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Metrosexual is dead. Long live spornosexual

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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Metrosexual is dead. Long live spornosexual

    Timely? Zeitgeisty? Discuss.

    20 years ago, Mark Simpson coined the term 'metrosexual'. But now a new, more extreme, sex- and body-obsessed version has emerged, he explains


    In a development which will probably have him running to the mirror yet again to search anxiously for lines, this year the metrosexual leaves his teens and turns 20.
    How quickly your children grow up. Although it seems only yesterday, I first wrote about him in 1994 after attending an exhibition organised by GQ magazine called "It’s a Man’s World". I’d seen the future of masculinity and it was moisturised.
    "Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are) is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade," I predicted.
    Two decades of increasingly out and proud – and highly lucrative – male vanity later, and the metrosexual remains the apple of consumerism’s rapacious eye. In a recent report, HSBC drooled all over his "Yummy"-ness, pointing out how mainstream metrosexuality has become.
    This was of course old news to anyone with eyes to see the extremely image-conscious and product-consuming men around them – or in bed with them. Or the way that the glistening pecs and abs of men’s health and fitness magazines have been outselling the "lads' mags" for several years.

    Or indeed anyone who saw the news last year that men in the UK now spend more on shoes than women.
    From the perspective of today's fragranced, buffed, ripped, groomed, selfie-adoring world, it's hard to believe that the metrosexual had to struggle to be heard in the early 1990s. Most people were in "New-Lad" denial back then about what was happening to men and why they were taking so long in the bathroom.

    Just as male homosexuality was still stigmatised and partly criminalised back then, the male desire to be desired – the self-regarding heart of metrosexuality – was scorned by many. Narcissism was seen as being essentially feminine, or Wildean – and look what happened to him. The trials of Oscar Wilde, the last dandy, at the end of the 19th Century helped stamp a Victorian morality over much of the 20th century. Male vanity was at best womanish – at worst, perverted.
    The end of the 20th century, the abolition of the last laws discriminating against male homosexuality, and arrival of the preening dominance of celebrity culture with its Darwinian struggle to be noticed in a visual, "branded" world finally blew away the remnants of Victorianism.

    To illustrate this, I only have to say two words: David Beckham, the working-class England footballer who became more globally famous for his attention-seeking haircuts, unabashed prettiness and rampant desire to be desired than for his footballing skills. Once the sari-wearing midfielder was outed in 2002 (by me again, sorry) as the ultimate metrosexual, everyone suddenly "got it". All that Nineties denial turned into incessant Noughties chatter about metrosexuals and "male grooming". But still people failed to understand what was really going on with men.
    In fact, the momentous nature of the masculine revolution that metrosexuality represents has been largely obscured by much of the superficial coverage it got. Metrosexuality is, in a paradox that Wilde would have relished, not skin deep. It’s not about facials and manbags, guyliner and flip flops. It’s not about men becoming "girly" or "gay". It’s about men becoming everything. To themselves. Just as women have been encouraged to do for some time.
    This uptake by men of products, practises and pleasures previously ring-fenced for women and gay men is so normal now – even if we still need to be reassured with the word "man" or "guy" emblazoned on the packaging, like a phallic pacifier – that it’s taken for granted by young men today who really have become everything. So much so that it can be too much for the older generation of metrosexuals.

    With their painstakingly pumped and chiselled bodies, muscle-enhancing tattoos, piercings, adorable beards and plunging necklines it’s eye-catchingly clear that second-generation metrosexuality is less about clothes than it was for the first. Eagerly self-objectifying, second generation metrosexuality is totally tarty. Their own bodies (more than clobber and product) have become the ultimate accessories, fashioning them at the gym into a hot commodity – one that they share and compare in an online marketplace.
    This new wave puts the "sexual" into metrosexuality. In fact, a new term is needed to describe them, these pumped-up offspring of those Ronaldo and Beckham lunch-box ads, where sport got into bed with porn while Mr Armani took pictures.
    Let's call them "spornosexuals".
    But unlike Beckham's metrosexual ads of old, in which his attributes were possibly artificially enhanced, today’s spornosexuals have photoshopped themselves in real life. Think Towie's Dan Osborne in a pair of glittery Speedos (and then have a lie down.)
    Glossy magazines cultivated early metrosexuality. Celebrity culture then sent it into orbit. But for today’s generation, social media, selfies and porn are the major vectors of the male desire to be desired. They want to be wanted for their bodies, not their wardrobe. And certainly not their minds.
    I suspect Wilde might have approved.
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • apathy!
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2014
    • 393

    #2
    Interesting read.

    Really i think this phenomenon can be reduced to the homogenisation of gender roles and the decreasing role that traditionallly masculine values take in our lives.

    I also don't see a distinction between "metro-sexuals" and "spornosexuals". Just another manifestation of U.S. media's perverse penchant for creating acronyms and buzzwords.


    I would be interested if anyone sees these changes as a liberation for men.

    Comment

    • AKA*NYC
      Senior Member
      • Nov 2007
      • 3007

      #3
      Originally posted by apathy! View Post
      Just another manifestation of U.S. media's perverse penchant for creating acronyms and buzzwords.
      this was written by a uk author. we don't have "lads' mags" in the us.

      LOVE THE SHIRST... HOW much?

      Comment

      • apathy!
        Senior Member
        • Jan 2014
        • 393

        #4
        ah true. I should have caught that.

        Replace U.S. with Western if you like.

