Akkadian has a verb nâkum 'to have sex with,' which is cognate to Arabic ناك nāk- 'to fuck.' I can't find any cognates in Aramaic, Ge'ez, or Hebrew, so potentially these two languages are the only ones that preserved it.
The Arabic term is vulgar, but the Akkadian term is used in formal contexts like legal texts for illicit sex. For example, in Assyrian Codes § 18, we are given a scenario where a man insults another by saying, aššatka ittinikkū "men are always having sex with your wife."
It was also used medically in reference to STDs, which were known as muruṣ nâki lit. 'sickness of sex' (murṣum is cognate to West Semitic words for illness such as Syriac marʕā and Arabic maraḍ, both meaning 'sickness').
In both Akkadian and Arabic, the term is negative but in different ways. In Akkadian, the word describes sex which is morally bad. In Arabic, the word itself is bad, not the act, as there are more polite words that can be substituted to make it more acceptable.
Did the vulgar usage in Arabic develop language-internally or does that go back to an ancestor? Without evidence from cognates in older Semitic languages, it's impossible to tell.
If anyone is interested here are three instances (§§ 17-19) of the use iterative form of the verb in Middle Assyrian Law Codes, from Driver & Miles, The Assyrian Laws. Translations can be found here: http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANElaws/midAssyrLaws.html#FN7
You can follow @samijiries.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: