Frot
- This article is about male-male genital sex. For various forms of consensual sexual rubbing while naked or clothed, see frottage.
Frot [1][2] or frictation [3] is a neologism refering specifically to male-male genital sex, where male partners engage in the rubbing of erect penis on erect penis, typically while in full-frontal embrace. Various other sexual positions for frot are of course possible. Colloquially, however, frot is sometimes used in place of frottage.
The term frot is not common or widely used in English. The most common current usage is by groups promoting frot as an alternative to anal sex.
Frot can be pleasurable because it mutually stimulates each partner's penis, especially the frenulum nerve bundle under the glans.
Advantages of frot
- Both partners can see each other and make eye contact.
- They can combine sex with kissing on the mouth including French kisses.
- They can both caress one another.
- Requires very little suppleness from either partner.
- Can be done kneeling, standing, or lying head-to-toe.
- Does not cause pain to either partner.
- Frot is lower risk for some sexually transmitted infections than oral sex or anal sex. There are no known cases of HIV transmission through frot, for example, although most safer sex educators recommend being careful of open cuts or abrasions. Frot provides no protection from herpes, molluscum contagiosum, genital warts, crabs, or other STIs passed by simple contact.
Frot in gay and mainstream culture
The gay slang terms "Princeton rub" [4], "Ivy League rub", "Oxford style", and so on (refering to frot and/or interfemoral intercourse) presumably survive from the days when these colleges only admitted men.
The 1995 book Eccentric and Bizarre Behaviors by Louis R. Franzini and John M. Grossberg declares frottage, in the appropriate context, to be a perfectly normal sexual behavior for anyone "male or female, homosexual or heterosexual" in a chapter entitled "Frottage". The bulk of the content of the chapter is dedicated to frotteurists and grinding.
In the 1997 British Comedy film The Full Monty one of the main characters facetiously claims to have been "rubbing pipe" when caught in a group of nearly nude men, explaining "you don't get your clothes dirty this way" (somewhat conflating frot with grind dancing). The film was marketed to a mainstream audience and saw success in both the US and UK.
The 1998 book Wrestling for Gay Guys by Donald Buck features a list of wrestling styles that includes "climax wrestling" also known as "cockfighting"
Bill Weintraub, who advocates frot as the primary expression of male-male sexuality, claimed credit for coining the term in 2000.
Synonyms
The term frot specifies mutual male-male genital sex, as opposed to various methods of frottage, but ambiguously is sometimes used colloquially to mean frottage (and vice versa), nevertheless.
Before frot gained currency as a technical term, other suggestions included frictation [5] (despite to fricate can refer to any genital friction including coitus and masturbation), and frontism (despite the political meaning of uniting against a common enemy).
Genito-genital rubbing or GG rubbing is a term frequently used by primatologists to describe tribadism among bonobo females [6] , it is sometimes used in reference to frot between bonobo males as well though the more colorful term "penis fencing" is more often used.
genito-genital sex or genital-genital sex is a physically descriptive term for sex in which there is contact between the genitals, in the same naming convention as "genital-anal sex" and "genital-oral sex". [7] [8]
Frot in non-human animals
Frot has been observed between bull manatees, in conjunction with "kissing", as well as in bottlenose dolphins and bonobo apes. Other forms of frottage are also common among homosexually active mammals. Most species of bird do not posses a penis, therefore it is not possible to distinguish between frottage and intercourse when describing their sexual behavior.
See also
Sources
- B. Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (1999)
- Olivia Judson., Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation (2002)