        Comment

        • mrbeuys
          Senior Member
          • May 2008
          • 2313

          #5
          I LOL'd at phallic pacifier.
          It's probably what I am most annoyed by in all of this : the need to put racing stripes on everything to appeal to me. Man size tissues with a chequered flag on the box. WTF?
          The rest - whatever floats your boat.
          Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

          Comment

          • Faust
            kitsch killer
            • Sep 2006
            • 37852

            #6
            Men used to read books. Now they go to the gym instead.

            I had this conversation with my girlfriend, and we could not come to an agreement, but I do sense that women have begun to give male looks much more weight than in the past. Granted, looks have always mattered, but it seems that in the past it mattered more who a man was than how he looked. And by this I don't mean gold diggers looking for rich men, but it was attractive how a man thought, his sense of humor, erudition, manners, education, career success, etc. Today, image really seems to be everything, and I think those critics who blame Instagram and Facebook are not totally wrong, since these allow people to display an edited life in pictures.

            Am I totally off base here?

            I guess the bright side is that we are achieving sex equality... In the worst possible way.
            Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

            StyleZeitgeist Magazine

            Comment

            • DRRRK
              Senior Member
              • Aug 2009
              • 1195

              #7
              You are absolutely right. I am permanently in disbelief when I hear single women say they want a "real man", basically meaning facial hair and tattoos, almost never the overall attitude. Basically you can be an ugly asshole, cover your face with a full beard and cap (and thank god it's summer, sunglasses!), get some tattoos and you'll never go home alone. This is not just a theory. A lot of women seem to want their partner as some cool accessory, what's behind the looks is definitely less important, some even seem surprised when you talk to them politely and eloquently because they are used to ironic rudeness.

              Comment

              • apathy!
                Senior Member
                • Jan 2014
                • 393

                #8
                Originally posted by Faust View Post

                I guess the bright side is that we are achieving sex equality... In the worst possible way.
                absolutely agree

                Comment

                • Fuuma
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 4050

                  #9
                  1) There is a long term trend in "the western world" (this might not prove true in every country considered western) of women starting to be attracted to men using similar criteria than men were already using (being attracted to them on a visceral level, be it because they have a nice ass or because they're "cool"). This is strongly correlated with financial independence.

                  2) While this might seem positive in itself, especially when you're fuumaliciously good looking, it is accompanied by a transformation of relationships into a new kind of market. Money may not usually be traded but people are def looking for quality products that meet their criteria, be it a knowledge of chiaroscuro or a nice set of washboard abs. They're also ready to stop dealing with products they find defective or that do not meet their standards at the very first sight of problems. As conservatives are, often quite cogently, hammering, the dissolution of the family unit is especially present in marginalized or economically weak communities (in the USA think of the Afro-american fragmented family) and the consequences are possibly dire, although other factors may be at play, which stops me from buying the conservative insight wholesale.

                  3) With that being said I have no idea what this spornosexual bullshit is about, less clothes more muscles was already what they called metrosexual. The only thing I'm ok with saying is that heterosexual males are more into buying beauty products and fashion and generally care more about their appearances than before and do so in a way that was traditionally considered feminine.

                  4) All of this shit brings counter-reactions, like say, the bear community. Rock on big boys
                  Selling CCP, Harnden, Raf, Rick etc.
                  http://www.stylezeitgeist.com/forums...me-other-stuff

                  Comment

                  • Dorje
                    Senior Member
                    • Oct 2013
                    • 284

                    #10
                    I agree with the premise although the labeling (spornosexual?) is ridiculous.

                    It is evident looking at fashion and fragrance, the items being marketed to men are more and more approaching the traditionally feminine.

                    I think the ideals of masculinity are changing as a result, with women being attracted to things they would have laughed at in the past.

                    Comment

                    • apathy!
                      Senior Member
                      • Jan 2014
                      • 393

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Fuuma View Post
                      people are def looking for quality products that meet their criteria, be it a knowledge of chiaroscuro or a nice set of washboard abs.
                      You've put this in a cynical way, but isn't this a good thing?

                      i.e. people looking for traits that appeal to them personally rather than someone with good social status and money.

                      Comment

                      • Faust
                        kitsch killer
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 37852

                        #12
                        Originally posted by DRRRK View Post
                        You are absolutely right. I am permanently in disbelief when I hear single women say they want a "real man", basically meaning facial hair and tattoos, almost never the overall attitude. Basically you can be an ugly asshole, cover your face with a full beard and cap (and thank god it's summer, sunglasses!), get some tattoos and you'll never go home alone. This is not just a theory. A lot of women seem to want their partner as some cool accessory, what's behind the looks is definitely less important, some even seem surprised when you talk to them politely and eloquently because they are used to ironic rudeness.
                        That's what I meant about achieving equality of sexes in the worst possible way.
                        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                        Comment

                        • ES3K
                          Senior Member
                          • Oct 2008
                          • 530

                          #13
                          Yeah, add a longboard, Nike Air Max and a pug dog and that's how 92,7% of all men do look right now. It was never easier to be avantgarde. I kind of like this development.

                          Comment

                          • Shucks
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2010
                            • 3104

                            #14
                            Originally posted by ES3K View Post
                            Yeah, add a longboard, Nike Air Max and a pug dog and that's how 92,7% of all men do look right now. It was never easier to be avantgarde. I kind of like this development.
                            funny how this is true even where i live.

                            Comment

                            • DRRRK
                              Senior Member
                              • Aug 2009
                              • 1195

                              #15
                              Same here

                              Comment

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