Metrosexuality
Seems like all the guys I know, the cool ones that is, are proud to be metrosexual. And the girls dig them.
... to determine a metrosexual, all you have to do is look at them. In fact, if you're looking at them, they're almost certainly metrosexual. The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis -- because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial ...
That's how British writer Mark Simpson defined metrosexuals in his column in Salon
And he went on to say:
For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn't shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image -- that's to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that's the only way you can be certain you actually exist). A man, in other words, who is an advertiser's walking wet dream.
Recently he has apologized.
"I had no idea what I was starting," he said, speaking exclusively from his home in London, England. "If I'd known that metrosexuals would take over the world and make everyone wear fake tan and use glutinous hair care products I would have written about baseball instead."If you want to find out how metrosexual you are, take The Metrosexual Quiz.
Comments
I am interested in this notion of metrosexuality and how people are so quick to embrace it as a positive step for males and gender.
I don't think one should be so quick.
I agree that it is a positive step for males, I think it is important to open up the scope of specific genders...so insomuch as metrosexuality allows men to be more emotional or sensitive or interested in traditionally female activits without compromising their sexuality I think metrosexuality is positive. However, insomuch as this opening up of gender is linked to the consuming of products and services I get uncomfortable. Women have been slaves to products in order to define and perform their identity.
Capitalists are smart, their goal is to make money...to profit from your need to purchase. If companies can link your identity with products that you need to pay for, they are profitting. If you cannot be a skateboarder without buying a $150 hooded sweatshirt or your ability to be a country club girl is severly hampered by the unavailibility of cable knit sweaters and tennis skirts, companies will help you out with this.
Thus, with the popularity of the metrosexual men are being pulled into the trap as well. The connection between metrosexuality and consumerism is explicit in the definition given by Simpson.
I think we should be more focussed on working on developing expressions new notions of gender that do not include elitism, consumerism, and that is created for the goals of social justice and well being, not profit.
Posted by: Kristen | January 15, 2004 11:28 AM