The secret joys of frottage

Dick to dick at the bate group circle, where men practice the art of coming together

These are the rules:

• No kissing.

• No sucking.

• No fucking.

The rules are not there to restrict fun, as I once assumed. They are careful spells for creating a safe container inside which more fun may be had.

This men’s bate group gets together every so often — once in a season, maybe more — to meet new faces, to share pleasure, to smoke and drink, to get up close to men, and to feel safe in this.

For this group, safety comes from removing the possibility of anal and oral penetration. Some of the men here have wives or girlfriends or partners. They want to explore outside of their committed relationship and bond with men while reducing the risk of transmitting anything nasty to each other.

Honestly, it works — the vibe feels very risk-free. We have nothing to lose. We have everything to gain.

The first time I joined this crew, we met at a hotel. This time, I invited them into my home, turning my large bedroom into a kind of pleasure palace. Low lights and candles. My “Inviting Venus” playlist on the speaker. A circle of soft seats around the bed, as if it were a campfire. Room to move around, but small enough of a space that we need to keep close.

Tea and cookies and chips and vodka on a table in the next room. Before we get undressed, we take a moment to eat some food, sip our drinks, smoke on the balcony and make each other laugh. We meet each other face to face. I watch everyone make an effort to put each other at ease.

Men are raised to see one another as threats, as competition in a scramble to the top of the heap (and the heap is always changing, the scramble never ends). Tonight, we put that aside and play a different game. The game everyone can win.

By the time the group has arrived and settled, all six of us have had a chance to come up close to each other, to silently express our approval, to unlock the cage of our curiosity. There are three guys in their 50s, two in their 20s, and me, 36. Greece, Quebec, California, Mexico, Winnipeg, the Philippines. We come from all over, from vastly different human experiences and ancestors. We have a lot to exchange with each other, I can feel it. An invisible fire in the room pulses. Our balls are lit.

The Greek likes to tell us what to do. I love seeing him play alpha dog — something turns on inside me. Suddenly he’s informing us that it’s time to get undressed and get down to it. The real fun.

What a relief to be told what to do and when.

We move to the bedroom. We all know the real fun starts with masturbation. This group is something of a “bate group” that originally came together on BateWorld. There’s a culture:

• Play with your cock, make yourself feel good, show off your arousal.

• Play with someone else’s cock, with their explicit permission.

• If you feel an increased chemistry with someone, you can explore frottage.

What is frottage?

To engage in “frot” is to explore playful penis-to-penis contact.

It’s a pleasure practice for giving way to the body’s need to come up close to another, to fully embrace and find what feels good, without penetrating anybody.

This is a snake’s dance—there is an intertwining. And a shape-shifting, as men writhe together to touch in this long-forbidden way.

At first I scoffed at the idea, thinking why not just fuck if you want to find communion? But I was missing the nuance. The amount of pleasure you can unfold in frottage is completely unique, totally unlike anal sex.

For one, you escape the polarized experience of fucking, in which one person is topping and another is bottoming. En frottage, you are mirroring one another.

Some people say the practice is more pleasurable and more affectionate than penetrative sex. No one is being fucked. You’re wrapping your arms around each other and being kind of… silly.

It makes me giggle and smile. When I find myself en frot with my lover Mick, we laugh and wiggle around in a ridiculous way that feels good for my entire body. Two sex angels surrendering to the body’s imagination and becoming pleasuresnakes together.

Though I will forever be an anal girl, I like frot because it feels like a profound way to dance with someone you desire.

It feels fantastic there, intertwined and breathing together.

The Wikipedia entry for Frot is… fraught with anxiety and identity politics. It’s listed as a “gay man’s activity” and so the story of the practice is crammed into the history of the gay community, some of which embraced the practice as a way of staying safe during the height of the HIV/Aids epidemic. Seems reasonable. You could share crabs or maaaaaayyyyybe herpes with someone this way, but you’re not going to pass on chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis, or HIV.

But from a deeper, broader perspective, I can see frottage as an ancient human sex practice between any two phalli, be they cocks or big swingin’ clits or whatever meat you have between your legs. It’s about following your own boner, your sex-dragon, your masculine principle, up close to another’s pulsing beast and finding pleasure from the contact, taking all sorts of creative shapes in order to press up firmly against each other, tip to tip, in that sacred spot.

Sharing fire.

Sharing Fire

Yes, frot is safer than fellatio or sodomy. But it’s also more playful. It’s very silly and creative. And intimate in its own way — it brings you face to face with your lover.

Frotting as a way of getting to know somebody you like, a physical way to explore the felt pleasure of intimacy. It requires total presence of the pelvis and all the wisdom of the pelvic bowl to do it right.

Swivel your hips. Slosh it around. Pour into my cup and I’ll pour into yours.

Now we’ve got fire and water. We’re feeling warm flow. We’re letting the energy inside us go whoosh.

Dragons dancing

On the night of the bate group circle, I saw the oldest and the youngest in the room find each other and discover a fire between them.

Two Scorpios. A magnetism. Something shared in the eyes, something deep and dark. A knowledge of tenderness and the hurt of betrayal. They referenced it, out loud in the room, but only those two knew quite what they meant. It was beyond words.

Then they started dancing.