The disturbing rise of ‘gooner’ assaults at Dollar Tree stores: ‘They find it funny to degrade women’
As she walked the aisles, MR said in an interview, she sensed a man standing close behind her. She turned to confront him and noticed that he was a good six inches taller than her. He was talking in graphic detail about sexual things he wanted to do to her. “You’re so disgusting, get away from me,” she told him, and hurried off to find her friend.
Still, he stayed close, and for a few tense minutes the two of them locked eyes while she waited in line to pay. When at last he left, she thought that was the end of it – until, back outside in the chill of the winter morning, she felt something cold against the back of her leggings.
The man had ejaculated on her.
“I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to kill this man,” said MR, who was 47 at the time, recalling the horror and helplessness she felt as her friend wiped her off with towels. (The Guardian has verified MR’s identity but is not publishing her full name to protect her privacy.)
Hours later, on the advice of a sister who worked in law enforcement, she fished her soiled leggings out of the garbage and took them back to the store to report what had happened. A clerk listened to her account and, not seeming to realize that MR understood Spanish, shouted to a colleague in a backroom: “Tenemos otra.”
“We’ve got another one.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/20/dollar-tree-sexual-assault-goonerOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
209 replies
This should end up with them on the sex offender registry. It won't, but it should.
I mean what else would it be if not sexual assault tantamount to rape?
Under Texas law, it's indecent assault, a misdemeanor for a first offense in most cases. It's similar in Pennsylvania. Those are two of the states where incidents in the article took place.
I'm generally against the recent trend to increase the severity of existing crimes, but I will make an exception here: this should be a felony.
Rape has a legal definition that this does not meet.
It's sexual assault.
Assault with a sexual motive =/= "Sexual Assault" in most jurisdictions
This isn't tantamount to rape. It's definitely in the ball-park and it's done by the same kind of people so it should be treated very seriously, especially as a "gateway offense" to prevent rape down the line, but let's not minimize rape by exaggerating non-rape things.
This is not "rape". Let's stay sane please.
It's sexual assault.
All these down votes.. I guess about half the people here want words to no longer have definitions.
It's definitely not rape, but these guys need to get charged with sexual assault or something. If this happens a lot, they're obviously getting away with it. That's just disgusting.
That user is up and down this comment section defending the gooners. That's why their comments are being rejected and downvoted.
I don't know anything about his other comments or about the user, but the comment I responded to is 100% true. Rape has a specific definition and this is not it. It's still indefensible, you're absolutely right. It's a disgusting violation and these men need to be charged with sexual assault.
Yeah... Just jizz on her without consent and not in her without consent. Stay sane...?
As opposed to forcible or coerced penetration. It's awful, but it's not the same thing. Words have meanings for a reason, use the correct ones.
It should be an offense that ends up with them on the sex offender registry whether it's technically rape or not.
100% agree
I jizzed in my pants.
I miss when words had meanings and victims were respected.
It does.
You could've read the article to know that it's an uphill battle to get these men punished for these crimes.
The text you quoted is the delays experienced by victims trying to sue Dollar Tree. It says nothing about the state going after the sick bastards who did it, besides Dollar Tree refusing to release security footage, which might help identify them. But the state could get a warrant for that, if they gave a shit.
I really struggle to see how the business is legally liable for something a disturbed rando does to a customer outside of the business.
Are we expecting the employees to be forced to act as security guards?
I expect them to at least fire employees when they masturbate in front of customers and have tens of thousands of photographs of children's upskirts.
The bare minimum they could have done is hand over the recordings.
You know what else would be funny? Convictions. Fuck these losers
Let this shit happen in front of me. There is no way I'm not interfering. I don't mind going to jail for beating the brakes off of a bully.
Our society has broken down to the point that we legitimately have to bring back mob justice. I'm so ashamed to be a human right now.
Has it broken down, or is the basic level of degeneracy just amplified?
I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that society is still at the most advanced level it has ever been, violent crimes have dropped steadily across most of the world. But now when isolated incidents like the above happen, the internet amplifies them into being a bigger deal than it really is on a population scale.
It's a pretty big fucking deal for men to be encouraged and celebrated for publicly ejaculating on women.
