Cock tease

Cock tease (sometimes cock-tease or cocktease or also prick-tease) is derisive sexual slang used to describe a woman or man who acts in a sexual manner to seduce men without actually fulfilling the sexual actions. The term has been in use in Great Britain and the United States since the 19th century.

The phrase is also used metaphorically, as an allusion to any similarly frustrating teasing done by someone else irrespective of whether it is sexual or not.

Uses in media

The term has been widely used in popular culture.

Literal sense

• Saturday Night Fever:
  Tony Manero: "Why are you such a cock-tease?"
  Stephanie: "Don't you call me no goddam cock-tease!"[1][2]
• Sophie's Choice by William Styron
  "Little Miss Cock Tease" (p. 145)
• Review of American Beauty in Rolling Stone
  "Angela seeks validation that she's not 'ordinary' by playing the cock tease..."
• There's Something About Mary: Chris Elliott calls Cameron Diaz's character "cock tease" in the final scene.
• On the television series The Venture Bros., Brock Samson's virginal longtime love is named Molotov Cocktease.

Metaphor

• "This film will come off as one extended cock-tease, never giving them the very thing trailers made them think they'd be getting." (Review of The Ringer)
• "The Bird Flu Is a Cock-Tease" and "UPDATE: Bird Flu Still a Cock-Tease!" (essays on avian flu, using cock as a double entendre meaning male bird and penis)

Punning

• The unrated DVD version of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story includes scenes cut from the theatrical release of the title character in a brief late-1970s marriage to Cheryl Tiegs, playing herself with the name "Cheryl Cox-Tiegs".