Stop it, Boner

About

Stop It, Boner is a picture of a character having an unwanted erection. It has become a staple of reaction image when being confronted to any material that could provoke the weirdest boner.

Origin

The initial image comes from a 2-panes comic made by an anonymous user and featuring a man looking in dismay at his computer screen before turning away, revealing he has an unwanted erection (shown below, left). While there is no precise archived mention of its first appearance, its earliest recorded use was found in a 4chan’s /tg/ (Traditional Games) thread about tabletop games, in a post made on February 15th 2011^[1] reacting to another poster talking about kobold porn. Then, as early as June 8th 2011, a cut version of the second panel with the character saying “Stop it, boner” to which the bulge in his pants retorts “no”(shown below, right) was posted in another /tg/ thread^[2].

Precursor: “why, boner?”

As a similar note, two other pictures on the same theme have been circulating as reaction images on imageboards in order to describe this feeling of unwanted arousal towards questionable material. The first one is a drawing of a man’s lower half sitting on a chair with an apparent bulge^[3] (shown below, left) posted as early as February 7th 2011 and the other, a 2-panes image of a stick figures looking at a computer screen in disbelief^[4], posted as early as March 24th 2011 (shown below, right). Both displayed the phrase “Why, Boner?”, that has been defined on Urban Dictionary on April 22nd 2011 as “getting a boner for some reason you can’t explain; getting a boner when you consciously know you shouldn’t be having one. (see: should not want)”^[5].

Spread

Although the initial blank 2-pane comic continued to be reused as a reaction image of its own, as it was the case in the comment section of the “Oh No They Didn’t” Livejournal for example^[6], the cut version became reposted on various websites such as Funny Junk as early as August 18th 2011^[7] where several parodies were made, the Cheezburger“Dating Fails” section^[8] or even TVTropes, as an online example referencing the “Strangely Arousing” trope^[9].