http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/men-balls-brains-lads-mags

The latest article from Stuart Jeffries, who has worked at the Guardian FOREVER, is quite something.

He is joining in the whole bandwagon about lads mags and the Uni Lad ‘lad culture’. He writes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2099938/OK-I-dont-really-need-butler–I-love-Daves-Downton-Abbey-tax-dodge.html

Over the last few days, whilst the Sun Newspaper has been under fire, Suzanne Moore has advocated for Guardian readers not to judge. She thinks if you actually hope for a particular outfit to close, you are just being partisan. I agree. Moore, who writes for the Mail and The Graun, may have a vested interest in her point of view.

But in the spirit of supporting the right for all perspectives to be heard in the press, I popped over to the Mail On Sunday to read Moore’s weekly column. It turns out she manages to spout the exact same feminist misandry that she writes in the Guardian. Who said feminism was just for liberals?

In a piece about service industries and domestic help she writes:

‘Judging women for having cleaners or au pairs keeps a system in place where somehow childcare, whether paid or unpaid, remains entirely a female issue. Men presumably have children too but they are not derided for having personal assistants or chauffeurs, both of which are tax-deductible.

It is madness to consider childcare a form of decadence. Without it, I would neither have studied nor worked and paid tax all my life. Going to the hairdresser’s, having the car washed, getting a manicure, having a meal out – all these things are services that people choose to pay for. The servicing of men  is taken for granted but when women pay other women, mostly out of necessity, we are seen as spoilt and neglectful‘ (my emphasis).

I think Moore’s comments illustrate clearly how misandry is the acceptable prejudice, as Mark Simpson has put it. She is able to say that ‘the servicing of men is taken for granted’ when feminist culture actually demonises men who pay for sex, or female company, or meals at restaurants such as Hooters. That judgemental attitude is accepted, and hidden, whereas when women get judged for what they do, it becomes the topic of a column in a national paper.

Also, whilst Moore thinks it is noble that she and other women have worked in lowly jobs such as cleaning, women who work in the sexual service industries to make ends meet are not lauded by feminists such as Moore.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, whatabouttehmenz and whatabouttehsexworkers?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/blog/2012/feb/08/gender-studies-inequality-boardroom#start-of-comments

The Guardian this week featured an outstandingly ‘radfem’ article about the need for gender studies, for women. It said:

‘The schooling system is one of our most precious assetsand holds the key to improving the lot of women and girls in the workplace, family and culture. Empowering girls to fight their individual battles, unsupported, can only take us so far. Educating men and boys – in particular – to question the beliefs, customs, traditions on which the oppression, abuse and devaluing of females depends seems an obvious and profoundly necessary step.’

Apart from the fact it used the biologically determinist, gender essentialist ‘females’ to describe women, and employed rather a spectacular example of misandry, I noticed something about the piece. In the comments I remarked:

‘Tom Martin might disagree with you.

He is currently suing the LSE Gender Institute for discrimination against men, and misandry.

Maybe you could have mentioned that in your article?’

This led to an interesting discussion which rather overshadowed the partisan and badly-researched journalism.

Viva the Bottom Half of the internet!

Please excuse this metrosexual overload lately! I will be back to usual Guardian business soon. But I wanted to post this interview by me, with  Mark Simpson  about his 2011 book, Metrosexy. It originally appeared at Law and Sexuality  blog and was a very popular post with nearly 10,000 hits so far. But when I looked for it recently for reference it had been taken down. Chris Ashford who runs the blog, had previously been unhappy with me when I complained about my treatment by  Freedom In A Puritan Age website. He seems to love them, and their editor and didn’t seem bothered that they censored me. But that has nothing to do with Mark Simpson who seems to have suffered due to something between other people. Anyway I don’t want to lose the interview. So here it is, for … posteriority.

1. What does metrosexuality mean for gay men? Is it good that straight men are looking and acting more and more ‘gay’?

MS: I think gay men are very ambivalent about metrosexuality. I know I am. It’s like a dream come true. And a living nightmare at the same time. All these fit, tarty straight men inviting – no, DEMANDING – the ‘gayze’. Pro athletes like Beckham and Ronaldo oiled up on the side of buses offering us their lunch-packets, and Becks and Gavin Henson bickering over who has the most gay fans. Homoerotics, narcissism and the celebration of the male body are no longer gay copyright. Truth be told, a lot of straight men do these things much better than The Gays now. Which can be a tad confusing.

Maybe this is why so many of gays seem to have given up and retreated into the furry, fatty security of the bear mary look, which now dominates in most metropolitan gayborhoods. Perhaps because they have more to prove, or perhaps because of their perpetual flight from the feminine, gay men can be rather more uptight than straight men, who increasingly don’t care whether something looks ‘manly’ or not – just whether it’s hot or not.

Far too many bears rush to say bitchy things about Ronaldo’s shaped eyebrows or ‘twinky’ smoothness, as if they are the experts on manliness now that they’re body-hair fetishists with a dubious BMI index and a wardrobe full of plaid. Actually, these bears sound the way I imagine their dads did moaning about THEM when they were younger.

