sucking dick

The word dick has been a slang term for a man or fellow since the 16th century. It is likely that its meaning expanded (pardon the pun) to “penis” in the mid-19th century—at least as recorded, as it was certainly spoken well before then.

The expression sucking dick rose up by the 1920s, apparently first used by sex workers. The growth of the adult film industry in the 1970s and internet porn in the 1990s certainly helped further, um, extend the term.

So, did, popular culture. On Drake’s 2010 song “Fancy,” T.I. raps: “They get a baller, think that they ain’t got to pick a career / Guess they plan on sucking dicks until some millions appear / Like ‘voilà!’ You do it right he might just buy you a car.”

In the 2014 comedy Tammy starring Melissa McCarthy, Tammy mouths off to her boss when he is sharing the secret to his success: “Sucking dick and kissing ass?”

In the 1930s, sucking (someone’s) dick was slang for “flattering someone,” but it went on to become an insult equivalent to telling someone “to fuck off.” While saying suck my dick had usually been a coarse insult issued by men, women began increasingly using the phrase in the 2000s—it can pack a real gender-empowered and ironic punch.

Similar to telling someone to go and, oh, suck a bag of dicks, when something sucks dick, it’s undesirable or objectionable. Homework, parking tickets, hangovers—all these could be said to suck dick. Presumably, the sweary analogy is that sucking dick is not something everyone necessarily wants to do, perhaps a sense originating with a homophobic subtext.