16 cases nationwide. This is not an epidemic. It's a handful of people on one of the chans egging eachother on. And yes, they are degenerate creeps and should be punished but this is not "A THING". It's just more polarizing man vs woman bs.
What were the other 47? Do I even want to know?
Various sexual assaults that were encouraged in these online gooning communities.
You're really going hard defending these gooners in here.
But they're not defending the gooners. They're pointimg out that, while this is absolutely disgusting behavior, the frequency, or lack thereof, is not indicative of a social pandemic.
They’re downplaying the crimes that are happening here and in turn defending these guys.
16 documented cases at that retailer alone. The article said nothing about the actual prevalence of the crime, nor did you. So you're drawing conclusions based on no data.
Found the gooner
You sound like this guy:
There's always room for improvement. Like I thought that was the entire basis of Critical Theory is that there is no end to history, there is no perfect society, we can always improve, and improvement must come through rational and thoughtful critique of the status quo, whatever the status quo may be, forever and ever. Marx's society in perpetual revolution within itself.
Sure crime may never be zero, but acting like the solution is to just throw up your hands and say "what's the big deal if some women are mentally scarred, it's only a few of them! The world is doing better than it ever has, the arc of history bends towards justice! (editors note: barf) Why would we make the world better just for them?"
The answer to that question is because they are a part of that world too. Also, these are not the only crimes enabled by how the Dollar empire operates.
It's not isolated when it has a whole online culture devoted to it.
It happened to me and it's happened to people I know.
time to break out the hats.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hatpins-mashers-self-defense-history-women-hats-fashion
The problem becomes that for all the benefits that instant communications enabled by the internet brings, it also enables people that once would have been the isolated weirdos previously keeping their nonsense in check through public pressure to find each other as well.
The net effect is that they then feel validated in their actions, same way people in your everyday social platforms get a little bump by doing some recent 'challenge' that would otherwise go unnoticed.
The only mob "justice" I remember in recent memory is what happened in Maryville Missouri, and it was against the victim. They burned her house down (allegedly) after she reported sexual assault. So... Just a mob. No justice.
Both of the women featured in the Netflix documentary also committed suicide. The mother of one of the victims also committed suicide. One of the men accused of the assault was connected to a politician. I can't think of a real life scenario in the last decade where mob justice was actually just.
Assholes realized they can either profit from being an asshole for social media links or in life because if they get assaulted they can sue.
Really need to make new laws and assaulting people who are doing shit like that ok
Nah, the entire reason mob justice doesn't work is because it doesn't actually target the people who deserve it most of the time. It tends to catch innocent people far too often, which just makes people even more antisocial.
Watch out, we've got a badass over here
But really, I hope you would fuck them up
Guy fell down some flights of stairs before we gently restrained him. Don't know where he found them in this one-story building but that's what happened.
'Murica. Help someone and you will be sued in civil court.
There were 16 reported cases over a year and a half nationwide.
This article is complete rage bait.
Only 16, hm?
Lol, and we're getting a preview of the "plethora of stupid arguments" in the comments.
But seriously, they explicitly mention that they "take physical security seruously" and they absolutely do not. Like there's a really clear reason this place is being targeted for this shit. Because they have narrow aisles that you can't see around and views are blocked from cameras and cashiers at the front.
Also, THESE POOR CASHIERS! I know they're not getting paid enough to 1v1 a serial masturbator. There's often just one person.
Exactly! They also staff really low so there’s not enough employees to properly see what’s happening through the store.
You refuted their statememt with data that encompasses sex crimes other than the one in this article.
You then went on to quote the source they likely used for 16 incidents like this one:
Congratulations on being rage baited into attacking people that oppose this disgusting behavior, I guess.
No shit, they’re looking at a pattern. Of course journalists are going to dig for similar cases and not just report on this single incident.
Read the full article before coming at me.
Yes, there is a pattern of 16 incidents like the one in the article. 63 total, it says. There are 9,064 Dollar Tree stores. That's a 0.7% occurrence rate.
Please, stop attacking people for being rational about the rate of occurence.
I'm not attacking someone by presenting facts from the article.
You're asserting that they were incorrect when they were using numbers straight from the article.
