---
title: "Handjob: Techniques, Safety and What Research Actually Knows"
url: https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/handjob-techniques/
date_published: 2023-12-29
date_modified: 2026-07-15
---
# Handjob: Techniques, Safety and What Research Actually Knows

## Inhaltsverzeichnis

- [This is important for a handjob: technique, feeling & gimmicks](#h-this-is-important-for-a-handjob-technique-feeling-amp-gimmicks)
- [The best handjob, techniques with one hand](#h-the-best-handjob-techniques-with-one-hand)
- [Handjob techniques with both hands, now it's getting hot!](#h-handjob-techniques-with-both-hands-now-it-s-getting-hot)
- [Jerking off properly: tips for the handjob](#h-jerking-off-properly-tips-for-the-handjob)
- [A perfect handjob with the right position](#h-a-perfect-handjob-with-the-right-position)
- [Handjob techniques, practice makes perfect](#h-handjob-techniques-practice-makes-perfect)

Search the medical literature for **„handjob“** and you get exactly one result. It is about sexual development in young people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and has nothing to do with the subject. Search for „hand job“ or „masturbation technique“ and you get zero.

**There is not a single scientific paper on moving your hand along another man’s cock.** Not on grips, not on pressure, not on speed. Every technique claim in every guide is experience, this text included.

What does exist is data on the practice itself. And the first figure overturns a ranking most men carry around. A survey of **24,787 gay and bisexual men** asked what happened during their last sexual event with a man (Rosenberger et al. 2011). Kissing came in at 74.5 %, oral sex at 72.7 %, **mutual [masturbation](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/is-masturbation-healthy/ "masturbation") at 68.4 %**. [Anal intercourse](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/anal-intercourse/ "Anal intercourse") at **37.2 %**.

**That makes the [handjob](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/handjob-2/ "handjob") almost twice as common as [anal sex](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/fucking-anal/ "anal sex").** It still gets treated as the thing you do when nothing else is available.

This text is about the handjob you give someone else, not about solo. How to jerk yourself off is covered in the [wanking basics](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/wanking-basics/). The difference matters more than it sounds, and that is where this starts.

## This is important for a handjob: technique, feeling & gimmicks

A handjob is the manual stimulation of the penis by another person. The difference from [wanking](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/wanking-basics/ "wanking") is not pedantry.

**You do not know the rhythm, the pressure or the timing.** On yourself you know all three without thinking.

How ordinary the practice is shows up in a second survey. At the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, **1,596 men** were asked about nine activities with their most recent partner (Chow et al. 2021). With regular partners, kissing came in at 97.4 %, **touching each other’s penises at 90.0 %**, giving oral sex at 88.3 %. With casual partners the picture looked similar.

What is interesting is what did **not** depend on age. With regular partners, age was irrelevant for almost every activity. There were two exceptions: younger men masturbate mutually more often (p = 0.028) and have receptive anal sex more often (p = 0.011).

What follows from that in practice is unspectacular and gets skipped constantly. Whether the handjob is the point or the [foreplay](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/sex-foreplay/ "foreplay") to it changes nothing: someone else’s hand needs feedback. A look, a sound, a hand placed over yours. **Anyone who instead runs through a grip he likes on himself is working on another man’s body using his own settings.**

8 grips follow. They come from experience, not from studies. That is not a throwaway line: there is no controlled research on masturbation techniques at all, not even bad research.

## The best handjob, techniques with one hand

With one hand the other stays free, for nipples, for [his balls](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/ball-licking/ "his balls") or for a toy. 4 grips work particularly well one-handed.

**The doorknob.** Put your fingers around the head and turn back and forth, as if opening a door. The [glans](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/glans-massage-instructions/ "glans") reacts more sensitively than the shaft, so a small movement here does a lot. If that interests you in detail, there is a separate [guide to glans massage](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/glans-massage-instructions/).

**The pincer.** Thumb and index finger form a pincer, placed where the head meets the shaft. Then you twist sideways, like opening a bottle. The grip is tight, so [lube](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/a-little-lube-sex-toy-material-guide/ "lube") belongs to it.

**The screw.** Index finger and thumb form a ring that slides down over the tip with light pressure, twisting slightly. This is the movement that comes closest to the feeling of penetration.

**The flat hand.** You press his cock against his belly with a flat hand and slide up and down the shaft. Pressure decides everything here, and it is hard to judge from the outside. Ask.

## Handjob techniques with both hands, now it’s getting hot!

Two hands give you more surface, more pressure and more options. 4 further grips use that, and they get you there faster than you might want.

**Milking the bull.** Both hands in fists, one at the base of the shaft, sliding slowly upwards. Then the other fist starts at the base again. This creates the impression of a movement that never ends.

