In one of my first blogs, I ruminated on the label “cougar”.  A cougar is an older woman who unapologetically fucks younger men.  As I indicated in that blog, I have no problem with older women (me, for instance) getting it on with significantly younger men (to protect the innocence of youth, let’s say, hypothetically of course, Jake Gyllenhaal) and, as I discussed in that blog, there is something deliciously transgressive about the gender and power fuck of such couplings.  I wrote that there was not a specific or derogatory term for older men hitting on younger women.  Perhaps that was true when I wrote that blog, but it is true no longer.  We now have the term “rhino”.  According to the urban dictionary, ‘rhino’ is now the term used to refer to older men who hit on younger women.  Why ‘rhino’?   Because these men are, according to these websites, “usually both horny and ugly”.  

When I first heard this term, I have to admit that a part of me smiled with glee at the idea of older men who hit on younger women as horny and ugly and therefore ridiculous.  It didn’t help that I had just wrestled with the mental gymnastics of dealing with a partner’s romp with a significantly younger woman. 

I wanted to find out more, so I Googled “rhino”.  While there were many websites that included photos and lots of interesting information about rhinoceroses, there was nothing on horny, ugly, older men.   So then I Googled, “cougars and rhinos”.  Voila!!  Jackpot!   Several recent posts about the new term “rhino” popped like magic onto my screen. 

Suddenly, my gleeful grin dissolved into a frown of disappointment.  This coupling of the rhino and cougar was entirely too pervasive.  Every single site, without exception, included something about “rhino” being the male version of the “cougar”.  I knew something was up, put on my thinking cap, and thought about the emergence of this “male version” of a derogatory term used to contain the potential gender and power fuck of confident older gals riding young stallions into submission. 

In an article I wrote and that was published in a sociological journal called “Theory and Society”, I argued that current gender arrangements depend on images, rituals, customs, and rules that establish masculinity and femininity as complement/opposites so the masculine part as situated as superior to or dominant over the feminine part.  Masculine Sexual Subject/Feminine Sexual Object.  Masculine Assertiveness/Feminine Compliance.  Masculine Protection/Feminine Vulnerability.  You get the picture. 

As I argued in the article, these ideas are not so much a reflection of how we are.  Instead, they’re a symbolic blueprint for how we should be and how we should view and set up the social world.  When women engage in behaviors that are supposed to be reserved for men, there are ready and handy labels to get her back in line or get everyone else to shun her.  The woman who acts on her own sexual desire—slut.  The woman who is too aggressive—bitch.  The woman who desires the feminine sexual object—dyke.  The label “cougar”, I think, is a version of this.  I called these “pariah femininities” because they are behaviors or characteristics that, when embodied by women, are perceived as contaminating to normal social relations.  They are a refusal by women to play the feminine, inferior complement to men and they go against the blue print that situates men as having sole access to masculinity as superior and dominant.

In the article, I also talked about male femininities (borrowing from Judith Halberstam’s idea of female masculinities).  When men embody characteristics or behaviors that fall on the feminine (and inferior) side of the masculine/feminine equation, they too are ostracized.  The man who is compliant?  Wimp or pussy.  The man who wants to be the sexual object, especially to men’s desire? Faggot.

But ‘rhino’?  How does Rhino, as a negative term reserved for men who are doing precisely what men are supposed to do, fit into this picture?  It’s neither a male femininity nor a pariah femininity.  It’s not feminine at all. 

I have an idea.

Perhaps ‘rhino’ emerges as a façade of gender equality when really nothing has changed.  We all know that older, especially rich dudes wooing beautiful young women are not perceived by anyone as ridiculous—when they succeed, they got what everybody wants.   Sort of like the caricature of the monocled upperclass asshole; that upper class asshole still has all the money.  Classic example of taking something that is potentially subversive, giving it a masculine counter-part that is in no way counter-hegemonic, and saying “See?!  Gender equality!”  Sort of like the “male slut”.

It’s interesting, and I don’t think a coincidence, that the explanation for the label ‘rhino’ is because they’re ‘horny and ugly’.  Putting aside the question of whether or not rhinoceroses are horny (what?), this reasoning still situates the older man as the masculine sexual subject—he’s horny.  For what is he horny?  The younger, feminine, sexual object.  He might be ugly, but he is still a man.  Doesn’t much reflect or encourage any real change. 

So what about being ‘ugly’?  If a man has enough money or status, it doesn’t matter if he is ugly (have you seen some of our elected officials who are getting the ladies or those “hot” rock stars?).  Money and status give even ugly men power and the right (duty?) to be the masculine sexual subject and get the hot, young, girls.  Again, what is presented as the “male counterpart” to a pariah femininity is a façade of equality that keeps the gender dynamics of sexual subjectivity and sexual objectification neatly in place. 

I’ll be curious to watch and see if this label ‘rhino’ catches on, and if it does, what sort of meaning it will take on and how it will be used.  Will we start to see ‘rhino’ porn sites where ugly, older men are displayed and fucked as “different” from normal sexual objects?   Will we see a television series called “Rhinoville” where ugly older men are rendered completely ridiculous and obsessed with women?  My guess is no.  No because those images would fuck with the blue print that guarantees masculine privilege and status.  As I argue in the Theory & Society article, any stereotype or derogatory label is tolerable as long as the “normal” (heterosexual, white, middle class) guys get to keep all the goodies.  You know, just like the “male slut”. 

In the end, I wouldn’t want to see rhino porn sites or a television show that makes older men seem ridiculous.  I don’t want that sort of gender “equality”.  Real gender transformation will happen when we don’t put age or class or gender constraints on who can take pleasure in being the sexual subject, the sexual object, the top or the bottom.  Let’s not strive for (or smile with glee at) equal degradation.  Let’s come up with a new blueprint; new rules, rituals, customs and images that acknowledge and facilitate the erotic potential for playing with power rather than defining ourselves by it.