2. So you think gay men are threatened by pretty, pert, metro-man?

MS: Yes. The Gays, for all their denial, know better than anyone what metrosexuality means. The beginning of the end of the gay identity.  Straight men no longer need to project their own ‘gayness’ into gay bodies. They want it for their own, thank you very much. Gays no longer have to be gay for straights – so that straights can be straight. And however much gays may have reclaimed the dustbin identity of homosexual-queer-gay and fashioned something wonderful out of it, in the end it has outlived its point.

 3. What about women? Whilst men are becoming more and more like women, do you think the breakdown as you call it of the ‘division of bedroom and bathroom labour’ is making women resent modern men? 

MS: I’m not much of an expert on women, you won’t be surprised to hear. Guessing wildly, I’d say that women, like men, want to have their cake and eat it. So they welcome the idea of men who are buffed and clean and well-dressed and able to go shopping with them and cook up a storm and perhaps have something to talk about.

But at the same time, many are probably worried – rightly – that this means they’re no longer the eternal centre of men’s attention. Like those female contestants on Blind Date back in the 80s who always chose the male stripper, were besides themselves when the wall slid back and they saw his pectoral muscles. But then came back the following week complaining: ‘’e really loves ‘imself, that one!’

Likewise the self-maintenance of metrosexuals is a double-edged sword. Retrosexuals were famously unable to operate a washing machine or cooker or buy their own underwear. This meant a life of drudgery for women, which many of course are glad to be shot of. But I suspect some also miss the reassurance that their man was helpless without them. And by the way, all the developments that have made women’s lives less of a chore – washing machines, fridges, microwaves, ready meals, the pill – have made it much easier for men to live without women. And more do now than ever before.

4. How has metrosexuality changed how gay men do sex? ‘Gaydar’ can’t work as well as it used to when most straight men look and act at least as ‘gay’ as gay men. How do gay men negotiate sexual relationships in this confusing metrosexual world?

MS: I’m not sure I can answer this one as I became a provincial lesbian some years ago when I leftLondon.

But from what I hear gay cruising has become increasingly privatised. It happens in sex clubs or on Grindr. In public spaces I think the codes of ‘gay looking’ are very mixed up now. Not just in the sense that lots of straight men look ‘gay’ but in the sense that lots of straight men LOOK. Metrosexuality involves a certain cruisiness – checking out who is checking you out, as well as what jeans they’re wearing and whether they have bigger biceps than you.

5. What does metrosexuality do to challenge preconceived ideas about ‘tops and bottoms’? Even now, and even within gay circles, there remains a prejudice that tops are somehow more ‘manly’ than bottoms, and even less ‘gay’. But looking at photos of men in advertising and fashion, it seems as if they are always saying ‘do me’.

MS: Metrosexuality, particularly in its spornographic incarnation – those footballers and rugby players with their arses out – is about literally asking to be fucked. Becks, Henson, Ronaldo, Ljunberg, the Du Stade rugby team – they’re all straight power bottoms. That’s what exhibitionism means. In psychoanalytical terms it’s ‘passivity’. Which is supposed to be feminine. This is precisely why this kind of male tartiness was taboo for so long. But now male ‘passivity’ – or bottomness – is definitely being masculinised or valorised by these images. In these ads ‘Jocks’ are saying to the world in general and probably gay men in particular ‘do me’.

Nor is this just something that only exists in the virtual world of advertising. Straight men are increasingly exploring their anality, via their female partner’s vibrator or strap-on Or in some cases by trying out the ‘real’ thing with other men.

But I don’t know what effect this is having on gay men’s sexual economy of tops and bottoms. If straight men are becoming increasingly versatile, gay men seem increasingly attached to the idea of ‘100% tops’. Lots of bottoms reject tops if they find out they like to be a cock jockey sometimes.

I myself think the whole tops and bottoms thing absurd, but I’m completely complicit in it. So I describe myself as a ‘top’, but I don’t kid myself that I’m ever the one who’s in control.

6. I know you are ambivalent about ‘the gays’. As author of Anti-Gay, can I ask if you ever actually ‘came out’ as gay? Have you come out as metro?

MS: I don’t think I ever really needed to come out. And while I’m certainly vain enough to be metro, my sportswear fetish means I’m more lesbosexual.

7. Who is the most metrosexual gay man you can think of? Do you find him attractive?

MS: Tom Ford. After all, he’s sort of who David Beckham wants to be, isn’t he?

Tom didn’t exactly invent that adorable, impeccable designer stubble that pretty much all metros wear these days, but he probably did more than anyone to help make it de rigeur.

And no, sorry. Not my cup of tea, love. I’m sure he’s a top….

Metrosexy is available on Amazon Kindle Amazon.com

Mark Simpson blogs at www.marksimpson.com

English author and journalist Mark Simpson is credited/blamed for coining the word ‘metrosexual‘ in an essay titled ‘Here come the mirror men’ in the UK’s Independent newspaper in 1994. Simpson is the author of several books including: Saint Morrissey, Male Impersonators, It’s a Queer World, Anti-Gay (Ed.), The Queen Is Dead, and Sex Terror

Interview By Quiet Riot Girl www.quietgirlriot.wordpress.com

Quiet Riot Girl is a writer and blogger with a keen interest (and a shady academic past) in gender and sexualities. She edits a regular online writing anthology www.gamespervertsplay.wordpress.com

