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.”
You know what else would be funny? Convictions. Fuck these losers
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.
It even came with its own specialized vocabulary. Masturbating in public and surreptitiously ejaculating on random women was known as “tagging” or “sharking” – or even “cum-sharking”. Online forums praised perpetrators for being “low inhibition” or “low inhib”, and users contributing to the discussion said they wished they could summon the same fearlessness in themselves.
[…]
Almost immediately, the lawyers stumbled on another weird dimension to the cases they were developing: an online subculture of lonely, disaffected men, known as “gooners”, who bond with one other over their shared fascination with obsessive masturbation and compete with each other to see who can keep going for hours or even days at a time.
While most appear to pursue their self-pleasure in private “goon caves” and are not criminals, some gooners, the lawyers found, took pride in public acts of masturbation. In fact, some were committing sharking assaults at Dollar Tree stores and posting the footage online.
[…]
Another gooner, who was caught filming himself while masturbating at a Dollar Tree in Fern Park, Florida, told police that he did this regularly “in different locations” and uploaded the videos to an OnlyFans page, according to his arrest report.
[…]
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.
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.
Alcoholic sexually assaults woman
A local woman was attacked in public. During the assault, the assailant’s words were slurred and his breath smelled of hard liquor. He was detained and found to be a part of a community that attacks women and posts videos of it online. They call themselves rapists.
Almost immediately, the lawyers stumbled on another weird dimension to the cases they were developing: a disturbing trend amongst people to engage in drinking alcohol. These alcoholics bond with others over their shared interest in alcohol.
While most alcoholics are content to self indulge at home or in bars, many also drink at parties, or large get togethers of many people. At these parties many people drink alcohol. A concerning trend amongst party goers is to have sex. Many of these alcoholics rape women at these parties.
We consulted a biologist and they informed us that alcohol is actually poisonous to the body and there is no reason one should ever consume it.
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.
Kinks can be explored in a consensusal, safe, and healthy way.
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.”
Over the next several weeks and months, MR would learn not only that there had been reports of similar incidents at the same store in the same timeframe – one that had been shared on social media and at least one other she heard about anecdotally from shopping center employees – but that masturbating in front of female customers at branches of Dollar Tree was fast becoming a national phenomenon, a disturbing new form of sexual assault that men were documenting and bragging about in dark corners of the internet.
It even came with its own specialized vocabulary. Masturbating in public and surreptitiously ejaculating on random women was known as “tagging” or “sharking” – or even “cum-sharking”. Online forums praised perpetrators for being “low inhibition” or “low inhib”, and users contributing to the discussion said they wished they could summon the same fearlessness in themselves.
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.
Almost immediately, the lawyers stumbled on another weird dimension to the cases they were developing: an online subculture of lonely, disaffected men, known as “gooners”, who bond with one other over their shared fascination with obsessive masturbation and compete with each other to see who can keep going for hours or even days at a time.
While most appear to pursue their self-pleasure in private “goon caves” and are not criminals, some gooners, the lawyers found, took pride in public acts of masturbation. In fact, some were committing sharking assaults at Dollar Tree stores and posting the footage online.
Sharking and gooning are two totally unrelated things. One is sexual assault. One is glorified edging.
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?
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Assault with a sexual motive =/= “Sexual Assault” in most jurisdictions
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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.
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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.
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
It does.
But Dollar Tree never produced any footage, never apologized for what happened to her and, when challenged in a lawsuit alleging negligence and failure to provide a secure environment, argued that MR was not entitled to damages under Texas law because she had suffered no physical harm. Without video footage, police and private security officers at the River Oaks shopping center were unable to pursue an investigation.
MR’s lawyers counter that the relevant legal standard is not, in fact, physical harm but “offensive contact”. And, in a testy exchange with a lawyer for Dollar Tree during a sworn deposition, MR vigorously challenged the notion that she had suffered no damage. She described how the incident had rocked her confidence, affected her relationships and made her afraid to go out after dark. “My life is not the same since that incident,” she said. “I totally was caught off guard. I didn’t have a chance to defend myself.”
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.”
In its statement to the Guardian, Dollar Tree said it was committed to effective safety and security. “Our efforts include ongoing safety education, regular policy reviews, risk assessment and mitigation activities, investments in physical security measures, and collaboration with local law enforcement,” the spokesperson said.
