The very idea of directing the function of the mouth toward a part other than the genitals was not fully thematised in the literature of sexual love until comparatively late.

Analingus (English rimming, rim job; medical anilingus or analingus) is the act of stimulating a partner’s anus and surrounding area with the mouth, tongue, and lips. In Japanese it is called rimingu (a transliteration), aniringusu (medical), and anaru name (slang), used according to context. It holds a particular place as a sex-service option, as a “special act” in AV and adult manga, and as a form of sexual practice between gay men. As an act where hygiene management matters, it is also discussed in medical and public-health contexts.

Overview

Analingus is positioned as a type of oral sex. Alongside fellatio (oral stimulation of the inserting genitals) and cunnilingus (oral stimulation of the receiving genitals), it is incorporated into the erotic system as a form of oral sexual stimulation.

The anus and its surrounding area sit at the boundary of inside and outside the body and carry a complex nerve distribution including internal and external sphincters. Its function as an erogenous zone is confirmed in sexology and anatomy (branches of the pudendal nerve reach the perianal region), and stimulation can induce sexual arousal. Analingus is positioned as a sexual act resting on this physiological base.

From the standpoint of hygiene management, analingus is recognised as an act carrying several infection risks. Pathogens such as hepatitis A, amoebic dysentery, condyloma acuminatum, E. coli, and salmonella can use the perianal area as a transmission route to the mouth and pharynx. Safe practice recommends bathing, washing, and a dental dam (oral barrier).

Etymology

Anaru name compounds the borrowed English anal with the nominalised continuative form of the native verb nameru (to lick). It arose as sex-industry and AV jargon in the 1980s–90s and now circulates as erotic slang.

Rimming is a transliteration of English slang, from the verbal use of rim (the edge, that is, the rim of the anus), standard slang in the English-speaking gay and BDSM communities; rim job circulates in parallel. The medical term anilingus (or analingus) is a compound of Latin anus and lingere (to lick), established in late-nineteenth to early-twentieth-century medical and sexological literature with a clinical, neutral register.

History

Descriptions of acts resembling analingus appear in the literature of the ancient Mediterranean. Roman obscene verse (the Carmina Priapea, the poems of Catullus) includes references to anilingus. In ancient Rome, performing anilingus was usually tied to a socially subordinate or degrading position, and a cultural norm held it shameful for a free man, especially an adult male, to “perform” anilingus on another. In Japan’s Edo erotic books and shunga, depictions of anilingus are limited, suggesting a limited place for the act in pre-modern Japanese erotic culture.

In nineteenth- and twentieth-century medical and sexological literature, anilingus was described as a form of sexual diversity. Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) treated it as a type of “perversion,” but from the later twentieth century sexology rejected the pathologising stance and positioned it as a form of consensual sexual diversity. The 1948 Kinsey Report described it as an act with low experience rates among American heterosexual men, reflecting the social taboo of the time. After the sexual-liberation and LGBTQ movements from the 1970s, anilingus gained social visibility as one of many sexual options.

Modern Japan

In contemporary Japan, analingus is sometimes offered as an option of the sex industry (fashion health, delivery health, pink salon, M-seikan), made explicit as an additional service menu in both shop-based and dispatch forms.

In AV and adult manga, analingus tends to be classified in the “special act” or “maniac act” category. As an AV genre label it is subsumed within categories such as “anal genre,” “rimming,” and “mdan-oriented.” Its appearance in general AV is limited, and it acquires its own expression within specific genres (gay, BDSM, specialist maniac works).

Hygiene and medical considerations

The perianal area, owing to digestive contents and intestinal bacteria, carries transmission risk to the mouth. Pathogens transmissible by analingus include hepatitis A virus (HAV), parasites such as amoeba and giardia, bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella, and shigella, and condyloma acuminatum (from HPV).

Hepatitis A in particular has been reported spreading among men who have sex with men (MSM) in recent Japan. In the nationwide 2017–2018 outbreak centred on Tokyo, oral infection via analingus was estimated as a principal transmission route. HAV vaccination is recommended as the principal preventive measure.

Risk-reducing procedures recommended in sex-education and public-health literature include bathing and perianal washing beforehand, use of a dental dam, oral rinsing before and after, and not alternating mouth-to-anus and mouth-to-vagina (to avoid bacterial transfer). Analingus is advised against where diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, or rectal bleeding are present, since these greatly raise infection risk.

Reception and expression

The reception psychology of analingus is bound up with taboo and specialness in erotic culture. Recognised as an act “outside the boundary of ordinary sexual contact,” this transgression becomes a source of arousal for some. In BDSM contexts it is positioned as an act expressing dominance and submission, and the setting in which the submissive performs analingus for the dominant is a standard trope in certain eromanga and doujinshi.

In chijo and mdan-oriented works, the configuration of a woman performing analingus on a man, or receiving it from a man, recurs as a principal genre element. In M-seikan establishments, analingus holds a place as one service from the female cast to the male customer. Staging that combines it with related acts such as anal, enema, cunnilingus, and handjob is the standard arrangement in AV and adult manga, with continuous developments such as analingus to anal sex, analingus after enema, or cunnilingus to analingus.

See also

• Anal
• Cunnilingus
• Enema
• Fellatio
• Handjob
• M-seikan