Where do you see any opposition to the sexual assaults from the person saying that 16 cases isn't enough to be so upset about and everyone who feels strongly about this happening has fallen for rage bait?
Have you noticed how you're more upset with people taking issue with 16 sexual assault cases in a year and a half than you are that there's a demonstrated trend of sexually assaulting specific people?
And because you think that's too few sexual assaults to care about too, which is a whole other can of worms of an implication.
Fucking gross. What the fuck is wrong with men these days? And I'm saying this as a man. Fucking hell.
They're really becoming a race of fucking baboons. Between the looksmaxxing incels, the christo-fascists, misogynists, and these sexual predators, there's just no end to the shit men are doing these days. You can't rely on them to save our society from the predators that rule it, because they're on the same fucking team.
I swear, if I have faith in anyone to save our society it's going to be women and queer folk. Because the men have lost it.
As bad as it is today, I'm assuming it's still better than most of history. It's not a woman's duty to service her husband anymore, he can still get charged with rape even when married.
What a low fucking bar that is..
"Don't worry, ladies! Your husband can now maybe get arrested when he rapes you! Equality!"
Fully agree, wish I could have said it so eloquently. Calling them baboons is insulting to baboons.
lol!!! Thanks
Yeah but not all men turn out the same way though. Why is that? Upbringing? Education? Values? Empathy?
I certainly didn't turn out like that.
I'd like to blame social media for creating echo chambers and trends. Especially with algorithms that will enable these kinds of people to pool into communities where this kind of behavior is normalized.
But, this probably just created a catalyst for something that was already there.
Excluding the half that have both historically excluded everyone else, and got us to exactly this point all on their own having done so.... seems like the best course of action, actually.
As a straight white male I feel reasonably qualified to make that observation. (Fully aware of the depths that statement plumbs, I think it makes the point beautifully.)
Dude, a discussion about this article is neither the time nor the place to vent about how horrible women are. Do this under the next article reporting a trend where women sexual assault men and get cheered on by an online community.
Not even sorry to say, the INSTANT I feel threatened, my tiny ass foot is going up your dick hole as forcibly as possible. I am fairly small, don't often feel worried about that... but you get in my space I'm going to bring you down to my height. Or the floor. Preferably the floor.
Disgusting people need to be afraid of reactions again.
This is how perverts and men who try to intimidate women should be treated by everyone. Perverts, and billionaires.
Shame on The Guardian for using a term for a kink when the article itself even mentions a term for the specific form of sexual assault. Why call this anything ralted to gooning when it's tagging/sharking/cum-sharking?
This may seem minor to folks, but it's actually extremely concerning. I'll be very clear though, this behavior was disgusting. I'm not saying people engaging in sexual assault aren't pieces of shit or that they're just engaging in a harmless kink. The problem is that the article also uses a term for a kink/people engaging in a kink and labels it onto people engaging in sexual assault.
As a small aside, I think the last paragraph really shows out weirdly out of touch some of this article is. Does something sexual have to be based on "evolutionary psychology" for it to be considered acceptable? As long as consensual for all parties involved, why does it matter? Just because something makes you personally uncomfortable doesn't mean it's something that's inherently wrong. Kinks can be explored in a consensusal, safe, and healthy way. Conversely, would that suddenly mean other niche kinks that are based in more biological topics are considered acceptable? Does knotting get a pass but facials don't?? Like, this paragraph is just so weird. Anyways, back to the main point.
This is really concerning to me. It's the Overton window shifting to demonize porn instead of the actual issue at hand: sexual assault.
For folks who might not understand why I think this is concerning, consider this hypothetical alternative scenario.
In case it's not clear, instead of calling the person a rapist they're called an alcoholic, ignores that the person is in a group called "rapists", and then tries to make a connection between alcohol and rape.
What if the article was about finding a kidnapping victim who was tied up and the article attributed it to shibari? It's just so weird to me. I find it disgusting. I hope that others here aren't so puritanical that they can see the problem I'm illustrating.
I'll do plenty of things that have no basis in evolutionary biology. I just get consent first.
Yeah that entire comment is defending gooners performing consensual sex acts. The article is NOT talking about consensual sex acts.
Well they managed to turn feminists into a dirty word, now are working on gooner.