With MR’s lawsuit, though, the company has attempted to limit the introduction of evidence from assaults in other states and other Dollar Tree outlets as a matter of legal strategy. In an August 2025 email to MR’s lawyers, company attorney Wesley Welmaker described the assault on MR as a “one-off event at Dollar Tree in the River Oaks shopping center”.
In response, Greenberg told the court that MR’s assault was “anything but a ‘one-off event’” and pointed to 10 cases of sexual assault at Dollar Trees she had documented over the previous year and a half, six of them involving ejaculation.
A year later, with the lawsuit still mired in preliminary motions and no trial date in sight, Greenberg’s research team has dug up 63 officially documented sex crimes in all – fewer than five a year before 2020 and as many as 18 a year since the December 2023 attack on MR. Sixteen involved masturbation or ejaculation. The company’s attempts to disavow this, Greenberg said in an interview, amounted to “a plethora of stupid arguments” and only underlined what she saw as a pattern of poor corporate governance.
Dollar Tree, its former sister company Family Dollar (which it sold last summer), and its rival Dollar General have all been under a microscope after multiple reports in recent years of safety violations, improper storage of drugs, rat infestations, poor security, shoplifting and other crimes including sexual assault that have occurred in its stores. Predominantly, the stores serve low-income neighborhoods where there are few alternatives, and critics often accuse them of preferring to endure some degree of criminal behavior occurring in stores and weather fines from the federal government’s workplace watchdog, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha), than pay for fully functioning security systems and boost staffing.
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?
Greenberg and Blizzard believe the Dollar Tree gooner phenomenon can shed further light on these issues and offer an opportunity to address some of them. In MR’s lawsuit and a similar case in San Diego, their legal filings argue that Dollar Tree should have had more staff and security, should have alerted the police to the sharking episodes on its premises and should have issued a warning to shoppers.
In the San Diego case, Greenberg and Blizzard found eyewitness and photographic evidence that the same perpetrator had masturbated and ejaculated on another woman in the same store one day before – and returned six days later to assault a third victim. “Dollar Tree did nothing,” they and a team of California lawyers allege in court papers. Dollar Tree did not respond to questions about this accusation.
The lawyers saw what they allege to be a similar corporate disregard for shopper safety in a case they read about in Knoxville, Tennessee, where a Dollar Tree employee named Collin Miller was caught on camera as he masturbated in front of customers in November 2024. “The [security] video shows the defendant with his penis exposed as he walks past the register where the victim is checking out,” a police report quoted by a local TV station said. “The video also later shows the defendant rubbing his groin area for several minutes at the register while customers are present in the store.”
Although Miller pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure, he was not fired. And then, eight months later, he was accused of following a family around the store with a camera and taking surreptitious photographs up the 16-year-old daughter’s skirt. Once again, the police investigated and, according to media reports, found 25,000 compromising images of women on his phone. He subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful photographing in violation of privacy. Dollar Tree did not respond to questions about the case and Miller’s employment status.
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.
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.
We need mace and attack dogs.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
A year later, with the lawsuit still mired in preliminary motions and no trial date in sight, Greenberg’s research team has dug up 63 officially documented sex crimes in all – fewer than five a year before 2020 and as many as 18 a year since the December 2023 attack on MR. Sixteen involved masturbation or ejaculation. The company’s attempts to disavow this, Greenberg said in an interview, amounted to “a plethora of stupid arguments” and only underlined what she saw as a pattern of poor corporate governance.
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.
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.
A year later, with the lawsuit still mired in preliminary motions and no trial date in sight, Greenberg’s research team has dug up 63 officially documented sex crimes in all – fewer than five a year before 2020 and as many as 18 a year since the December 2023 attack on MR. Sixteen involved masturbation or ejaculation. The company’s attempts to disavow this, Greenberg said in an interview, amounted to “a plethora of stupid arguments” and only underlined what she saw as a pattern of poor corporate governance.
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.
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.
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.
This feels extremely clickbaitey.
16 cases over a year and a half, most centered around the same location, is hardly a “national epidemic”.
16 reported. Didn’t the article say one guy had 200 “sharking” videos for sale.