**The washing [machine](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/fuck-machine/ "machine").** Both hands wrap the shaft, fingers interlocked. That spreads the pressure evenly. Then you slide up and down and mix in circular movements.

**The pepper mill.** Your palms sit around the cock and move sideways in opposite directions.

**The corkscrew.** Both hands form a ring, one at the base, one at the head. Both move towards each other while twisting in opposite directions.

**The last two grips need a note that is missing almost everywhere online.**

Both work with opposing pressure. In the documented injury cases the mechanism is always the same: the erect penis bends. That does not make the grips dangerous. It means this is the point where you do not think „harder“ but „slower“.

If things move too fast, a pause is not a failure but a tool. How to use that deliberately is covered in the piece on [delaying orgasm](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/delay-orgasm-detension-techniques/).

## Jerking off properly: tips for the handjob

Three questions about handjobs can be answered with data instead of opinion: lube, saliva and pressure. They matter more than any further grip.

**Lube is not optional, it is the precondition.**

Dry [friction](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/frotting-erotic-friction/ "friction") on the shaft hurts after a short while. It does so in a way that ends the mood immediately. Which gel suits which material is a question of its own, especially with toys involved: [which lube works with which sex toy material](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/a-little-lube-sex-toy-material-guide/).

### Saliva: a warning that did not survive testing

Saliva is the lubricant that is always there. And it was the subject of a serious concern.

The saliva of people with pharyngeal [gonorrhoea](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/gonorrhoea-symptoms/ "gonorrhoea") can contain viable gonococci. If saliva is used as a lubricant, transmission into the urethra would be conceivable. A research group in Melbourne modelled this across six datasets in 2022. **Result: a modelled gonorrhoea incidence from masturbation between 5.2 % and 10.6 %** (Xu et al. 2022). Roughly one in four cases of urethral gonorrhoea could arise this way.

That sounded alarming. The authors themselves wrote that their models „raise the possibility“. In four of the six datasets the extended model was not even significantly better than the one without masturbation.

**Two years later the same group measured it, and the result is unambiguous.**

**3,114 men** who have sex with men were surveyed and tested (Zhang et al. 2024). The period ran from February 2021 to December 2023. **4.7 % had urethral gonorrhoea.**

| Factor | Association |
| --- | --- |
| Number of partners for condomless insertive anal sex | **p < 0.001** |
| Receiving fellatio | p = 0.613 |
| **Saliva during masturbation** | **p = 0.117, no association** |

Of 110 men who used only saliva for masturbation, two had urethral gonorrhoea. The authors state their conclusion plainly: the leading risk factor is condomless insertive anal sex, **not** saliva as a lubricant.

**That is still not a clean bill of health for saliva in general.** For other practices the association is established. A study of **60 male [couples](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/bdsm-for-couples/ "couples")** used genome sequencing (Chow et al. 2019). Every man with a urethral infection was excluded. Of 32 men with anal gonorrhoea, **one in three** then had a partner with pharyngeal gonorrhoea. The range on that estimate runs from 19 to 53 %, so it is a rough one. As an anal lubricant and during [rimming](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/rimming-sex/ "rimming"), saliva has very much shown up. On a hand around a cock it has not. More on the throat as a site of infection is in the [blowjob guide](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/blowjob-give-the-best/).

### Pressure: rarely a problem, but not never

[Injuries](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/fisting-injuries/ "Injuries") during a handjob are rare. An emergency department in Italy treated **20 men** with penile injuries over **ten years** (Bertolotto et al. 2020). 16 cases came from intercourse, **three from masturbation**, one was caused by the partner. 15 of the 20 had surgery, and erectile scores after six months were good in all of them.

Twenty cases in ten years at one centre. That is the order of magnitude, and it argues against panic. How to recognise it and what to do is covered in the piece on [penile fracture](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/penis-fracture/).

### Cock rings: the numbers no guide prints

A cock ring slows the outflow and makes the [erection](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/erection/ "erection") firmer. That is why it gets recommended for handjobs so often, usually without a single further sentence.

The missing sentences look like this. A review of **56 studies [covering](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/bdsm-covern/ "covering") 100 documented cases** of penile strangulation covers 20 years (Am J Mens Health 2024).

**Metal rings accounted for 36 % of the constricting objects.** In 50 % of incidents sexual activity was involved. **24 of the 100 cases reported lasting damage after removal.**

A hundred documented cases in twenty years is not many. So the practical conclusion is not „no cock ring“ but: stretchy material instead of metal, and off before anything goes numb. What a cock ring does and how it should sit is covered [in our cock ring guide](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/cock-ring-2/).