I am delighted to publish this guest post by the wonderful blogger, The Spanish Intermission. It is a critique of Mark Simpson’s recent article in the Graun. I am so enthused by it I might go all meta on your asses and write a ‘critique of the critique’. But first, here’s James, who really does give Simpson a run for his money:

___________________

For quite some time now, I’ve been aware of Mark Simpson‘s writing on the ‘cult’ of metrosexuality and the male body in popular culture. Or, should I say, I’ve been aware of Mark Simpson since I first started following pedantic anti-feminist battleship Quiet Riot Girl on Twitter. Perhaps shamefully, without actually reading an exhaustive amount of the canon, the two of them inspired one of my first reasonably ponderous blog posts- a post that now has the honour of being my most viewed, due in large part to the amount of people who find it by search terms including (but not limited to) ’one direction pubes’, ‘male pubis’ and, er ‘skating pubes’.

I bet One Direction don’t have two pubic hairs between them.

Anyway, it was, of course, through QRG that I found Simpson’s op-ed in today’s Guardian. “So, men are obsessed with their bodies. Is that so bad?“, he asks. He goes on to say why it’s not. Here are a few choice extracts.

 It wasn’t until the noughties that the world was ready to discuss what was happening to men and why they were spending so long in the bathroom. And of course the footie that New Lad fetishised for its manly “authenticity” went most flamingly metrosexual of all.

[...]

A third of those [men] surveyed [in a YMCA and UWE Bristol sample] said they thought about their appearance more than five times a day, 18% were on a high-protein diet to increase muscle mass, and 16% on a calorie-controlled diet to slim down. A Faustian 35% claimed they would happily trade a year of their life if they could have their ideal body weight and shape. Probably because they hoped the years would be sliced off the end of their lives – when they’re old and crumbly and not very likely to appear in a spray-on vest on the “straight” dating show Take Me Out anyway.

[...]

Men’s main preoccupation, the YMCA survey suggested, was their “beer belly” and lack of muscles, with a whopping 63% saying they thought their arms or chests were not muscular enough.

[...]

A glance at the newstand, the billboard, the telly and the queue at the bus stop will tell you that with many young men the desire to be desired, the driving force of the metrosexual revolution of the last decade or so, has taken an increasingly physical, sensual form.

[...]

Despite the downside to male self-objectification outlined in the YMCA study, the generalised, compulsory self-loathing among men that went before was mostly worse. It was also considered normal.

Okay, that’s loads of extracts.

So, men look at themselves a lot. There are whole flourishing industries that base themselves around the cult of men’s sexiness, clothing them, feeding them, sending them out into the big wide world. But for whom? It’s interesting that Simpson doesn’t seem to relate the male drive to be sexy with actually getting sex; that is, he speaks of preening and pampering and pumping iron as something that men do for themselves, and share with other men in a homosocial, but not necessarily homoerotic, way. I’m not so naive as to believe that this is the case. Plenty of men want to be sexy to get sex, either from men, women, or men and women. But I think he hits the nail on the head when he speaks of men simply wanting to be “hot”, to be what he calls their own “high street honeys”. Perhaps, for some, their obsession with their own bodies is exactly that, and it stops at themselves. Being sexy and getting sex are two separate things; related, but not mutually inclusive. I know plenty of guys who take up residence in the gym because they’re building a Spartan body for themselves, not for a woman. They know that it draws attention to them, and they’re proud of that. But it’s a bonus, not an aim.

Of course, going to the gym is one thing, while buying a wardrobe of GAP chinos and River Island cardigans is quite another. And there’s a stronger argument for gym-going as being a solitary pursuit than there is for spending vast amounts of money on items of fashion being the same thing. And the thing about fashion, as any petulant non-conformist proto-hipster will tell you (with or without the irony), adherence to fashion makes everyone look the same. Same chinos, same cardigan, same beanie hat (same drainpipe cords, same 90s batik shirt, same Mac). It’s a practise that only ends in itself. Is this the metrosexual practitioner? Or is it the guy in the gym? You can be both, or you can be neither.

As a side note, there’s a lot to be said about the distinctions between metrosexuality and hipster subculture, in terms of the body as a performative space. The notion of hipsters embodying a kind of androgyny-chic is well touted, while the metrosexual has a tendency to appropriate supposedly feminine pastimes without necessarily obliterating normative masculinity: spending time and money on appearance, perhaps in emulation of certain pop-culture figures or trends, showing a willingness to enter, if not verbally then by one’s presence alone, into a public, social discussion of that appearance. What’s the difference? If there’s an element of faux-gender bending in hipsterdom, how does that relate to sexual self-awareness? I’m sure there’s a danger of stereotyping the hipster as a reasonably educated, [white] middle class citizen, perhaps from a conservative background but with ostensibly liberal tendencies. The way Simpson puts it at the beginning of his article, it’s as if he coyly suspects metrosexuality to inhabit a typically lower-middle class, upper-working class station: “Back in the early 90s, when Loaded magazine and footie were conquering the culture, making it untuck its shirt, admire its beer belly and leer at “babes”…”. The crossover occurs when one has the leisure time and leisure money to spend on gym memberships, fitted suits and man-bags.

Back to the article, the denouement of which would appear to be that with great body awareness comes great body confidence. Lots of men checking each other out in the changing rooms is a Good Thing. As he concedes, though, there are obvious, complex, and potentially devastating downsides to self obsession.

