The Metrosexual Man

Approximately ten years ago a new life style among men was spread across the world. It has been called "metro sexuality". The concept has nothing to do with being homosexual, though it has often been mistaken to. In a variety of ways the metro sexual man acts like a homosexual, but he might not be it at all. Sexual tendencies are not what metro sexuality is about.

To understand what a metro sexual man is, you will have to know about his life style. A lot of young males of today are described metro sexual, because they cultivate themselves and are very aware of the way they look.

You might call it identity crisis, but the term "equality" could be another expression. Equality between the two genders, male and female, might have been the path leading to the metro sexual way of living. The words "independency" and "image" are the new bible to a lot of people all over the world, men and women.

A metro sexual man often likes to go shopping in fashionable stores. He goes to the fitness centre, wears jewellery and cares much about his body and skin. That is why the contents of his refrigerator often are healthy, and the shelves in his bathroom are amassed with beauty preparations. It is all about image to him, and to feel good about himself and the things he do.

Noel Perrin describes in "The androgynous man", that it is good for some men to be metro sexual, but that it should be an option, a choice. A very macho man should not jump into being metro sexual just because the medias and feminists tell him to. "It would just be duller"

In spite of the fact that he also claims, that metro sexual men have got more freedom than a man bound by being masculine: "What it does mean to be spiritually androgynous is a kind of freedom"

Sometimes it might seem that the metro sexual man has fallen in love with himself, and is a consistently narcissist. But there is a difference between being narcissistic and being metro sexual.

A narcissist is truly in love with himself, and cannot see beyond the end of his nose. A metro sexual man does often care about the world surrounding him, and as Michael Flocker describes in "The metrosexual guide to style": "It is merely a little dash of honesty from a man who knows who he is, and who appreciates a good pair of shoes."

Michael Flocker is describing how this "new breed of man" is getting more and more common, and how it came into existence through the medias promotion of metro sexual male idols.

But not every man who cares about a good pair of shoes is metro sexual. To be defined as a metro sexual you will have to be more extreme.

The opposite of a metro sexual man is the so-called "Marlboro Man". The Marlboro Man was the former definition of a "real man". He was very