## A perfect handjob with the right position

Position decides how long you last and how much he gets to see. Three work particularly well.

**The [69 position](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/69-position-for-double-pleasure/ "69 position").** You have his cock right in front of you and he can do something at the same time. The downside: two things at once usually means one of them gets worse. How to balance that is covered in the [69 position](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/69-position-for-double-pleasure/).

**Lying alongside him.** The angle comes closest to the one he knows from himself. That makes it the position where beginners get the least wrong.

**The spooning position.** You lie behind him and reach around. One honest note here: if anal sex is happening at the same time, your hand is no longer the main event. That is fine, but do not expect precision from it.

An [anal plug](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/anal-plug-application/ "anal plug") combines with all three and takes over the stimulation nobody else has a hand free for. How to place it properly is in the [anal plug guide](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/anal-plug-application/).

## Handjob techniques, practice makes perfect

What this text can actually back up fits into 3 sentences. Among men who have sex with men, the handjob is **more common than anal sex**. Saliva as a lubricant on the hand, despite a plausible hypothesis, has **not** shown up as a risk for urethral gonorrhoea. Injuries happen but are rare, and metal cock rings are the part of it with actual case numbers behind it.

Everything else here is experience. The 8 grips appear in no study, and there is no technique that works on everyone. **That is not an excuse, it is the finding**: getting better at handjobs is not about memorising 8 grips, it is about reading the response.

And if solo stops working because your own grip has become too firm, that is a subject of its own. It also has its own way out: [death grip syndrome](https://gay-blog.tomrockets.com/en/death-grip-syndrome-overcome/).

## FAQ

### What is a handjob?

A handjob is the stimulation of the penis by another man’s hand. The difference from wanking is the information. On yourself you know the pressure, the rhythm and the timing, on someone else you do not.

### How common is the handjob in sex between men?

More common than anal sex. In a survey of 24,787 gay and bisexual men, mutual masturbation featured in 68.4 % of last sexual events and anal intercourse in 37.2 %. In a second study of 1,596 men, 90.0 % of those with a regular partner touched each other’s penises.

### Is saliva as a lubricant a risk?

For urethral gonorrhoea, on current evidence, no. A 2022 model had suggested it, but a 2024 measurement across 3,114 men found no association (p = 0.117). The leading risk factor was condomless insertive anal sex. As a lubricant for anal sex and during rimming, saliva very much does show up.

### Which lube works for a handjob?

For a hand alone, practically any of them. As soon as toys are involved the material question comes up. The common warning that silicone-based gel attacks silicone surfaces is manufacturer knowledge without a study behind it. Water-based stays the easier choice anyway, because it works with every material.

### Can you get injured during a handjob?

Rarely, but it happens. One emergency department documented 20 penile injuries over ten years, three of them from masturbation and one caused by the partner. The documented mechanism is always the erect penis bending, not excessive speed.

### Are cock rings safe during a handjob?

With stretchy material and a limited wearing time, yes. Over 20 years, 100 cases of penile strangulation were documented, 36 % of them from metal rings and 50 % linked to sexual activity. 24 of those 100 cases had lasting damage.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What is a handjob?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "A handjob is the stimulation of the penis by another man's hand. The difference from wanking is the information. On yourself you know the pressure, the rhythm and the timing, on someone else you do not."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How common is the handjob in sex between men?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "More common than anal sex. In a survey of 24,787 gay and bisexual men, mutual masturbation featured in 68.4 % of last sexual events and anal intercourse in 37.2 %. In a second study of 1,596 men, 90.0 % of those with a regular partner touched each other's penises."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Is saliva as a lubricant a risk?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "For urethral gonorrhoea, on current evidence, no. A 2022 model had suggested it, but a 2024 measurement across 3,114 men found no association (p = 0.117). The leading risk factor was condomless insertive anal sex. As a lubricant for anal sex and during rimming, saliva very much does show up."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Which lube works for a handjob?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "For a hand alone, practically any of them. As soon as toys are involved the material question comes up. The common warning that silicone-based gel attacks silicone surfaces is manufacturer knowledge without a study behind it. Water-based stays the easier choice anyway, because it works with every material."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Can you get injured during a handjob?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Rarely, but it happens. One emergency department documented 20 penile injuries over ten years, three of them from masturbation and one caused by the partner. The documented mechanism is always the erect penis bending, not excessive speed."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Are cock rings safe during a handjob?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "With stretchy material and a limited wearing time, yes. Over 20 years, 100 cases of penile strangulation were documented, 36 % of them from metal rings and 50 % linked to sexual activity. 24 of those 100 cases had lasting damage."
}
}
]
}