Maybe if we meme "journalist" into a filthy word these hacks will get that truth actually matters.
Please don't compare a sexual activity with feminism.
These men who are self-proclaimed "gooners" and assaulting women in public are not exploring their gooning kink in a consensual, safe, or healthy way.
If you're a gooner that isn't assaulting women, then you're probably fine and this article isn't targeting you.
My point is that the article mentions this is called sharking and then instead of saying they're a "sharker" it says they're a "gooner."
The online forums they're talking about here are the gooning forums and the social media posts from these gooners. The people in these communities call these actions "sharking" or "tagging".
I'm aware that you're offended by the framing of the article about gooners. They're specifically talking about the men who cross boundaries and assault women in the pursuit of gooning, not all people who indulge in gooning.
The problem is that later they associate sharking with gooning as if the two are extremely closely related and then go so far as to label the sexual assaulter in the headline a "gooner" instead of a sharker. As if trying to edge for a long time is somehow a slippery slope that leads to people ejaculating on women in public. It's disgusting.
Sharking and gooning are two totally unrelated things. One is sexual assault. One is glorified edging.
They found these public assaults posted in gooning communities by the perpetrators.
These men are self-labeled gooners who are assaulting women.
If you're a gooner and are only edging and NOT assaulting women, this article isn't talking about you.
The article never mentions any of this being posted to "gooning communities" (unless I missed something). It mentions "an amateur porn site", "OnlyFans", and "an incel forum."
The closest thing I can find to mentioning these being uploaded to gooning communities specifically is this from when it talked about gooners.
But all it says is "online", it doesn't say where it's been posted online. Notably, this paragraph is also before the others, so it could easily be referring to the other places mentioned later and not a fourth location.
Why would they post a direct link to these online gooning communities?
Need some pointers on how to find them?
Need to bring back hat pins.
This is a friendly reminder that you can buy hat pins at any well stocked sewing or craft store.
Everything for the memes. Nothing else matters.
Yeah it's really funny to make fun of sexual assault victims.
You really went back and restored these gross comments?
Meh, I was still getting downvoted, so there was no point in removing them. If deleting them stopped the downvotes, then I wouldn’t have restored them. Besides, if people check out the link they’ll see that I’m doing a bit and maybe they’ll enjoy some 2000s era comedy.
It wasn’t the shameless poking fun at sexual assault victims that made you delete them in the first place?
Gross.
The crowd might not be on my side, but I took a risk and am, at heart supportive of the victims.
Not every attempt at a joke works out. And no point in deleting if the person right underneath your comment is quoting you anyway.
I had something like this happen to me when I was 20. I was helping my disabled aunt by bringing some boxes up to her apartment. I kept seeing this one really old guy as I was going up and down and I got really off vibes from him. As I was leaving the building, I grabbed the same doorhandle I had grabbed many times before, except this time there was semen on the backside of it and it got all over my hand. I'm pretty sure it was the old guy cause I never saw anyone else except my aunt there. I was too naïve to know what to do in that situation so unfortunately he got away with it :(
I'm sorry you experienced that.
Those responsible for the act here are horrible, broken people, but don't forget the company that created the conditions for this to happen and an environment where their employees can be so casual about sexual assault - most likely being perpetrated predominately on low/no income individuals and people of color per Dollar Tree's typical customer base.
I will, for sure, kill a mfer for doing that to me or my wife.
You'd probably go to jail for killing them, but I think they'd let you slide on typical assault or battery charges. That being said, I'd risk doing time again if I saw this happening definitely.
Oh yeah, I’d 100% do time for it, worth it!!
Sometimes I feel like we'd have a better world if we gave women free guns.
Not a kinder world, probably, but a better one.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
This is repulsive. As a (wo?)man, I’d beat the fucking shit out of anyone who does this.
The issues is most women can’t beat the shit out of most men and the men doing this know it and don’t care about anything except physical domination. That said, a good knee or kick to the groin will do the trick, no ass beating required.
That’s why, as one who totally can, I’d step in if I saw this happening, stick up for all the ladies that can’t.
Not even addressing ridiculous male chauvinism, weapons exist, also element of surprise, guns, etc
Not allowed to carry weapons, mace etc. where I live. What should my 5'4" Wife do in this situation?
