When the Dollar Tree lawyer asked her what she wanted out of the lawsuit, she replied: “You [have] to take accountability of what is happening in your stores. You’re causing pain to people. I don’t know if it’s because of the bottom line, or what, but it’s happening and you guys need to stop it.”
What does she want the store to stop, (and to pay her money for what has happened in it, of course)?
Over the following months, the term “dollar store gooner” became a meme on the internet that spread far beyond the closed world of the gooners themselves. A “Dollar Tree gooner” crypto coin launched in January 2025, followed by an unofficial Pokémon card and a song released on SoundCloud by an underground noise band from Tennessee named Mukus.
I know you'll be as baffled as I, Reader, at least, I hope so!
Long before it developed an association with criminal acts, “gooning” was understood as a pornography-fueled compulsion, sometimes involving multiple screens at once, that can become a substitute for intimate relationships with others. It also tends to come with a heavy dose of self-loathing. Experts say that online forums and video content aimed at gooners often send the message that obsessive masturbation – whether alone or in public – is as much as men like them can aspire to in life. Webster described it as a “disavowed manic state of triumph over something hideous”. One common trope of the pornography that these gooners consume has men ejaculating over women’s bodies, faces and hair – acts that, Lankford said, have no basis in evolutionary biology and are difficult to interpret as anything other than demeaning to the women.
When I shop at a store, i would expect the store to be responsible for non-slip flooring, electrical-safe freexer units and escalatots and lifts in working order. I wouldn't expect them to be financially responsible for the behaviour of other customers.
But this is America, and I guess Dollar Tree has deep pockets, while the disgusting 'men' who do this aren't worth suing.
In America, it's lawful to carry anti-bear sprays, which would offer a painful deterrent to the sick perverts. In the UK, these would be classed as offensive weapons. Using something similar, but legal, such as fly sprays, are likely to leave the user facing more of a punishment than the masturbator. So what would the answer be if this happened in the UK? Using personal attack alarms, costing a few Pounds, may be worth considering as the high pitched screeching would quite likely put the offender off his stroke, so to speak.
ReplyDeletePenseivat
I first heard of Goons when I listened to the GOON SHOW on the BBC. Apparently ,they got the name from former Prisoners of War as the name for the guards in the camps. Nothing remotely sexy about any of that.
ReplyDeleteThe goons were a tribe in Popeye cartoons pre-war.
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