Slang dictionary
spank bank
or spank-bank or spankbank [spangk bangk]
What does spank bank mean?
A spank bank is a mental, and less often physical and digital, collection of images or situations stored away to call up later while masturbating.
Where does spank bank come from?
Spank bank’s origin is clear from the individual terms in the compound. Spank is a slang term for (male) masturbation, often used in the phrase spank the monkey, and a bank is a place to store similar items (e.g., blood bank or word bank).
As a term, spank bank was popularized in the late 1990s, particularly among young men. In the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You, one male character says to another about his female love interest: “She, my friend, is what we will spend the rest of our lives not having. Put her in your ‘Spank Bank’ and move on.”
Spank bank has appeared in erotic fiction, especially online, since at least the early 2000s. And, as internet pornography proliferated in the early 2000s, spank bank began showing up in tags, categories, and compilation video titles as well as online forums and comments.
Examples of spank bank
Who uses spank bank?
Though spank bank does nod to male masturbation (e.g., spank the monkey), women also use the term. Women often use the term when they are pointing out that women, just as men, have sex drives. Nevertheless, it is more common to hear young adult males using the term spank bank, often in a misogynistic tone.
Spank bank is most often still used in sexual contexts, especially online or in off-color remarks in a familiar group. However, spank bank can metaphorically refer to any kind of mental collection for later enjoyment or encouragement, such as a literary spank bank of motivational quotes. The extension of the term, here, implies content that one intellectually or aesthetically “gets off to.”
Punning on the financial bank, some users describe the act of mentally noting sexy images or situations as making a deposit into the spank bank. A person may be described as spank-bank material, spank-bank-worthy, or spank bankable.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of spank bank like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of spank bank that will help our users expand their word mastery.