Erotic massage or sensuous massage is the use of massage techniques to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. Massages have been used for medical purposes for a very long time. Its use for erotic purposes also has a long history.


Today it is used by some couples on occasions as part of lovemaking, either as foreplay or as the final sex act. Erotic massages typically feature massages in erogenous zones of the body to increase sexual arousal.

In the Western medical tradition genital massage of a woman to orgasm by a physician or midwife was a standard treatment for female hysteria, an ailment considered common and chronic in women.

In 1653, Pieter van Foreest advised the technique of genital massage for a disease called "womb disease" to bring the woman into "hysterical paroxysm". Such cases were quite profitable for physicians, since the patients were at no risk of death, but needed constant treatment.

However, the vaginal massage procedure (generally referred to as 'pelvic massage') was tedious and time consuming for physicians. The technique was difficult for a physician to master and could take hours to achieve "hysterical paroxysm."

Referral to midwives, which had been common practice, meant a loss of business for the physician, and at times husbands were asked to assist.

A solution was the invention of massage devices, which shortened treatment from hours to minutes, removing the need for midwives and increasing a physician’s treatment capacity.

Already at the turn of the century, hydrotherapy devices were available at Bath, and by the mid-19th century, they were popular at many high-profile bathing resorts across Europe and in America.

By 1870, a clockwork-driven vibrator was available for physicians. In 1873, the first electromechanical vibrator was used at an asylum in France for the treatment of hysteria.

Frottage, more commonly known as dry humping, is the act of achieving sexual pleasure with a partner or partners, whether naked or clothed, without penetration. This can include using almost every part of the body, including the buttocks, the breasts, abdomen, thighs, feet, hands, legs, and sexual organs.

Frottage can include mutual genital rubbing, sometimes called genito-genital or GG rubbing and most of the other forms of non-penetrative sex.

There are many reasons a couple may choose frottage. The most common reasons are as a form of foreplay before intercourse or as a method to achieve sexual gratification without the more sexually explicit (and in some circumstances, forbidden) oral, vaginal or anal sexual intercourse.

Often young people will use frottage as an earlier stage of sexual intimacy before more explicit contact is desired, or as a substitute to intercourse to maintain a higher degree of chastity. Also, frottage can be done without getting undressed.

Panties, bras, pantyhose, socks, or stockings can aid in sexual arousal and stimulation. Lap dances often involve clothed frottage. A modern dancing style which involves partners rubbing their clothed bodies on one another is called "grinding," "freaking," or "Sandwich dancing" and is known in the Spanish speaking territories as "perrear" ("dogging").

This term came from Puerto Rico and later became the famous dance for reggaeton. The term frottage derives from the French verb frotter, "to rub."

Mutual masturbation is a sexual act where two or more people stimulate themselves or one another sexually, usually with the hands. This may be done in situations where the participants do not feel ready, physically able, it is socially appropriate, or simply do not wish to have full sexual intercourse, but still wish to have a mutual sexual act.

It is also done as part of the full repertoire of sexual intercourse, where it may be used as an interlude, a form of foreplay or simply as an alternative activity to penetration.

For some, it is the primary sexual activity of choice above all others because it enables the individuals to see face to face and leaves the hands free to caress.

Mutual masturbation can be practiced by those of all sexual orientations. If used as an alternative to penile-vaginal penetration, the aim may be to preserve virginity or to prevent pregnancy. Some may choose it because it achieves sexual satisfaction without actual sex, possibly seeing it as an alternative to casual sex.

The techniques of mutual masturbation resemble those of simple masturbation, with the exception that other persons are involved. The range of participation can be as simple as two participants masturbating in the same room at the same time without any physical contact to a group of people all stimulating one another.

In the case of two participants, one partner may stimulate the other, each partner may stimulate the other, or one may stimulate both themselves and their partner. Mutual masturbation might result in one or more of the partners achieving orgasm.

If no bodily fluids are exchanged (as is common), mutual masturbation is a form of safer sex, and greatly reduces the risk of transmission of sexual diseases. As such it was encouraged among gay men by some safer sex organizations in the wake of the AIDS outbreak of the 1980s, as an alternative to anal or oral sex.

The terms "mutual masturbation" and "circle jerk" are sometimes also used as vulgar
metaphors. They can refer to a situation, often in the workplace, politics or academia, where people are stroking each other's ego without producing anything of value.

Partnered manual genital stroking to reach orgasm and expanded orgasm are practices done with a partner. Both people focus on creating and experiencing an orgasm in one person. Typically in this safe sex partnered masturbation practice, one person lies down, pantless, while his or her partner sits alongside.

The one partner sitting using their hands and fingers (typically with a lubricant) to slowly stroke the clitoris or penis and genitals of the partner. Expanded orgasm as a mutual masturbation technique is said to create orgasm experiences more intense and extensive than what can be described as, or included in the definition of, a regular orgasm.

It includes a range of sensations that include orgasms that are full-bodied, and orgasms that last from a few minutes to many hours.The term was coined in 1995 by Dr. Patricia Taylor.

Non-penetrative sex (also known as outercourse, dry sex, and dry humping) is sexual activity without vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, as opposed to intercourse, anal sex, or oral sex (which may or may not be penetrative).


The terms mutual masturbation and frottage are also used, but with slightly different emphases. NPS and outercourse are rather new terms, which is why such practices are sometimes still called "intercourse".

The term "outercourse" is something of a misnomer, as it contrasts "outer" with "inter" but the "inter" in "intercourse" means "between two people". It does not describe being inside or outside of the body.

It is less likely that bodily fluids will be exchanged, and so outercourse is often considered a practice of safer sex, as well as of birth control . Outercourse in preparation for intercourse can form part of foreplay.

• Axillary intercourse (slang: bagpiping, in reference to the underarm manner in which bagpipes are played; "directing traffic", or "pit-wank", a variant of the term "tit-wank") is a sexual variant where the penis is inserted in the other person's armpit.

• Erotic massage, rubbing all over, with or without oil. May be intensified when combined with deep breathing.

• Handjob, stimulating the penis with the hand.

• Footjob, stimulating genitals with the feet.Frot, penile rubbing.

• Intercrural sex, also known as interfemoral intercourse, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis between the other partner's thighs.

• Intergluteal sex, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis into the other partner's buttock cleavage or gluteal cleft.

• Mammary intercourse, when one partner rubs a phallic object or penis between the partner's breasts.

• Oral stimulation of nipples.

• Sumata, type of stimulation of male genitals popular in Japanese brothels.

• Tribadism, vulval-vulval rubbing, also known as "scissoring.

• Virtual sex, mutual masturbation at a distance with the aid of technology.