The term squick was introduced in the Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.bondage in the early 1990s to refer to an otherwise unremarkable act that crossed your own personal boundaries in an extreme fashion. It was then propagated to the newsgroup alt.tasteless where it took on the derivative meaning of having sex with a trepanation in a (recently) living person s skull.

Both meanings of the term have since spread widely among the USENET and message board communities, though the otherwise unremarkable aspect of the first meaning is largely forgotten. There is also a verb form which is widely used to decribe the reaction to squick (e.g. That squicked me when I first heard about it. ) The interjection Squick! is a common reaction to boundary-crossing images, posts, and concepts of all kinds.

Squick is also commonly used in fanfiction to refer to any topic covered in the writing that might cross the average person s tolerance/comfort boundaries, as well as to convey ones personal discomfort with material that others might not find objectionable. Common squicks range from particular romantic pairings, sexual orientation, dynamics within pairings, and specific sexual acts to character death, violence, rape, and even non-canonical characterizations. Authors generally preface their stories with warnings (see Slash fiction#Content Ratings and Warnings) for the benefit of the easily-squickable.

The proposed unit of Squickliness (also known as squick factor ) is the List of strange units_of_measurement#Winger, Shudder, named for furry artist Doug Winger. An alternative unit is the Shudder, equal to the number of milliseconds the victim shudders after encountering the squick-inducing image or concept.

=See also=

=References=