Gooning

Does gooning lower testosterone​? It might feel like a strange question if you are unfamiliar with gooning and online forum discussions.  Testosterone is a popular point of discussion on online communities about masturbation and abstinence. Naturally, in the case of gooning also, we can find increased discussions around “Does gooning increase testosterone?” or “Does gooning affect testosterone at all?” There are two angles to understand the discussion around gooning and testosterone. The first one would be about the scientific and medical evidence. The second angle would be about what people have experienced – anecdotes.  Because, as of now, in discussions around ‘Does gooning affect testosterone?’ There is a huge gap between clinical consensus and what people are sharing on online forums.  Understanding this gap between actual science and ‘bro science’ is the point of this blog.  What Is Gooning? “Gooning” is a term that is becoming popular in online forums to describe an extreme masturbation habit of extended edging.  As far back as in 2005 itself, the Urban Dictionary defined the word “goon” as a chronic masturbator – a person “stupid on his own cock.” The Reddit forums began to recognize the practice of extreme masturbation and edging as “gooning” around 2019.  A member of a Reddit forum described gooning as “fetishizingporn addiction and edging yourself to porn to kind of enter a brain-dead state where it’s all you can think about.” Generally, when people watch porn and masturbate, the goal is to achieve sexual release. But when a person is gooning, they practice extreme edging, where they maintain arousal for hours to stay in the trance-like orgasmic state for as long as possible.  H2: Why People Feel “Low Testosterone” After Gooning  Does gooning affect testosterone? We do not have any studies that can answer questions that many people have about gooning, like, does gooning lower testosterone​ or does gooning increase testosterone? Then, where do these online theories and anecdotes about gooning lowering testosterone come from?  You can find many people on forums like Reddit sharing that they ended up feeling terrible and lethargic after a gooning session. And these experiences are often falsely linked to gooning when there are scientifically proven and logical factors at play.  Porn and Dopamine Crash Watching porn is a common method used during masturbation and gooning. But when you watch porn too frequently, it can result in intense dopamine spikes. These spikes are also followed by sharp dopamine falls. When your brain experiences the high-intensity dopamine rush too frequently, it dampens the receptors. Basically, your brain refuses to expose itself to the dopamine of porn you are hitting with it. Once the dopamine receptors are dysregulated, the current levels of watching porn can not give you the same dopamine high. You have to escalate your porn use by finding more exciting or extreme content.  As your dopamine high keeps peaking, so do the following crashes. Eventually your brain’s baseline dopamine sensitivity is so hijacked by porn that you will be stuck feeling low all the time – similar to a withdrawal from an addictive drug. This state of dopamine crash and tolerance can make you feel All these symptoms are also common in cases with low testosterone. That’s why people often get confused with questions like Does gooning affect testosterone? Prolactin Effect After you have an orgasm, your body is flooded with the hormone prolactin. It signals sexual satiety and tells your body that it’s time to rest and recover.  Naturally, to promote rest, prolactin inhibits dopamine, which is a reward-anticipating hormone that motivates you to act and do stuff.  If you have just finished a gooning session with porn, your dopamine is already falling sharply. If prolactin is also released and inhibits dopamine further, then you will feel the low motivation and energy and commonly confuse it as a decrease in testosterone.  Does Gooning Actually Lower Testosterone? Does gooning lower testosterone​? We do not have any evidence that shows that gooning lowers testosterone permanently. Endocrinologists agree on the fact that any sexual arousal temporarily increases testosterone and the hormone levels fall back to baseline soon afterwards. It is the physiological design. The NoFap advocates often quote a 2003 study where it was found that testosterone levels rose after 7 days of abstinence. Therefore, the logical case made is that, the opposite must be true – that frequent masturbation and release should lower testosterone. But the study has already been retracted. Moreover, the change in testosterone was too small and too temporary, and the sample size was just 28 – all indicators that the data is not representative and can not be relied upon for making clinical decisions.  The Real Effects of Excessive Gooning We do not have enough evidence to answer questions like, does gooning lower testosterone? Or does gooning affect testosterone? But should you consider gooning totally harmless? Definitely not! Because gooning, especially excessive gooning, can seriously affect you.  Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction (PIED) You know it’s serious when there is an acronym involved.  When your brain is exposed to too much porn that is highly arousing and high in novelty, your brain gets hooked and drives you to watch more and more. Eventually you reach a point where real-life sex begins to feel unstimulating. So, men with PIED need porn as a scaffolding even during real-life sex. Otherwise, they cannot get aroused or reach orgasm. People who practice gooning often do it with the assistance of porn to keep themselves stimulated for hours. As a result of frequent gooning along with porn, you may develop difficulties like PIED. A Reddit user described the effect of gooning as “Both my brain and my genitals are so desensitized at this point that I could have the hottest girl in the universe right in front of me, and I wouldn’t be unable to have sex with her.” Changes to Your Brain We now know that excessive porn watching can change your brain’s reward pathways. It is not an abstract change; it’s an actual physical