Wingboner & Clopping

About

In the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, a Wingboner is considered the pegasus equivalent to a human's erection. The term "wingboner" originates from the flapping movement of a pegasus when it flares its wings excitedly (usually Rainbow Dash), which may appear as if it had an erection. This flaring motion is often accompanied by the onomatopoeic words "pomf!" or "sproing!".

Origin

The earliest known discussion about the term "wingboner" started in an IRC chatroom^[1] about a fanmade comic in which Rainbow Dash is pinning Twilight Sparkle, who reacts by kissing Rainbow Dash, giving Rainbow Dash a wingboner. This led some fans to hypothesize that pegasi have an involuntary response to sexual stimulation, namely the flaring of wings. Entitled "Valentine's day", the comic was drawn by DeviantART user TwilightFlopple^[2] who has drawn a great deal of My Little Pony-related fan art.

Spread

Since its adaptation into My Little Pony fan fictions and fanart, the concept of wingboners has become very popular on Ponychan's /oat/ board^[4], where most of media relating to wingboners are hosted. One of these threads was stickied by the board's moderators. The meme has also garnered large attention on 4chan^[5], Equestria Daily^[3] and Ponibooru^[7]. Another popular comic featuring the wingboner was uploaded to Equestria Daily^[3] in February 2011 (shown below).

Over a Barrel

In season 1, episode 21: "Over a Barrel", before Pinkie Pie appears on stage to sing "You Gotta Share, You Gotta Care", there is a crowd shot showing Rainbow Dash with her wings closed. After Pinkie appears on stage in a dress and fishnet stockings, there is another crowd shot in which Dash's wings are spread. Her wings remain spread out for every shot she appears in throughout the song. After the song is over, there is another shot of her, this time with her wings folded back into a closed position. The first shot featuring the wingboner can be seen at 0:17:

Wingboners had already been used and mentioned in fan works before the episode aired, but the term wingboner didn't fully take off until after the episode aired.

Related Term: Clopping

Clopping is considered the pony equivalent to fapping, internet slang for masturbation. Just as "fapping" is derived from an onomatopoeia, "clopping" is derived from the onomatopoeic word "clop", used to describe the sound of a pony's hooves striking a hard surface. Especially considering that the majority of the show's cast is female, this has led to jokes about how hard the ponies' genitals would have to be to produce a sound often associated with hooves striking stone or concrete.

Usage

The term is usually used in brony culture as a reaction to Rule 34 related content involving My Little Pony characters, in similar fashion to Wingboners. It is also used as an inside joke among fans. Clopping primarily appears in fan art involving a pony from the show clopping to a certain situation. Although some of the fan content that contains clopping makes use of explicit situations, the majority majority of these are less explicit pieces and image macros that are most commonly used as reaction faces.

Similarly to clopping being a slang term for the characters in the show when they are masturbating, the term has gained usage as a reaction amongst the fans of the show towards art that either contains or implies to NSFW or explicit content. Due to this, popular phrases involving fapping such as "I can't fap to this!" and "Must not fap" have been edited into their clopping equivalents, which are often used to react to pseudo-sexual or particularly bizarre Rule 34 images.

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Search Interest

External References