How Rimming Can Smash the Patriarchy
A conversation about rimming at 11PM could only ever happen in a North-Eastern Wetherspoons. Luckily, that’s where I was a few weeks ago. In in my local Redcar one, ‘The Plimsoll Line’, I discussed the aforementioned act with a very drunk and uncomfortably insecure man. After he decisively said it was not for him, I asked whether he was scared of being rimmed because it might make him feel gay, having a woman pleasure what is mindlessly accepted as ‘the gay part’. Obviously, he said no, but his eyes contradicted him. I do not think I have ever seen someone look so frightened over so little — or seen a man so perfectly representative of the patriarchy today.
He was fragile, determined to prove himself to someone undistinguished (none of us gave any indication that we were impressed), and unaware of the patriarchy his views were truly representing — and it got me thinking. Like this man in Spoons, most men seem terrified of feminism or femininity protruding into the perceived male sphere. Homosexuality and femininity have been so inextricably linked by misogynists and homophobes that entering the realm of either seems unthinkable for many heterosexual men.
The Gillette advert controversy (‘The Best a Man Can Be’) I think is one of the most defining moments in Britain’s recent feminist history, as thousands of men got worryingly worked up about an advert that simply suggested consent and respect. Human cheeseboard Piers Morgan said that it was criminalising ambition in men.
It seems to me that this was less of a concern about political correctness, as it was often framed, than a cry of insecurity about female issues entering a male dominated area; ‘womanly’ things in the world of shaving (something, of course, women never do).
Despite how ridiculous I might see it, I empathise a little. We have all been raised amidst patriarchy, and now, when men have formed or are forming an identity within that, they accept that women are equal but before you know it, they have a foothold in our grooming industry. Maybe if this obsession with separate spheres, of maleness being independent of any female interjection, was relinquished, men would actually open themselves up to possibility. Perhaps, it would also result in less holes being punched in walls and a merciful reduction in the desperate use of Lynx Africa.
Rhetoric is a good way of unravelling this concept of masculinity. For example, the more Theresa May said ‘Strong and Stable’ in the 2017 general election, the more convinced we were that she was neither strong nor stable. Similarly, whenever a man tells you how big his penis is, it is invariably smaller — I don’t know exactly why I know this, but believe me, they are all lying.
And this is what masculinity is, mostly — just rhetoric. Most men feel a need to be like this, myself included — to endure conversation about things they would otherwise not care about, and to objectify in a way they might not always want to, all without entirely knowing why.
This disconnect is troubling. I often found myself accepting statements and behaviour in secondary school as normal amongst other boys, and only began to question it once I moved out and made friends with girls — a transfer familiar to most gay men.
It is a transfer done because, in the back of my mind, I knew that due to my (I thought rather obvious, by this point) gayness, I could no longer genuinely partake in this behaviour, so had to leave it. Then, and only then, could I see it for what it is — utterly wrong.
On some level, all us men are cringing in a Wetherspoons over the notion of our metaphorical arsehole being licked. Even I, a rather flamboyant gay man, often in my youth laid down and gazed disappointedly towards my Downton Abbey and Glee DVD collections, wishing I was straight. Masculinity seemed easier, with its concrete roles and undaunting fashion choices of polo shirts and ill-fitting denim. I also, tragically, thought it would have brought about more friends and popularity (a bad aim in itself).
But I now view that illusion of ease, that outside perception of simplicity, as its very problem. It’s a trap, and not just because it bans rimming. Any slight deviation from those seemingly easy roles makes you an ‘un-man’ and leads to social ostracization from which you can never escape — as noted, this can be imposed by others or by yourself.
Homosexuality somewhat robs you of that masculine expectation and classification system, but all our sexual fears, from bondage to kissing in public, are bred into us so much so that when confronted in the smoking area about oral sex on anything other than your penis, you go white as a sheet. You should be able to occasionally feel ‘feminine’ but still maintain an identity as a man, another thing that straight men could learn from the LGBTQ community. We are generally very good at having qualities or characteristics that are seemingly at odds with our gender identities. Balance is possible.
This is where rimming comes in. Sexuality is far more complex than simply wanting to put certain things into other things, as heterosexual desire for rimming shows. Non-Binary identities and androgyny have certainly challenged my sexuality, with me recently finding someone who is genderless but has a vagina (something that has hitherto scared me) incredibly attractive. I was confused at first, but not in a “Please No!” kind of a way, more just at the notion of someone who is not a man arousing me.
But I almost immediately fully embraced it. Nobody — least of all me — knows who I’m going to want to sleep with in twenty years, months, days even — something my housemates can attest to. Don’t box yourself in with ‘types’ and orientations. Allow control of pleasure to transfer occasionally to a woman, even on the part that might be seen as for the gays and gays only. Get your bum licked — fuck it.
Men! — it is at this point where I hand a gauntlet of feminism (for there be many gauntlets) over to you. Women and the LGBTQ community are currently doing our bit. Both movements are ultimately about eroding gender, and we’ve done an admirable job so far.
Women now attend university more than men; they are entering governments at an unprecedented rate, and straight girls love RuPaul to the same extremity as twinks. For some, gender is slowly eroding — whatever will we do next?
Femininity is no longer exclusive to women, and for everything I have said, I know lots of men who embrace and cherish their femininity. The unfortunate part is that it is still too few. Up until now, the debate about men’s roles in feminism have been limited to relinquishing power, to their externals, but it is time for men to also look inwards and dismantle the remnants of patriarchy.
Being feminine in all respects is still shamefully limited to gay men and women in a way that masculinity is not. Men must start de-gendering their own lives, which may sound a little bit daunting, perhaps pretentious, even slightly gay — but possible.
After all, at least you now know where to start.