Let the record state that at this point, the author went to look at a first year undergraduate essay that he wrote on anorexia and femininity, thinking ‘I’d hate to be one of those guys who ever uses the phrase “I wrote an essay about this in university.”‘

Simpson quite rightly points out that young men “historically have been very reluctant to visit their GP and tend to die at a younger age than women.” According to an EU-wide study conducted by a team of researchers including Men’s Health Forum’s Prof. Alan White,  it seems we still are.

This report was commissioned by the European Commission and funded through its Public Health Programme to inform policy makers, health professionals, academics and the wider population of the health challenges men face.

The press release identifies the following key findings:

[...]

• Over 50% of premature deaths amongst men are avoidable.

[...]

• Men are less likely than women to engage in routine or preventative health checks.

[...]

• Testicular cancer, despite effective treatment, still remains the first cause of cancer death among young males (20-35 years).
• Men’s depression and other mental health problems are under detected and under treated in all European countries. This is partly due to men being less likely to seek help.

If men have suffered in the past from not visiting our GPs soon enough, then we’re still suffering. Increased body awareness in a public sense doesn’t necessarily equate to an advanced sense of physical or sexual health in a more private sense. Obviously, not all men are metrosexual in the classic (is there a ‘classic’ metrosexual?) sense, if at all. It might be the dominant image in pop culture, but Paddy McGuiness’s Take Me Out hasn’t Taken Over the World just yet. And the demographic of men is as diverse as the day is long. Those working classes with little free time and little disposable income will most often be even less likely to visit a GP than a high-flying man with time on his hands.

The point is, while a man’s public sexuality might be in the spotlight, very little of this seems to push past that level. Does the metrosexual man exist away from the high street, the gym, the nightclub? Has he supplanted the archetypal, no-nonsense masculine figure who shuts up and gets on with it, like the orchestra aboard the Titanic who supposedly carried on playing while the ship sank? Or has it just modified him, dressed him in different clothes and put crap dubstep in his headphones? After all, the term “metrosexual” is, in its modification of “heterosexual”, somewhat of a misnomer. It has to express a new kind of thing without complete departure from the original quality, like “man-bag”, “man-purse”, “man-flu”, “man-candy”, “man-crush”, “man-date”, ad infinitum. While I would agree that ‘heterosexuality’ is to an extent constructed by how one acts in a public/social/economic sense, I don’t know if metrosexuality yet inhabits a similar place in the sex canon. It seems less dependent on being sexually attracted to someone else, than it does being sexually or physically obsessed by oneself. It’s another modification of a base entity, and by that virtue, tends to retain many of the core qualities of the original- for better or for worse.

This is, I suppose, the crux of my bœuf with Simpson’s prognosis for metrosexuality. Are secondary school-age kids who follow TOWIE and Geordie Shore turning up to sex-ed lessons with a more nuanced perspective on themselves and their relations to others? Have they stopped teasing each other or bullying one another based on physical traits? How many men buy JLS brand condoms as part of a rigorous metrosexual health lifestyle? I’m afraid I still need convincing that pop-public metrosexuality is synonymous with physical, sexual and mental self-awareness and self-care. “You could be rotten underneath but if you look great no one gives a fook”, says Simpson’s gym buddy. Metrosexuality seems to be just as much about competition and a Darwinian eradication of the unacceptable as it does an enlightened inclusiveness. But I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.

Mark Simpson says he’s happy enough to watch “straight men flaunting their depilated pecs and abs on reality shows”. I hear Nero also fiddled while Rome burned.

http://thespanishintermission.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/manly-men-men-a-look-at-mark-simpsons-guardian-op-ed/

This is a guest post by Anna Racoon that critiques an article from Huffpo by Lynne Featherstone the Equalities minister. It seems relevant to Graunwatch!

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/body-image-and-the-feminist-agenda/

‘Fat is a Feminist Ishooo’ ran the old joke. Many a true word spoken in jest.

It is no secret that I have long believed Lynne Featherstone to be the only Liberal-Democrat worthy of being allowed anywhere near Government, so it was a disappointment this morning to read her latest offering on the subject of ‘body image’ and her reasons for supporting government intervention in the images we are allowed to compare ourselves to.

Every day people are confronted with images of the ‘perfect’ body that just don’t reflect the diverse society we live in. These unrealistic images set an impossible standard, potentially damaging self esteem and crushing confidence.

People have been confronted with idealised images since man first figured out how to paint on a cave wall. Some were daft enough to paint their dark skin with lead in an effort to conform to this idealised image – others quietly buried them and learnt the lesson. It didn’t require Government intervention.

Probably the best thing this Government has done is NOT to offer to replace all those Silicone breast implants. A salutary lesson is being absorbed out there in teenage land. But Lynne is swimming against this tide of sanity on the subject of body image. She believes:

that ‘as a government minister it is my responsibility to address them’.

She wants to see an updated Governmental control of cave paintings, presumably depicting dark skinned women for the light skinned to risk their lives roasting themselves to conform to, light skinned women for the dark skinned to continue painting themselves with lead in a similar effort, and a scattered few depicting leprosy so that some daft bint can chop off her nose to emulate.