Pepper spray. Seriously. It's not expensive and it should be legal. Way easier to use and no permanent damage either. Just press the button and spray those fuckers.
Yeah, would absolutely ask them to carry it, but again, illegal in my Nanny-Country of Australia. Sucks to be a vulnerable person here, with minimal ways to defend yourself.
How the fuck is pepper spray illegal? What is the fine for carrying it?
Yeah...
Mace is pepper spray isn’t it?
Sharp object under jaw pointing upwards. Use both hands and full force.
Alternatively, bite down as hard as you can on the throat.
Stores sell knives and other sharp or pointy objects. Or blunt objects.
I dunno man, be creative. Maybe panic and shit your pants because woman helpless and weak and inferior to man uwu 🎻
You legitimately can't carry anything resembling a weapon in Australia, sharp or blunt. In my state, brandishing a blunt object like a cricket bat can get you jail time.
So I'm not asking to stir the pot, I seriously fear for my Wife and Daughter's safety, and I can't do anything about it. I guess societal pressure on these predators is the only tool we can use here.
There's too many sick fucks like this all over the world. If we lived in a country with more relaxed laws, they would both be packing at least mace, preferably a pistol.
this may sound silly, but the best you can do forvyour daughter is make sure she has proper self esteem.
Cant carry a weapon, a woman who values herself to not be dragged is a solid weapon in itself.
My objection to capital punishment leaving my body
We have idiots out here everyday tryna catch pedophiles ("the call is coming from inside the house!") but nobody steps up to try to catch and break motherfuckers like this.
It absolutely makes me want to start a Dollar Watch where we basically wait around outside of dollar stores and wait for this kind of incident to happen so there's someone there to tackle these chumps as they try to get away.
Unfortunately, for types like this, the only meaningful thing that ever works is consequences to their actions... and often that's not enough either.
EDIT: Also decent men should be infiltrating these groups and tipping off the fucking cops... and noting when the people they are rooting out are cops themselves! to ensure they're not handing the case over to people who will bury it.
How... How do you even do that????? Dumbfounded.
This story is quite literally about men online that are part of the "gooning" community that encourage each other to sexually assault women in public.
This seems like something separate to gooning.
Why do you say that? The reporters found posts sharing these public assaults in gooning communities, which are not hard to find tbh.
It's not an agenda when we're talking about a specific article here.
These men aren't homeless and mentally ill folks just busting a nut in public, this is coordinated and shared and encouraged in these "gooning" communities of men.
Ew. Those stores have really narrow aisles and idk if its like this everywhere, but they're often kinda messy -- like its not uncommon for things to get knocked down to the floor. And the aisles are not easily observed from the checkout. Oh look, another public space that is not safe for everyone.
It isn't things getting knocked down on the floor. It's absolute trash humans digging through merchandise like feral hogs, throwing shit on the floor.
The future is fuckin weird.
Fuckin' a dude! I feel like that dude hitting the bong watching some people fight. I'm just here for the entertainment at this point.
My partner showed me an article some time ago about something that needs to make a comeback: hatpinning
I see too many stories about men who could use a good hat pinning
Hatpinning: taking a hat and pinning it to a tree to symbolize faith in racoon people taking over
No, it's tracking the exact lat/long of your hat using a Google Maps pin.
What in the hell goes through the head of a dude like that?
Why? How? I don't get it. What the fuck did we do as a society to create such people???
i remember seeing that video of a gross pervert that jerked off on woman shoppers, never knew it was a DT store on r/publicfreakout a while back. the dude was chicken just ran off after coming on them.
What the actual fuck?
And to the wastes of space downplaying this or making fun of it, good work of proving everybody right that says men simply suck.
Holy shit! I hope they start getting shot when they do this.
My wife is a victim of sexual assault and while I'm generally anti carceral I do think that these sexual assaults need to be treated as misogynistic hate crimes, and that crimes (against others) done for clout need to receive extra penalties.
We need mace and attack dogs.
Giving gooners everywhere a bad name
People really seem to be taking offense to the reputation of gooners taking a hit with this piece.
If you're a gooner and NOT assaulting women in public, you're probably fine and this article isn't talking about you.
