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“Pornism” and the New Sacred: The Digital Worship of Sexual Consumption
Split screens, HMV edits, "blacked" waifu compilations with two-second cuts; the porn industry has consistently been at the forefront of digital and conceptual innovation. This extends beyond content and goes into formatting and distribution. As people's behaviors, screen times, and watching habits evolve, so too does pornography. Over a decade ago, there was a massive shift in pornography formatting as it became increasingly vertical, adapting to the rise of Snapchat between 2012 and 2015 and other video-capturing applications that relied on that format, such as Vine. The same is now true for the new scrolling video format introduced by TikTok1, a model that has been swiftly co-opted by every other social media platform (see: Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts) as well as the adult film industry.
Functional acceleration here isn’t just about how quickly someone can access porn because that’s already near-instant as opposed to flipping through a magazine. It’s now about the volume of videos a person interacts with in a single session. Where older formats might have meant watching a handful of clips from start to finish2, platforms like RedGifs throw dozens, even hundreds, of short videos into a rapid-fire feed, one after another, without pause. The effect is a completely different way of consuming bodies. Instead of sitting with a scene, lingering on a performer, or following a structured narrative, users are constantly skipping, scrolling, and refreshing, chasing the next hit of novelty. This shift is similar to the way dating apps like Tinder make attraction feel disposable. If everything is an endless stream of options, what does that do to attention, arousal, or even the way people think about intimacy?
The way content is structured dictates how we interact with it, and in this case, it’s speeding everything up and there are shorter interactions, more stimulation, and an even bigger gap between what’s on the screen and the way human connection actually works.
The extreme pace at which pornography is consumed, which RedGifs exemplifies, has been a long time coming. Hardcore porn compilations, featuring dozens of pornographic clips spliced together in rapid succession, have been around since at least the early 2000s, allowing users to engage with multiple scenes from different videos without having to purchase full-length films. These compilations have only gotten faster, as the internet and the speed of content production has, and grown to include more videos at once. The economic incentive behind this model is clear in 2025, when paying for pornography is largely seen as an outdated practice, so the strategy has shifted from monetization through purchases to monetization through engagement and ad revenue.
This shift represents a broader trend in the digital space that includes pornography, one where user interaction is dictated by engagement metrics rather than deliberate selection3. As this consumption becomes increasingly frictionless and algorithm-driven, the act of watching it is transformed. Viewers are no longer passively selecting clips but are instead immersed in a stream of content that maximizes overstimulation and minimizes the need for conscious decision-making. This shift has created an environment where the boundaries between casual viewing and compulsive consumption blur, leading to the rise of new behaviors that reflect this hyper-accessibility.
This is where the newly revitalized term ‘gooning’ comes into play. Originally, ‘gooning’ referred to a particular form of masturbatory practice centered around prolonged edging, or sustained stimulation without reaching orgasm, until one reached a state of trance-like delirium. The term has existed in niche online communities for nearly two decades, with its earliest definitions appearing on Urban Dictionary as early as the mid-2000s. However, while the concept itself is not new, its cultural significance, technological amplification and recent virality, which has landed the word in the realm of the colloquial, have evolved dramatically in the age of algorithm-driven porn consumption.
What distinguishes ‘gooning’ today from its earlier incarnations is the way it has been shaped by the infrastructure of contemporary internet pornography. With the rise of high-speed internet, VR porn, image accessibility, and projection mapping, gooning is no longer just a personal ritual but a technologically enhanced state of being which bleeds into the tangible world. This culminates in the now-banned subreddit of "Gooncaves." These "caves" are rooms that function as shrines to pornography. Their walls were completely plastered with posters, images, and other visual representations of their favorite stars, random sexual content and plenty of monitors. These "caves" were not just simple viewing spaces, but curated spaces designed to optimize the rapid consumption of hardcore pornography. As the multiple monitors play various different videos, sometimes with each monitor going further as to have split-screen compilations, allowing for even more expanded, fragmented viewing experience directly correlated with the larger trend in internet culture, where content consumption is increasingly fragmented.
As the space itself becomes an extension of the sexual experience, and through this hyper-architectural space, the act of viewing transforms into a meta-fetishization of porn itself, aka Pornism.