I want to see a wider spectrum of body shapes represented in popular culture, to include all ages, all shapes, all sizes and ethnicities. This is something that we need to work with industry to achieve.

It’s not just confined to women of course, ’10% of boys said they would start taking steroids to build muscle if they were unhappy with the way they looked’. Noooo, how are we going to counter that? Are we going to insist that every Premier league football match has at least three overweight middle aged men puffing round the pitch so that teenage boys shouldn’t be confronted by a ‘relentless diet’ of images of bodily perfection? Shall we have Formula One cars adapted to hold the Paraplegic so that those in an iron lung are no longer forced to solely gaze at the snake hipped and nimble miniature men best suited to sitting astride a mobile petrol can?

Where are you planning to stop Lynne? Repainting Ruben’s idealised women in every stately home? Banning the reprinting of Victorian adverts showing women with impossibly small waists? Or is this just a back door attempt to introduce censorship into modern publishing?

What puzzles me is that you claim all these surveys show ’50% of women feel under pressure to look good at all times and 46% of women feel under pressure to lose weight’ and yet each time I turn on the Television I am confronted by acres of rolling flesh in every direction belonging to the 54% who obviously don’t feel obliged to lose weight. It would seem that the great British public is only too well equipped and dealing only too successfully with ‘the pressure to lose weight’. Is somebody forcing them to eat against their will?

All the major clothing manufacturers are stealthily increasing their idea of the ‘standard sizes’ – with the result that if you order something in a size 12 on-line it turns up fully equipped to house a family of Kosovan refugees.

I want more people to recognise that emotional qualities – character and individuality – are equally expressive of beauty as narrow, physical appearance.

That would seem to be happening very successfully already. Every time I see one of these lard mountains, male or female, they appear to be accompanied by a raft of children – suggesting that more than sufficient people of the opposite sex are overlooking their lack of compliance with ‘idealised’ beauty.

Jo Swinson MP has added her ten penn’orth. “Low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders are all increasing, along with unhealthy behaviours: half of young people have been on a diet”

Could that be something to do with the increase in Government interference in what we eat, when we eat, how we eat? The constant ‘nannying’ adverts telling us what children should have in their lunch-box, how many green vegetables we should eat every day?

I see no evidence that this Commission is looking at Governmental behaviour as the defining influence on alleged body image anxiety – merely seeking a back door route to apply Feminist censorship regulation to the Advertising industry, Health and fitness sector, Media, Youth organisations, and the Fashion and beauty sector.

Do find yourself something useful to do Lynne, there’s a good girl. Stop meddling. We elect to buy goods from manufacturers because we like the way they advertise them – if we didn’t, we wouldn’t buy. Do you really think I’m likely to buy ice-cream from the two pictured above this post? Really?

This is the full text of today’s article in Comment is Free by Mark Simpson:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/men-obsessed-bodies-male-objectification?CMP=twt_gu

Back in the early 90s, when Loaded magazine and footie were conquering the culture, making it untuck its shirt, admire its beer belly and leer at “babes”, I foolishly predicted the future of men was metrosexual.

No one believed me, of course. Everyone was in New Lad denial. It wasn’t until the noughties that the world was ready to discuss what was happening to men and why they were spending so long in the bathroom. And of course the footie that New Lad fetishised for its manly “authenticity” went most flamingly metrosexual of all.

But for all my Cassandrine prophecies, no one is more surprised than me by just how tarty men in the post-metrosexual teenies have turned out. Or to put it in more “sociological” language: how readily they objectify and commodify themselves and one another.

In the last few months the newspapers have told us that men now take longer getting ready than women, and are more likely to take travel irons, hairdryers and straighteners on holiday. And this month a widely reported “Body Talk” survey by the YMCA and Bristol University claimed that men were now more body-conscious than women.

A third of those surveyed said they thought about their appearance more than five times a day, 18% were on a high-protein diet to increase muscle mass, and 16% on a calorie-controlled diet to slim down. A Faustian 35% claimed they would happily trade a year of their life if they could have their ideal body weight and shape. Probably because they hoped the years would be sliced off the end of their lives – when they’re old and crumbly and not very likely to appear in a spray-on vest on the “straight” dating show Take Me Out anyway.

Some were reportedly undertaking “compulsive” exercise, strict diets, using laxatives or making themselves sick in an attempt to lose weight or achieve a more toned physique. And although the survey didn’t cover this, other reports suggest a surprisingly large number of males are alsotaking steroids, growth hormones and other prescription drugs to achieve a more aesthetically pleasing appearance. To be “hot”.

Which generally means tits and abs. Men’s main preoccupation, the YMCA survey suggested, was their “beer belly” and lack of muscles, with a whopping 63% saying they thought their arms or chests were not muscular enough. And people never believe me when I tell them that while some women are size queens, all men are.

All surveys should be taken with a shovel of salt, of course – particularly the YMCA study which seems to have had a rather higher ratio of gym-goers than the general male population. Perhaps the most reliable source of information on the rise of male tartiness is the evidence of your own eyes.

A glance at the newstand, the billboard, the telly and the queue at the bus stop will tell you that with many young men the desire to be desired, the driving force of the metrosexual revolution of the last decade or so, has taken an increasingly physical, sensual form. Lovingly, painstakingly sculpted, shaved muscles decorated with those elaborate designer tattoos. OK, I admit it, I’ve done a bit more than glance.

