Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman (or man, if gay) who permits or encourages a good deal of sexual intimacy but not intercourse.

1884		Randiana 100: ‘[T]hough she might give you the idea at a first glance that she was fast and frivolous, and a bit of cock-teaser, she’s in reality as true as steel to her husband’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1910		A. Crowley Scented Garden 89: Jilt—the Persian has a coarser word—our English ‘cock-teaser’ [Simes:DLSS].
c.1935		‘Moon Mullins in “Nerts”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 31: So you make advances and then try to back out. Just a backwoods cocktease, eh?
1942		H. Miller Roofs of Paris (1983) 35: She’s a cock teaser, all promises and no follow-through.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 5: ‘Jerry tells me they’re on the nose.’ [...] ‘Yeah. Just a coupler ———.’ He used a word that means that they titillated the passions and then refused to satisfy them.
1957		W. Burroughs letter 28 Aug. in Harris (1993) 365: A Danish cockteaser gave me essential character.
1964		I. Faust Steagle 230: Flo you cock tease.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 93: Tralala didnt fuckaround. Nobody likes a cockteaser.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 240: I felt the power of being a cocktease.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 149: That fucking cockteaser, he would get her for this.
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 27: COCK TEASER — A female who flirts constantly at parties, appears to be sexually eager and willing [...] But if the hard word is put on her, she will literally shit herself, laugh nervously and walk away. A typical candidate for rape.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 168: Keith’s rapes were to be viewed quite distinctly from those numerous occasions when, in his youth, he had been obliged to slap into line various cockteasers.
1997		Sydney Morn. Herald 18 Jan. 12S/7: ‘I thought the worst thing anyone could call you was a cock-teaser’.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 145: He hazily knew what Christine was on about. He’d known cock-teasers like this one.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 7: But I didn’t like him getting his eyes all over this piece of 100 percent corn-fed cocktease.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 33: [S]inful secutress and cold cocktease.

2. as sense 1, of a male homosexual.

1937		L. Durrell Black Bk (1977) 112: [T]hat little cock teaser Shelley, like a blob of pus scribbling, scribbling [Simes:DLSS].
1962		J. Baldwin Another Country 44: ‘Who are you anyway—just a cock teaser?’ [Simes:DLSS].
1971		‘R. St Clair’ Caged 120: It proved to be every bit as available as it had seemed. The guy was no cocktease [Simes:DLSS].
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 52: One who cock-teases is called a cock-teaser, a CT [etc.].
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 381: One cock teaser and one doormat.
1981		Meat 14: Oh, you fuckin’ little cockteaser [Simes:DLSS].
1991		O. Moore Matter of Life & Sex 28: They’d seen every proud little cock-tease reject them when there was action but come on to them when there was nothing around and they were too randy to hold it in [Simes:DLSS].
1998		A. Hollinghurst Spell 38: [H]e appeared [...] both as a devouringly passive lover and as a kind of cock-teaser, a grown-up school tart [Simes:DLSS].
1999		P. Votel Sureforce 64: I keep watching the plastic gear-stick disappearing up his arse. Boy, do I want to fuck this little cocktease [Simes:DLSS].
2003		K. Cage Gayle 63/1: cock tease n. a male homosexual who arouses a man sexually, and then refuses gratification.

3. in fig. use, a person who strings someone else along.

2001

(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 196: Don’t be a cock tease. You’ve got this tendency to string things out.