Pornism, a self-described "religion" of porn, is a kink subreddit dedicated to the meta-fetishization of pornography, with an emphasis on edited images paired with provocative captions such as: "Promise me you’ll stay pussy-free forever," "I don’t need sex, I only need porn, it feels so good to accept it," and "Sexless for life." The content reproduced here doesn’t just engage users in typical visual stimulation, it enhances the experience by crafting narratives designed to reinforce the hyper-indulgence of consumption. The community thrives on a spiritual embrace of pornography that goes beyond consumption. While these individuals are still presumably interested in the people in the videos they are watching, their engagement seems to shift toward a deeper, more obsessive enjoyment of the pornography itself as a concept. The emphasis here is not merely on sexual pleasure but on the sexual act of consumption, on the endless viewing and re-viewing, the optimization of the sensory experience, and the creation of environments that enable the viewing to continue uninterrupted. This meta-relationship with pornography is not entirely new, although it is severely under researched, but it has been dramatically heightened in the internet age.
This fetishization of pornography as a religion begs the question: how did we arrive at this point, and why does it seem inevitable? Pornography, at this stage in its life cycle, has long surpassed the point of ubiquity, so much so that it almost needed to evolve in this direction eventually. The normalization of porn has fostered an environment where consumption is no longer just a casual activity, but a central part of one’s identity. Just like fandoms allow people to create entire personalities around specific communities, objects, or celebrities, pornography too becomes integrated into one's sense of self. This shift isn't accidental; it is a direct result of the way digital platforms have redefined user engagement and shaped how people interact with content on the internet. As with any other form of online affiliation, pornography becomes part of a larger cultural and personal narrative that users construct within their digital lives.
This evolution also aligns with broader societal and socio-political movements; the rise of fascism, the increasing desire for control over women's bodies, and the growing marginalization of minorities. These dynamics aren’t happening in isolation; they are inseparable from the development of sexual practices like those fostered on subreddits such as Pornism. These young people, especially young men, attempt to take control of their own sexuality through admitting that they are sexless, and then go on to redirect that anger at the ones who have caused their ‘sexlessness’. Places such as this one can go on to create the types of people that scream “Your body, my choice” at women. It’s not a far leap to make. Within these online spaces, these people can come together to form a sense of community, united not by traditional forms of sexual engagement but by their shared acceptance that their only connection to sex will be mediated through digital content. The fantasy of Pornism to transform what might be considered alienation into a sanctuary.
In this context, the ritual of masturbation to pornography can, in many ways, be understood as a religious ritual. Just as religious devotion often involves worshiping an idol, the act of engaging with pornography becomes an act of worship to an idol that is just as real, and perhaps even more omnipresent, than traditional deities. The figurative space that pornography occupies in the minds of its adherents is not unlike the sacred space of a church or temple; it is a private, intimate space where individuals seek meaning, comfort, and fulfillment.
The concept of "goon caves" here adds another layer of complexity. Like sacred spaces of worship, these spaces become sanctuaries for porn consumption, where users become spiritually connected and physically entombed to the object of their desire. Here, masturbation and pornography are no longer simply physical acts but spiritually transformative rituals that participants imbue with meaning. This transformation of the self through porn consumption may even be seen as a form of asceticism, where abstinence from physical, embodied sex is equated with a higher, more spiritually fulfilling engagement with a screen.
Thus, Pornism and ‘gooning’ becomes a cultural and political phenomenon. As the lines between physical bodies and digital spaces continue to blur, the implications of these spaces cannot be overlooked.
This was truly the next logical step for the porn industry, following its mainstreaming. Porns consumption patterns have evolved to mirror the frenetic pace of late-stage capitalism. If fast food culture allows consumers to eat a burger between two donuts and deep-fried, it is no surprise that pornography has escalated into a hyper-indulgent, sensory-overloaded experience where viewers cycle through endless bodies faster than their minds can process them.
This raises the question: where does porn consumption go from here? What about the generation that has grown up understanding bodies through this fragmented, hyper-stimulated lens? Is it a coincidence that this shift in pornographic consumption coincides with the rise of incel culture, authoritarianism, mass migration, xenophobia, and racism? Of course not. These trends are interconnected, feeding into and reinforcing one another. A deep dive into fetishism reveals that after the explosion of the adult film industry came the public articulation of its deepest taboos, fears, and desires.