It’s clear those Men’s Health front covers promising bigger arms, pumped pecs and ripped abs by teatime tomorrow, laughable and repetitive as they are, must be tapping into 21st-century man’s deepest, darkest and beefiest desires. A couple of years ago Men’s Health replaced FHM as the best-selling men’s magazine. Men have become their own “high street honeys”.

Turn on the telly this week and you’ll see the return of the shameless, busty male hussies of Geordie Shore and the preening boys of The Only Way is Essex. And also the launch of an ad campaign by the  sporno star who has taught this new generation of metrosexy males everything they know about self-objectification and commodification. David Beckham’s H&M commercials will feature him shoving his designer (and possibly photoshopped) package down the nation’s throats again. Meanwhile at the cinema the chattering classes have been flocking to see Shame, a harrowing film about sex addiction which seems to prompt everyone to talk about how shaggable Michael Fassbender is – and how big his talent.

As an avid fan of the male body I can’t help but mostly welcome today’s parade of metrosexy male bodies. Despite the downside to male self-objectification outlined in the YMCA study, the generalised, compulsory self-loathing among men that went before was mostly worse. It was also considered normal.

After all, not wanting to talk about their bodies is part of the reason why men historically have been very reluctant to visit their GP and tend to die at a younger age than women. Until very recently the male body was simply an instrument that was to be used until the mainspring broke. Barely giving men time to rewind their horribly symbolic retirement clock.

And certainly, men didn’t look at one another’s bodies. Now they can’t stop staring. A married squaddie mate who is an occasional gym buddy of mine always subjects my body to close scrutiny in the changing rooms after our workouts. Appreciatively commending, say, my deltoid or tricep development and mercilessly criticising, say, my belly’s general flabbiness. As he says, “No one really cares whether any of this makes you fit or not, Mark. You could be rotten underneath but if you look great no one gives a fook.” He’s right. The metrosexy cult of male beauty is all a bit Dorian Ghey.

Watching straight men flaunting their depilated pecs and abs on reality shows, or the orange rugby players spinning around topless in glittery tight pants on Strictly Come Dancing – or Tom Hardy doing much the same thing in Warrior – it’s as if I’ve died and gone to a hellish kind of heaven. But I can probably live with that.

• Mark Simpson will be one of the speakers at Beefcake: Gay Men and the Body Beautiful at UCL, London on 6 February

—————————–

My comment below the line:

‘What is funny is how the writer tries to give such a light weight obsession some crediblity by throwing in words like Cassandrine and referring to surveys.’

Well usini I don’t think metrosexuality (and Mr Simpson coined the concept ‘metrosexual’ back in 1994) is so lightweight.

Masculinity has transformed in recent decades. Did George best parade himself on massive billboards in his undies, not just any undies, but ones which display his packet and his ripped torso?

Men wherever you look, especially young men, are focusing on their bodies as much if not more than women do these days. And they are buying lots of gym memberships and product to do so. This shift in gender expression is also a shift in, or at least a continued expansion of, consumer capitalism.

Me, I think it is important. But sometimes it feels like I am the only person apart from Mr Simpson himself, who does.

P.s. I see Simpson is speaking at an event called ‘Beefcake’ about ‘gay’ men’s bodies.

I think that sounds ridiculous and out of date and also erases bisexual men.

He edited a book called Anti Gay in 1996 which challenged the concept of ‘gay’ identity and gay culture. Now he is being wheeled on to talk about ‘gay’ men’s bodies as if it is not a problematic concept at all.

Auntie Gay is a bit upset!

http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2012/01/31/todays-men-are-obsessed-with-their-bodies-but-is-that-so-bad/

This is a guest post by regular Graunwatch reader redpesto:

Like Suzanne Moore, I haven’t read  Metrosexy (yet…). Unlike QRG, I’ve a bit more time for her, or at least I have done in the past. But ever since she’s returned to the Guardian from writing for the Daily Mail  I’ve repeatedly wondered whether, like Buffy, she ‘came back wrong’, and that the Guardian’s take on gender issues has possibly ‘jumped the shark’. Moore’s latest column on ‘Tory feminism’ is a case in point. QRG’s already looked at it for its lack of analysis of men, but I want to pick up something else (as I suggested  in the comments.)

The concept of ‘Tory feminism’, encapsulated in the form of ubiquitous backbench MP Louise Mensch, was always going to be difficult for the Guardian to respond to. Not because feminism ‘belongs to’ the left, but rather because of the whole concept of feminism as a ‘broad church’ (yes, yes, I know, QRG, but bear with me). It was always going to look silly if other women were ruled out from being feminists – even though that’s exactly what has happened to lesbians and sex workers in the past. The response in the paper to the release of Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady was revealing: caught between acknowledging her achievement as Britain’s first female Prime Minister and denouncing her for not being a ‘real feminist’ (whatever that is these days) or for not doing enough for other women (Bidisha simultaneously wants to let Thatcher have it with both rhetorical barrels and yet still find a way of blaming the patriarchy).

