Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Background: a posting on the verb fapp (with variant fap) ‘to masturbate furiously’ and one on the exclamation of annoyance Fap!. And now reader Paul comments on the former:

My understanding is that fap as onomatopoeia comes from [the webcomic Sexy Losers]

I do not know when the second p started to appear.

There seems to be some agreement that Sexy Losers at least popularized the sexual verb, whether or not it originated it — and that takes it back to 1999. Also in 1999 in Sexy Losers, the feminine counterpart, shlick (Urban Dictionary in 2004: “The onomatopoeic representation of female masturbation”).

Two examples, with the strips reduced to the final panel, and genitals cropped:

SL #158 “War Games” 10/13/02, in which guys find that long sessions of gaming can improve their ejaculation distance:

(#1)

SL #166 “Psychology Games” 12/24/02, with both terms:

(#2)

These are from the Mike’s Left Hand series in Sexy Losers:

Meet Mike, who has taken jerking off to the next level, and his roommate Mark who has to deal with the mess.

Early Mike’s Left Hand strips: FAP in SL #027 “Work Sucks” 12/15/99,  SHLICK in SL #015 “Tang’s Hard Line” 7/5/99.

From Television Tropes & Idioms: “Webcomic: Sexy Losers”:

Formerly known as The Thin H Line, Sexy Losers was an adult webcomic that began in 1999. Drawn in an animesque style, it followed the antics of several different characters. They include a hentai artist, a necrophiliac, a compulsive masturbator (and his equally compulsive masturbating sister), a bored housewife trying to seduce her son, a group of scientists developing bizarre sex aids, several porn stars, and a couple of stage magicians. It was the highest scoring entry on the List Of Potentially Offensive Webcomics, having been awarded six “toilets” out of a possible five. Its biggest claim to fame was its popularizing “fap” and “schlick” as onomatopoeiae for masturbation.

And from a website on “The All-Too-Brief History of the Sexy Losers”:

Sexy Losers was an adult only online web comic created by a [Canadian] man named Clay. Clay lived on the East Coast before moving to Waterloo, Ontario, where he studied psychology. He continued his studies, published his thesis, and wasn’t able to find a job. In 1999 he moved to Japan on the JET program and after leaving, began teaching private school. In his spare time he worked on the web comic Sexy Losers.

This entry was posted on September 11, 2014 at 5:03 am and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Sound symbolism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.