England's Mark Simpson is my favorite pop culture commentator. He coined the terms 'metrosexual' and 'sporno' to describe the post-1990 collision of fashion, advertising, social trends and male gender identity. At the end of May he released his new book Metrosexy: A 21st Century Self-Love Story. Below is a review by Quiet Riot Girl, a frequent and insightful commenter on Mark's blog.
The Making of Metrosexy Men
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘metrosexual’? An attractive, young man, with a good haircut, who may or may not be checking himself out in the window of a store, in the shopping mall where he buys all the latest fashionable gear? Or do you think, as some people do, of a ‘fag’ or a gay man? Of someone so bothered about his appearance, that he may as well be a girl?
Mark Simpson, who first coined the term ‘metrosexual’ in 1994, knows exactly what the metrosexual is. In his latest book
, Metrosexy, Simpson explains why the metrosexual is an important indication of how masculinity, and sexual identity, are changing. And why ‘metrosexuality’ goes much further than (toned and moisturised) skin-deep.
“Contrary to what you have been told,” says Simpson, “metrosexuality is not about flip-flops and facials, ‘man-bags’ or ‘manscara’. Or about men becoming ‘girlie’ or ‘gay’. It’s about men becoming everything. To themselves. In much the way that women have been for some time. It’s the end of the sexual division of bathroom and bedroom labour. It’s the end of sexuality as we’ve known it.”
The narcissism that is ever-apparent for the metro-man, who needs mirrors like narcissus himself needed that pool, is not necessarily a negative, argues Simpson. Men in contemporary society are now able to admit to wanting to be ‘beautiful’ and to be appreciated as ‘objects of desire’ in a way that was previously reserved only for women. In the introduction to his latest collection of essays, spanning two decades, Simpson writes:
‘At the end of the first decade of the Twenty First Century, metrosexuality, the male desire to be desired – by everyone, including and sometimes especially by other men – once regarded as pathological, perverted and definitely something to keep to yourself, is so commonplace as to be almost ‘normal’. Perhaps even – eek! – ordinary.’
This ‘desire to be desired’ by men, is obvious everywhere in our culture, once you open your eyes and look, and Mark Simpson has been looking, very carefully. In advertising, for example, he shows how male models, including sportsmen, such as David Beckham and Rafael Nadal, out-pose and out-sex women.
Sporno does not just sell products, but also the ability of even the most ‘macho’ heterosexual sports stars to be ‘passive’ objects, for the camera, and the metrosexual gaze in general. As Simpson has pointed out, Beckham and other footballers have fought over their popularity with gay fans. They want to be loved by other men for their bodies, not just for their ability to ‘get it in’ the back of the net.
Film and television, too, is splattered with images of men demanding to be loved. A seminal image of the metrosexual noughties has been that shot of Daniel Craig, striding out of the sea with his manboobs gleaming in the sun. As Mark has put it, ‘
James Bond becomes his own Bond Girl’. In an essay about American politics he tells us that even Obama has become his own ‘first lady’. Look how well turned out he is, how he smiles for the camera, how he never appears anything less than gym-toned. And, in a possibly disturbing distillation of this contemporary projection of mediated masculinity, Mikey Sorrentino of Jersey Shore fame has coined the mantra ‘GTL-gym, tanning, laundry’ to remind young men everywhere, that you must ‘keep young and beautiful, if you want to be loved’ (and be prepared to be filmed/photographed at any given moment).
But not everyone has embraced the pretty metrosexual with his pert ass and perfect abs and tits. In America, especially, there has been a kind of ‘retrosexual’ backlash against metrosexuality, a nostalgic call for a time when ‘men were men’ and they did not argue with their girlfriends about who had used up all the conditioner. As Simpson has written, the ‘retrosexual’ never stood a chance against the buff, shiny, preening metrosexual. But people wanted him to put up a fight:
‘What else could explain the squealing eagerness with which the media seized upon the confected character of Mad Men’s Don Draper as an example of the return of the ‘retrosexual’? An impossibly pretty and impeccably well-turned out Army deserter with identity issues – and a hidden, shameful secret – who works as an advertising creative and is the unwavering object of the camera’s voyeuristic gaze. We’re so metrosexualised now that this is what ‘old-time masculinity’ looks like to us. Put another way, metrosexuality is masculinity mediated, aestheticised and (self) fetishised. Even if it looks fetching in a trilby’.
Personally I am quite ambivalent about the metrosexual. I welcome the way he blurs gender roles, and takes some of the pressure off women to always be the focus of attention and ‘objects of desire’. Incidentally, I do wonder sometimes why feminists go on so much about ‘objectification’ of women, when, from where I am standing, it seems to be men who are objectified as much as if not more than women these days, and enjoying it. Maybe women are feeling a bit left out? But I don’t like the way the metrosexual presents such a bland, idealised and homogenised version of masculinity. It seems like a lot of pressure for men to be young, buff, fit, well-turned out with perfect hair and skin, 24/7. ‘GTL’ sounds like a very boring way to spend most of your time too. What about art? Music? Creativity? The metrosexual is an ad-man’s dream, always consuming, always improving himself. It’s not really my dream.
Mark Simpson, the ‘Daddy’ of the metrosexual, also admits not feeling total unconditional love for his love-child. ‘After all’ he says, ‘we all want to kill the thing we love from time to time, and sometimes with our bare hands’. Citing a very famous example, he writes:
‘some looking around today at the evidence of untrammelled male self-regard, such as in the petulant, impossibly pretty, not to mention unforgivably, unapologetically talented, famous and wealthy form of a Cristiano Ronaldo, might say that male metrosexuality was an urge that really did need to be repressed’.
But I think overall I am with Simpson in my grudging celebration of metrosexuality, mainly because he writes so well. He makes Metrosexuality seem, well, sexy! But, more seriously, I accept and welcome his arguments because he shows clearly how metrosexuality represents ‘the end of sexuality’ altogether in many ways. He explains how it goes hand in hand with a relaxing of boundaries around men’s social identities and behaviours, including a lessening of homophobia:
‘The rise of male behaviours, practices and tastes that has been characterised as metrosexual has been made possible in large part by the decline in the stigma attached to male homosexuality. While this stigma made life rather difficult for homosexual men, it also had an instructive, not to say repressive, effect on all men.’
This is probably the clue to why some people still resist ‘metrosexuality’ even whilst it is shoving its pretty ass in our faces. Metrosexuality goes ‘hand in hand with male bi-curiousness’ says Simpson, enabling men to reject the ‘straitjacket’ that compulsory heterosexual masculinity has traditionally imposed upon them. Even though homophobia is not so influential in society today, the concept of the fluidity of men’s sexual expression is still seen as a threat, to what it means for some, to be ‘a man’. But the more people deny this aspect of metrosexual masculinity, the more it flutters its eyelashes at them and smiles charmingly. You can run, basically, but you can’t hide.
Despite my misgivings, then, I accept Mark’s conclusion that
‘love him or loathe him, or call him by any other name, the metrosexual and the bronzed new masculine world of self-regard he represents, is here to stay. And look pretty. And, since he really, really wants us to, we should probably admire him.
Even if he is such a tart’.
