Even though Louis Theroux's latest documentary has left the manosphere in a 'sticky' situation as it brushed on the idea of male masturbation and sex, Netflix's jaw-dropping export has potentially Streisand effect-ed the idea of ‘gooning’.
There's a new fascination relating to the culture of young male influencers, incel culture, and the so-called 'manosphere' in the aftermath of Inside the Manosphere, with it rightly shooting up the charts on Netflix.
There's been a backlash against participants like Harrison "HSTikkyTokky" Sullivan and Myron Gaines, with both speaking out vocally on their time with Theroux.
Words like 'matrix' and gooning go hand in hand with the manosphere, with the latter becoming the most Googled sex trend of 2025. This comes alongside existing concerns about what excessive pornography consumption can do to the body and mind.
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There's sure to be a spike in Theroux-inspired wannabes attempting to educate on these issues, although it seems Ben Zand has the jump on the competition.
Posting back in November 2025, Zand sat down with a self-proclaimed gooner and got an exclusive tour of the inside of his 'goon cave'. Trust us, this is nothing like the Batcave.
Zand's latest series intends to “look at the red-pilled and black-pilled worlds of the manosphere, masculinity, and modern internet culture."
Turning masturbation into something of an Olympic event, gooning involves someone playing with themself to the point of climax, but staving off an orgasm to repeat the process over and over again. This starts off as 'edging', while gooning is considered the supposed trance-like state people enter after prolonged masturbation.
As Zand tells us: "Imagine watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy every Sunday, but it's on 11 screens and it's porn.”
Defending the idea of gooning, the participant known as Declan says: "Why would I go looking for a girlfriend when I can just go into my room and masturbate?"
Claiming he's a virgin who's heteroflexible but 'pornosexual' (preferring pornography over actual sex), Declan takes us inside his goon cave, which is adorned with bikinis attached to the wall, two 27-inch monitors, a 50-inch TV, and numerous tablets. The idea is that he can sit back and enjoy hours of different pornographic materials on a variety of devices.
Although some might find it excessive, Declan says gooners are just like anyone else, while he tends to limit himself to one long session a week in his goon cave. This typically averages between six and seven hours, although he's been known to goon for up to 12 hours at a time.
Declan candidly admitted it's like chasing a high, and while one screen would've once been enough, he's since had to expand his setup.
When Zand asked about how Declan continues to try and get that buzz without going into the darker recesses of porn, the self-confessed gooner explained: "I think [it's] more of just having moral limits where I try not to ever get to a point to where I regret watching what I did. I don't watch anything illegal. I don't watch any blood, gore, scat, anything like that."
Answering the obvious concerns about the manosphere's views on women, Declan concluded: "I try not to look at women as like objects. I know that with everyone there's a surface level version of them and then there's also a deeper version of them."
While he seems more than happy with his goon cave right now, he also said that he hoped finding a girlfriend in real life would pull him out of it.
Even though some are sure to be baffled by Declan's goon cave, Zand reminds us that searches for gooning have soared by 4900% in the past five years – suggesting he's not alone in having his own semen sanctuary.