Frot

Two men rubbing their cocks together for pleasure, face to face and without penetration; also called frotting.

Frot is two men rubbing their cocks together for pleasure: dick on dick, body on body, usually face to face. It can be the warm-up, the whole session or what happens when nobody can be bothered to find the lube. It is sex without penetration, and for the men who love it, it is not a lesser option but a favorite one.

The word works as a noun ("we just did frot") and as a verb ("we frotted for an hour"). Frotting is the -ing form you hear most. It sits next to grinding and dry humping in meaning, but frot implies cocks out and doing the work.

Where it comes from

Frot comes from the French frotter, to rub, through frottage. The bawdy idea is old: Green's Dictionary of Slang points to a 1653 translation of Rabelais that has people "frotting" their bacon against one another. As a slang verb it is in print in Britain by 1973, meaning to rub against someone for sexual pleasure, often on the sly.

That older sense is still around and it is not the gay one. Frotteurism, in medicine and law, means rubbing against strangers in crowds without their consent, which is a crime. Gay frot is the opposite: two men, face to face, very much consenting.

How it is used today

On the apps frot shows up in the list of things men are into, especially in the profiles of men who call themselves side: guys who enjoy sex with men but do not do anal. For them frot, mutual masturbation and oral are the whole menu, and frot is often the high point. It is also popular with bears, for whom belly-to-belly contact is half the pleasure.

Some men have made frot almost a cause, arguing it is the most equal form of sex between men because neither partner is top or bottom. You do not have to sign up to that argument to see the appeal: there is no prep, no douching, and nobody has to decide who goes first.

Frot or docking

Both are cock-on-cock, but they are not the same. Frot is rubbing shaft against shaft. Docking is when one man pulls his foreskin over the head of another man's cock, which needs at least one uncut partner. The two often happen in the same session.

Related terms