The Idea of the Metro-sexuality Challenge Ideas of Masculinity in Fashion

The Idea of the Metro-sexuality Challenge Ideas of Masculinity in Fashion

Introduction

Author Mark Simpson first identified the metro-sexual and coined the term in an article dated from 1994. Although the term continued to be used in Mr. Simpson's region of the world, the United Kingdom, it was not until almost a decade later that it became a part of the American media lexicon and thereby a part of the American popular culture vernacular. What spawned the most current interest in this word and topic was another article by Simpson about David Beckham, the captain of England's soccer team, in the online journal Salon.com titled “Meet the Metro-sexual”. In this article, Simpson defines the metro-sexual: “The typical metro-sexual 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 because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference”.

Given the latter part of this definition, it is hard to distinguish between a metro-sexual and a narcissist; however, in the American popular culture vernacular, the term has come to mean a man who is clearly heterosexual but who exhibits traits and behaviors that have come to be stereotypically identified with gay men. In other words, the metro-sexual is a heterosexually identified male who enjoys what one may refer to as the finer things in life (i.e., shopping for clothes, using grooming products, the arts, fine foods, and wine) and who is concerned with his outward appearance. Also, although Simpson's definition locates the metro-sexual within the proximity of a metropolis, in fact the metro-sexual can now be found in almost any current setting. The spread of metro-sexuality seems to coincide with the phenomenal media sensation and popularity of the Bravo television series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in which five self-identified gay men, known as the Fab Five, surprise a willing heterosexual male who allows them to make him over into what is supposed to be a more pleasing version of himself in order to make him more appealing to his respective female significant other.

Each of the five gay men is representative of an area of the metro-sexual concern: clothing, grooming, decorating, food and wine, and culture. With the seemingly overnight success of this sleeper, there was a rise in the awareness of the metro-sexual in American culture. At the present time, metro-sexual is seen more as a label than an identity. In other words, one may not identify himself as being metro-sexual; however, if someone were to label him as metro-sexual he would probably not deny it. This, however, may be changing. In the irreverent cartoon series South Park, episode 708 had almost every heterosexual male citizen declaring his metro-sexuality.

Metro-sexuality

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