

The questions that matter are about control and cost. Can you stop or cut back when you decide to? Are sessions costing you sleep, work, money, time with people, or erections with a partner? Try tracking those answers for two weeks, since hours alone won’t tell you much. If the answers point to trouble, the two-minute self-test in our signs of porn addiction guide is a place to start.

Is Gooning a Sign of Porn Addiction?

Not by itself. Long sessions can appear alongside problematic porn use, but nothing shows that gooning drives it.

Whether porn use can become an addiction is still debated. In a 2016 review, the authors wrote that “significant gaps in understanding continue to complicate classification” of compulsive sexual behavior as an addiction, and noted that overlapping features exist between it and substance use disorders (Kraus et al., 2016). For the wider debate, read is porn addiction real?.

The closest test of tolerance and withdrawal is a 2022 preregistered survey of 1,541 adults in a nationally representative sample in Poland, which linked both with the severity of compulsive sexual behavior and problematic porn use (Lewczuk et al., 2022). Tolerance means needing more to get the same effect. The authors called their results preliminary evidence. The survey was cross-sectional, the tolerance measure was self-reported, and it showed associations, not what causes what.

Can Gooning Cause Erectile Dysfunction?

The research is mixed, and none of it has measured gooning. Some studies find little link with porn use, while others find associations that can’t show cause.

Two cross-sectional surveys of men aged 40 or younger found little evidence of a link. The first covered men in Croatia, Norway and Portugal (N = 2,737), and the second Croatian men (N = 1,211). The authors wrote, “We found little evidence of the association between pornography use and male sexual health disturbances” (Landripet & Štulhofer, 2015). Only one association was significant, among Croatian men in the first survey, and the authors called it “small and inconsistent.”

A 2015 study of 280 men who weren’t in treatment found that more weekly hours of viewing sexual material went with stronger lab responses and were unrelated to erection problems with a partner (Prause & Pfaus, 2015). The authors concluded that use “within the range of hours tested is unlikely to negatively impact sexual functioning.” That qualifier matters here, because long gooning sessions may go beyond the range the study tested.

A 2021 online survey of 3,419 men aged 18 to 35 showed a different pattern for problematic use. After controlling for other factors, higher scores on a problematic online porn measure went with a higher chance of erectile dysfunction, and masturbation frequency didn’t seem to be a significant factor (Jacobs et al., 2021). It was a self-report survey, so it shows an association, not a cause.

A 2019 survey of men and women aged 20 to 40 at a urology clinic found that preferring porn with masturbation over partnered sex was linked with erectile dysfunction. The rate was 22.3% among men who preferred partnered sex without porn, and 78% among those who preferred porn over partnered sex (Berger et al., 2019). The same study found “No clear relationship” between addiction to porn and sexual dysfunction. Because the sample was clinic patients and the measure was preference rather than hours, it’s hard to apply to people at home.

A 2016 review that included clinical reports said that “clinical reports suggest that terminating Internet pornography use is sometimes sufficient to reverse negative effects,” and it called for studies in which people stop using porn (Park et al., 2016). Case reports describe individuals, not typical outcomes.

If erections change, see a doctor, since a physical check can look for causes beyond porn. For porn-specific erection problems, read porn-induced ED. Community members also use the term death grip for a loss of sensation, a separate question covered in death grip syndrome.

Does Gooning Lower Testosterone?

No evidence shows that gooning or masturbation lowers testosterone. In a lab study of 10 men, orgasm left testosterone unchanged.

Some people worry that frequent masturbation lowers testosterone. A 2001 lab study measured hormones during masturbation-induced orgasm in 10 healthy men, before and after three weeks of sexual abstinence. Orgasm left plasma testosterone unchanged, but testosterone was higher after the abstinence period (Exton et al., 2001). That tested abstinence in ten men, not porn or gooning, so it’s a single lab result rather than proof either way for long sessions.

No research supports the claim that gooning, masturbation or porn makes you shorter. For the wider question about daily habits, see whether daily masturbation lowers testosterone.

What Does Gooning Do to Your Brain?

Brain studies of porn use show links with brain structure and activity, but the direction of those links is unknown.

In a 2014 MRI study of 64 healthy men in Berlin, more reported porn hours per week went with less gray matter volume in the right caudate, part of the striatum (Kühn & Gallinat, 2014). The authors offered two readings: the pattern could reflect changes in neural plasticity from intense stimulation of the reward system, or it “could be a precondition that makes pornography consumption more rewarding.” Because hours were self-reported at one point, the study can’t say which came first. It shows an association, not that porn shrinks the brain.

A 2017 fMRI study compared 28 heterosexual men seeking treatment for problematic porn use with 24 men who didn’t have it. The treatment seekers showed stronger ventral striatum activation to cues that predicted erotic pictures, but not to cues that predicted money (Gola et al., 2017). That measures cue reactivity, a kind of wanting, not damage. The authors suggested that problematic porn use may be a behavioral addiction, which is their reading of the data.