The mean part of me wants to laugh. Not because I hate feminism (sorry, QRG), but because Tory Feminism calls ‘mainstream’ feminism’s bluff, just as Sarah Palin’s Vice-Presidential nomination threw down the gauntlet to those women who wanted a woman – any woman – for US President. I’ve posted here and (under another username) at the Guardian about how simply celebrating more women ‘making it’ in a male-dominated world as a ‘feminist’ achievement was never going to be sufficient. Weight of numbers is not an ideology. ‘Tory feminism’ forces – or should force – a much better analysis by way of response.

I’m not getting my hopes up, though. Moore might state that ‘I don’t want to burst your bubble but women, like men, are all different,’ but so much of the rhetoric in the paper (see Jane Martinson’s posts on the Women’s Blog) relies on ‘women’ as one big homogenous category in contrast to ‘men’ (the basic principle of both radical and ‘vulgar’ feminism), as in ‘women’ versus ‘The Coalition.’ The chief attribute of The Coalition, therefore, is apparently not its ideology but rather its gender composition. The Coalition is evil because it’s full of men, not because it’s full of Tories. Somehow ‘more women’ is meant to transform it into something more feminist, or at least more progressive; a common argument  for the Guardian where ‘diversity’ keeps being confused with a gender balance which could easily be 100% white or where right-wing women never make up the numbers of women in the media or politics or elsewhere.

It’s the same with Leveson. As I said in the comments to this Graunwatch article:

‘Despite all the work of the Guardian in breaking the story, despite the presence of the Dowler and McCann families at the inquiry, despite the fact that News International was pretty indiscriminate about whose phones they hacked, Leveson should really be all about the women. Feminism’s one-club golfers strike again.’

Moore’s argument that ‘This is but a side-issue for Leveson, one of many, for why did he not discuss “sexism” with male editors or with Richard Desmond, whose media business is founded on porn?’ can only be answered with ‘because it wasn’t in the remit,’ even though some keep thinking either that it is or that ‘more women’ would ensure that it was.

Mensch’s role in all this is significant as she was on the Commons’ select committee looking at News International and the phone hacking scandal, had a big media moment when she left a sitting early, ostensibly to collect her kids (leading to  accusations of ‘grandstanding’ about being a working mother), and has been caught up in ‘media sexism’ rows even as she received plenty of ‘savvy’ publicity via a fashion shoot and interview in GQ. The Guardian (or at least Jane Martinson) can’t make up its mind whether to campaign for her or hate her, because it’s trapped between cheering for women because they’re women and the belated recognition that some of those women don’t really share any of the paper’s politics.

Mensch also wrote a sneering, provocative article for Comment Is Free crowing about ‘Tory feminism’ in contrast to its sad (Labour-ish) counterpart. Moore notes that:

‘It’s all cool except don’t mention the C-word. Class. Or that downer thing, victims. Some women don’t see themselves as victims. They are victims. They are beaten and abused, they don’t vote and gasp (!) don’t have their own small businesses. Sometimes collective politics means simply looking out for the weakest rather than pushing oneself up to bellow with the strongest.’

Yet this is the only mention of ‘class’ in the entire article. I’m not surprised: feminism divorced from anything resembling socialism decades ago. The oft-repeated claim that ‘women are disproportionately affected by the cuts’ failed to differentiate between richer and poorer women.  Poor men became invisible or irrelevant. A lack of focus on economic inequalities between classes leaves feminism either focusing on those between ‘men’ and ‘women’ or seeking a focus on anything rather than economics – hence the emphasis on domestic and sexual violence and moral panic about ‘sexualisation’ that takes up the remainder of Moore’s article, as in this passage:

‘This is uncomfortable territory for the Tories because if everything is left to a deregulated market, then everybody is up for sale. This hypersexualised culture is not new, but its means of transmission are. What initially drove the Suffragettes was widespread prostitution and venereal disease. This was the price poor women paid to uphold “Victorian values”. The early suffrage movement wanted to protect women as well as give them a modicum of power. Emmeline Pankhurst joined the Tories herself, many years after women had been given the vote.’

But this is equally ‘uncomfortable territory’ for feminists, since the Tories are perfectly capable of both (hypocritically) co-opting feminism and also allowing the market to let rip – as long as other, poorer women (and men) get it in the neck. The Tories can appeal less to feminists concerned about ‘hypersexualised images’ and more to the sexually conservative streak in both movements that seeks to police other people’s sexual behaviour or choices rather than manifestations of popular culture. It’s what happened in the US under Reagan with the Meese Commission in the 1980s. It’s why Mensch approved of SlutWalks yet objected to what she termed ‘promiscuity’, while Gail Dines simply objected to SlutWalks.

If feminism really is about the right to self-determination over one’s body, the argument isn’t just about reproductive rights, but also other areas such as non-monogamy, sex work, porn and BDSM – all of which some feminist ‘prefects’ have objected to other women doing. Back in the nineteenth-century it was ‘social purity’ feminism; now it’s Object asking for Loaded to be sold all of three feet higher in newsagents, because they’re not honest enough to just demand a ban. That fact that everybody could still end up ‘for sale’ in a world without hypersexualised images of women (rather than men) that feminists object to (and I say this as someone who’s no fan of ‘Page 3′ of the Sun) seems to be less of an issue.

