Transexy Alex Reid Trashed By The Snobby Graun

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2012/may/31/alex-reid-crossdressing-solo-sex

‘An insider of one sort or another told New! magazine this week that Reid “was indulging his fantasies” – the mind boggles, particularly since even Jordan once claimed to be alarmed by Reid’s “issues” – “and there were sex toys in the house”. Houghton described Reid’s eyes as “wild and scary”, which prompts a minor blip on the euphemismometer, but the main point, buried in the copy, is that Reid remained in the house, by himself, for a further four days. Whichever way you look at it, there must have been chafing, although as feats of endurance go it’s still nowhere near the grim challenge posed by the harrowing 3:47 duration of Reid’s debut single Stardust.’

It is not news that Alex Reid, former cage fighter and former arm candy to Katie Price, likes to cross dress. As Mark Simpson noted a few years ago, Reid, like a lot of tarty, big-titted metro men, is actually very transexy, in or out of drag. Metrosexuality has a ‘feminine’ side and Reid is just out and proud about his.

But the Graun have used a recent row with his current (now ex? I don’t know or care) partner Chantelle to laugh at Reid again. The Guardian often reports celebrity comings and goings in a ‘detached’ ‘ironic’ tone, supposedly making a comment on how tawdry magazines such as NOW!,  NEW! and CLOSER concern themselves with salacious gossip. This is ironic considering  Suzanne Moore only last week announced solemnly in the Graun that she has had enough of irony.

But like the lowly tabloids and women’s mags, the Guardian is not below employing a sexist double standard with regards to Reid. As Simpson has also observed before, it seems perfectly acceptable now for women to ‘cross’ gender boundaries, by wearing trousers, doing high paid jobs and experimenting with same sex sex, whereas men are ridiculed, and often labelled as ‘gay’ if they dare to transgress the invisible rules of being a man.

Another double standard of course is that the media, including the Guardian, has exploited Reid’s proclivities for their own gain. He was one of the stars of celebrity Big Brother a few years ago, and even the ad breaks were themed around him and his cross-dressing.

The Guardian in particular seems to be offended, not necessarily by men in stockings and suspenders but by men being ‘vulgar’ . The paper has already given Shane Warne and Mikey Sorrentino a ‘kicking’ (Simpson 2011) for shamelessly flaunting their bodies, their highlighted hair and their love of attention. Because they don’t do it in a ‘sophisticated’, (read sexless, middle class hipster) way.

We have come a long way in recent decades. The dominance of traditional masculinity, whatever it is or was, has been well and truly shattered. But there is still a hangover from the days when men were men and women were women and we knew where we stood. And the Guardian seems to need some alka seltzer more than most of us. They’d better get used to it. The world will only get more transexy!

h/t @msemmaB