A 2015 EEG study of 122 participants, some of whom reported problems regulating their viewing, found that those with problems who also reported higher sexual desire had a lower brain response to sexual images. The authors wrote that this “appears different from substance addiction models” (Prause et al., 2015). That is the counter-position to the addiction reading, and it’s a reason not to treat brain studies as settled. For more, see porn and the brain.

Is Edging Bad for You?

No study has tested whether long edging sessions are harmful. A related technique is used in therapy for premature ejaculation, but that doesn’t make long porn sessions healthy.

Edging, which community slang describes as getting close to orgasm and stopping, overlaps with a stop-start technique used in sex therapy. In that technique, the man or his partner stimulates the penis until he feels the urge to ejaculate, stops until the sensation passes, and repeats this before allowing ejaculation (Cooper et al., 2015). That systematic review covered ten randomized trials with 521 participants, all men with premature ejaculation. It reported no adverse effects, though it said safety data were limited.

That is where the evidence stops. The review studied structured therapy for men with premature ejaculation, so it doesn’t show that hours of porn and edging are healthy. For whether edging counts in a community challenge, see the No Nut November rules on edging.

How Do You Stop Gooning?

Start with one clear goal, change the setting, and plan what you’ll do when the urge hits. These steps are practical suggestions, not tested programs.

1. Pick one goal. Decide whether you want to cut back, stop porn altogether, or drop edging sessions. A specific target is easier to track than “less.”
2. Track your sessions for a week. Write down the time, the place, how long each session ran and how you felt just before. The record makes it easier to see what to change first, and the clear-headed minutes right after a session, sometimes called post nut clarity, are a good time to write it down.
3. Make long sessions harder to start. Keep devices out of the bedroom at night, log out of sites you use, and set a time limit before you open a video.
4. Write if-then plans. An implementation intention links a situation you expect to a response you’ve chosen, such as “if I open a second video, I’ll close the laptop and stand up.” In a 1999 review of research on everyday goals, the author concluded that “implementation intentions further the attainment of goals” (Gollwitzer, 1999). That research isn’t about porn, but the method is easy to test.
5. Ride out the urge. Notice the urge, breathe, and watch it rise and fall without acting on it. In a 2009 study of 123 undergraduate smokers, a brief mindfulness-based instruction didn’t produce significantly different urges from a control group, but the instructed group smoked significantly fewer cigarettes over a seven-day follow-up (Bowen & Marlatt, 2009). That study was about smoking, and the authors suggested the techniques “may change the response to urges” rather than the urges themselves. For steps, see urge surfing.
6. Plan what you’ll do instead. Choose one activity for the hours when sessions usually start, such as a walk, a call or a chapter of a book.
7. Expect slips, and adjust. A slip is a setback, not proof the plan failed. Note what happened and change one thing the next day.

Does Therapy Help?

Therapy has the most research behind it so far, though the trials are few and none tested gooning.

In a randomized trial of 28 adult men, all but one of them members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a 12-session acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) program cut self-reported porn viewing by 93%, compared with 21% on a waitlist (Crosby & Twohig, 2016). That result belongs to the ACT program as a whole, and it relies on self-reported viewing.

A 2019 randomized trial of 137 men with hypersexual disorder compared seven weeks of group CBT (70 men) with a waitlist (67). The treatment group showed a significantly greater drop in hypersexual symptoms and sexual compulsivity than the waitlist. Follow-ups ran at 3 and 6 months, but the authors noted that the long-term effects are “vague due to the low response rate on follow-up measurements” (Hallberg et al., 2019). These men had a diagnosis of hypersexual disorder, not gooning.

A 2025 meta-analysis pooled 20 studies with 2,021 participants. Psychotherapy improved problematic porn use, how often and how long people watched, and sexual compulsivity more than control conditions did, with large effects, though effects on craving were small. The authors warned of a high risk of bias across the studies and called for more rigorous studies (López-Pinar et al., 2025).

If you’ve tried to cut back and keep going past your own limits, a therapist who works with compulsive sexual behavior can help you set goals and test them. Porn addiction treatment explains the options and how to find one.

When to Get Help

See a doctor or therapist if you can’t cut back despite trying, if sessions crowd out sleep, work or relationships, or if erections change with a partner.

• Control keeps slipping. If you’ve tried to cut back and keep going past your limit, a therapist can help you find what’s driving it.
• Life is paying for it. If sessions cost you sleep, work, money or time with people you care about, professional support can help you change the pattern.
• Erections change. Changes in erections with a partner should be checked by a doctor, who can look for physical causes.

If you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, or your mood is very low, call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US), or your local emergency number.

The Bottom Line

• Not automatically harmful. No study has tested gooning, so the question of harm is still open.
• Frequency isn’t the test. How often you watch porn doesn’t settle whether it’s a problem, and control and cost matter more.
• The evidence is mixed. Erection, testosterone and brain findings come from surveys, lab studies and clinic samples that show links, not proof of cause.
• Plan before the next session. Set one goal, track your sessions and make long ones harder to start.
• Get support when control keeps slipping. CBT and ACT have trials behind them, though the evidence is limited.

If you want help tracking this, TrueAlly’s daily check-ins, calendar and analytics can help you see when sessions happen.

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