In this respect, austerity is not ‘stripping us down to very old gender roles, despite the efforts of a few vibrant women MPs such as Mensch.’ First, because austerity is about stripping poorer people down in terms of wealth: remember, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. Second, because Mensch is what happens when gender trumps class and when ‘class’ is used only in reference to women, if it is used at all. ‘Tory feminists’ aren’t ‘fake’: they are merely in favour of women like themselves as well as every policy of The Coalition that doesn’t threaten their economic, class, party or personal interests. Ignoring that is what happens when biology trumps ideology. Or it’s what happens when a very vocal strand of feminism conflates sexism with sex, to the detriment of everything else. I worry that somewhere along the line Moore has lost a sense of interconnection in favour of a much more simplistic analysis, as has the Guardian’s coverage of gender and sexuality issues as a whole. I’m hoping I’ll be proved wrong.

Suzanne Moore’s latest Guardian article, which does not allow comments below the line incidentally, as it deals with Leveson, is a car crash wrapped in a train wreck.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/25/suzanne-moore-problem-tory-feminists

Her question of whether or not Tories can be feminists is of no interest to me, as I do not think feminism is ‘good’, Toryism ‘bad’ so the contradiction in terms she is trying to emphasise is lost on me.

However, her feminist, anti-sex, misandrous agenda is not lost on me at all.

She finishes her article with this paragraph which really sums up all that is wrong with it, her, and feminism as a whole:

‘The context in which all female bodies are now exposed, as revealed at Leveson, is heavily sexualised. This is not balanced by images of women in power, in control or even in clothes. It’s that simple. Austerity is stripping us down to very old gender roles, despite the efforts of a few vibrant women MPs such as Mensch. The new poor are fallen women failed by feckless men. This is no feminist future, for it is indeed familiar. It looks exactly like the past. That, after all, is what conservatism is.’

Well I could respond to Suzanne by quoting copiously from the work of Mark Simpson.  Her ignoring his work so comprehensively rancours with me, particularly because, previously at Graunwatch, she made out she is one of his biggest supporters and fans. But if that were the case, why did she not refer to his observations about how tarty men have become? Why didn’t she ask his recent question:  are men the new women? Why, in the light of Simpson’s groundbreaking theories of metrosexuality, and his suggestion that we have now reached ‘the end of sexuality as we’ve known it’ did Moore fall back on tired feminist cliches, claiming that we have reverted under the Tories to ‘old gender roles’? I am led to believe she has not even read Simpson’s books: Male Impersonators and Metrosexy, let alone understood them.

However, as Mr Simpson has taught me more than anyone, a picture  says more than a thousand words can. So my response to Suzanne Moore’s ridiculous claim that

‘Pictures of semi-naked women whose bodies are up for scrutiny have become our societal screensaver’

is to show her some pictures. Of semi-naked men. From The Guardian. Eat my shorts, feminism:

I like Marina Hyde’s journalism – on politics, culture and her usual subject matter, sport. She is a capable woman working in a ‘man’s world’ and she does it with wit and verve. So I was particularly disappointed to read her Feminism101 style analysis of women, sports and ‘objectification’.

In a piece entitled: ‘Cricket drags feminism back from the future’ she wrote:

‘Following last week’s item about the increasing frequency with which female 2012 athletes have been stripping off to promote themselves, I am indebted to the Press Association’s Scott Dougal for drawing my attention to an olde worlde curiosity of a historical document. Hailing from what convention demands we style as “simpler times” – I am guessing sometime shortly after the second world war – it is a press bulletin that one automatically finds oneself reading in the clipped diction of Pathé news. “Allure. Magnetism. Pizzazz. Je ne sais quoi,” it begins. “There’s no denying that Australia’s female cricketers have star quality.”

“Whilst the girls’ motivations may be different,” it goes on, “they are all united by their dream to see women’s cricket become one of Australia’s most recognisable female sports.”

“Each year,” trills one of said girls, who are apparently all dolled up to the nines, “we spend a day being pampered, scouting through racks of amazing designer clothes and generally feeling beautiful … We love the opportunity to showcase to Australia what makes us tick as individuals.”

And yet, do forgive me – I appear to have made a grave error. Closer inspection indicates that, far from being some relic of the immediate postwar years, the document is in fact a Cricket Australia press release dated Monday 16 January 2012. ‘

Once again this is an example of feminism, and the world at large, ignoring men’s rampant (self) objectification, especially in sports. It denies the existence of ‘tarts’, identified by Mark Simpson,  such as Beckham, Ronaldo, Nadal (pictured above) Clarke and Henson. And this perspective  involves pretending that it is women, not men who get their kit off, when they are off the pitch/court.

Sporno is big business for men and women sportspeople. As Nadal has explained, decisions around which tournaments to play are related to tax laws and sponsorship/advertising earnings. The Spanish champ won’t be playing Queens this year due to it being too costly for him as a result of his ‘sporno’ work being heavily taxed under British regulations.

I am sure there are gender inequalities in this arena. But they are far more likely to centre around the fact* that men sporno stars earn more for their passive displays than women do. This kind of issue will never be addressed, though, when everyone, including the usually on the ball Ms Hyde, is telling us that only women are objectified in sports culture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jan/18/london-2012-olympics-security?

P.s. This article has not addressed the issue of trans sportspeople. I will do more research and see how they fit into the sporno arena. Smash the binary!

*There is no data on this issue available this is just my hunch.