Someone that goons is engaging a form of extended masturbation without climax. That is not sexual assault. What people are worried about is that gooning will be equated with sexual assault, because they are not the same thing. Not all gooners are rapists, and not all rapists are gooners. Furthermore, if a person wants to goon, they shouldn't have to worry about their reputation over it.
I mean that's just edging. Gooning is generally more disfunctional than that, typically involving excessive amounts of pornography for an extended period of time combined with an excessively self-deprecating mindset. Gooning should honestly be seen as a form of sexual dysfunction in a similar vein to porn addiction
I completely agree. That doesn't mean that these men committing these particular sexual assaults are NOT gooners though.
Gooning on it's own is totally fine. Using gooning to justify attacking people and performing sexual acts without consent is not.
The authors still should have used the the correct term "sharking" in the headline instead of randomly throwing gooners under the bus, apparently just because it's a term people would actually recognize.
Did you read the article?
There are groups of gooners that come together to encourage these acts and share videos of them. These particular gooner groups are using the terms "sharking" and "tagging" to describe these sexual assaults.
That doesn't mean that all gooners are doing this.
Why tf are y'all acting like being a gooner means one is immune from being a perpetrator?
I’m a Batman goon and I’m ashamed
BOOM!
Thank goodness I stick to men and boys.
Some people have no sense of humor. You are some people.
This is a news community and this post is about sexual assault victims.
This is not a shitposting community.
Don't you have something better to do than antagonize people who post news articles about sexually motivated assault by pretending to be a child molester?
Why the fuck do you care what I post? If you don't like it, ignore it.
Carry mace
How come this never happens to me?
I'd lunge at a guy that had his fly open and was jerking off in my direction.
If I managed to get my hands on his knob, and you'd bet I'd try.. he'd not be getting his dick back in one piece..
(homegirl works in the Trades.. 40+ years.. and has a strong grip..)
It's not the victim's fault for allowing this. It's the perpetrator's fault.
It's fight, flight, freeze, or fawn for a reason.
I'm the girl my friends get to open their tough jars. I can use any tool put in my hands, I can skin a squirrel, and I've built a forty foot canoe.
Didn't stop a dude from smearing jizz on my backpack on the bus. He was gone before I realized what happened.
Your comment reeks of victim blaming, insinuating "toughness" has anything to do with this.
Agreed. But getting to take the violent option is cathartic. Punched a guy in the face at school following a sexual assault. The trouble I got into was worth it.
I'm no stranger to sexual assault myself, but if that's the way you want to take it, be my guest.
Yeah, that's how I took it. If you've experienced it then you should know that all the violent thoughts and threats in the world can't stop someone from experiencing sexual assault.
Not only that, but it can make victims feel like they've done something wrong, or not enough, by making claims that you could do better in their situation.
We all want to feel like we could stop this kind of creep or get revenge but it rarely works out that way.
Knees go for the knees. Less likely to get your leg trapped. And you have the benefit of possibly crippling them.
Very lame of The Guardian to use the word gooner instead of sharking. Either the author is uninformed and couldn't bother look it up or they purposefully used it for SEO strength. Neither scenario is good. I will praise them for covering the issue, though.
From the article
The act seems like a gateway to worse forms of sexual assault/rape. Yikes.
Not the word I was complaining about, but good on you for reading the article instead of my comment.
They used the word you were complaining about them not using to describe the act. I'm not sure what I missed here. The gooner (name of the community they were part of) was the subject of the article who was doing the act (sharking). The headline is accurate.
The gooning communities that the journalists looked into were using the terms "sharking" and "tagging" to describe these attacks.
Yo yo imperial bastards.... It is your culture vultures. This evil evil MAN probably had a mother like this If your jesus came back you would nail him to a cross and a dog is given more sympathy. This man gives goonin a bad name and this artical only scratches at the skins surface. I have a question Barabbas or the king of the jews? Reactionary dolts.
This feels extremely clickbaitey.
16 cases over a year and a half, most centered around the same location, is hardly a "national epidemic".
That’s still 16 cases too many.
It's not just 16 cases.
Oh only 16? That makes sexual assault okay then. /s
16 reported. Didn't the article say one guy had 200 "sharking" videos for sale.