Contrary to conventional wisdom, the revolution does not devour its children but its parents.
In 1994, Mark Simpson (York, United Kingdom, 58 years old) named all those young men who began to take care of their skin, their hair, their clothes and their aesthetics with the undisguised purpose of being admired and awakening the desire of women and men. men.
Metrosexuals, he called them.
Later, in a second article in 2003, he chose an image to identify them: David Beckham.
“In the men's magazines of the nineties, such as
Loaded
or
FHM,
there was already this whole culture of admiration for the beauty of the male body, and advertisements for creams, colognes and clothing abounded.
But the implicit objective in all of them was to make it clear that they were not a gay magazine.
In British culture, the way to convey that message is to incorporate a lot of information about football,” explains Simpson.
He has accepted a meeting in Manchester, a city in the north of England to which he has a special love, to walk, chat, undergo a photo session in discipline, and review the evolution of the image and male beauty since he launched that photo into the world. such a lucky word.
The revolution devours her parents, and Simpson, gay, cultural critic and funny and ironic analyst of the sexual life of Anglo-Saxons, admits that he begins to feel the teeth of time close to his shaved neck.
David Beckham, at the London festival Party in the Park, in 2000. Matthew Fearn (PA Images / Getty
Years after the appearance of the metrosexual, Simpson detected and also named the second generation: the spornosexuals (a complex combination of sport, porn and sexuality).
A new type of man who spends hours in the gym, shapes his body with extreme dedication and protein reinforcement, and has no complex understanding that his image is his signature and his merchandise to function in the world. world.
The icon of this new era was called Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Beckham never gave the impression that he had been in the gym for hours.
He was very athletic, it is clear, but he did not present that almost commercialized body that spornosexuals later presented.
What made him so relevant then was the fact that he was a footballer.
A footballer at the peak of his sporting career, who liked to model, who acted almost as if he were gay, but he wasn't,” Simpson recalls.
—It was the time before social networks, right?
These two categories, metrosexual and spornosexual, are separated by that temporary wall that Instagram or TikTok represent.
“We live today in a visual world in which everyone has to become a value,” admits Simpson.
“And really, even though I feel a certain ambivalence, I can't help but understand them.
I was the one who invented that thing about metrosexuality,” she admits.
For a gay man raised in the north of England, who woke up to his sexuality in the early eighties, and who has played with provocation and irreverence in all his articles, there is, however, in generation Z a naturalness with their own beauty that it baffles him.
“Normally when I go to the gym, I can barely use the mirror in the locker room.
There are usually around 15 guys in front, in their
shorts,
flexing, taking selfies, comparing their abs, touching their muscles, and having a great time,” he says.
"All certainties have been broken regarding sexuality. And gender. And in particular, regarding monosexuality," says Mark Simpson. Manuel Vázquez
—And what do you see?
An excess of vanity?
—No, what's going on.
I even feel a certain satisfaction.
They have been able to adapt to a world that is very Darwinian, in which you must use everything at your disposal to attract attention.
In other words, where you must do whatever it takes to not disappear.
The worst thing that can happen to you now is to be invisible,” she warns.
Simpson remembers the first advertisement, 20 years ago, for Calvin Klein underwear, with then-rapper (later, actor and producer) Mark Wahlberg, Marky Mark, and a Kate Moss hovering around him.
Wahlberg constantly grabbed his genitals, as rappers did then.
“The creators of the ad, and the Calvin Klein brand itself, had to go to great lengths to dispel any doubt, and clearly affirm Wahlberg's heterosexuality,” recalls the journalist.
Earlier this year, Calvin Klein presented its spring 2024 collection of men's underwear with a campaign starring New York actor Jeremy Allen White (JAW), protagonist in successful series such as
The Bear
or
Shameless.
In the promotional video, JAW takes off his tank top and blue shorts as he climbs to the rooftop of a Manhattan building.
The actor displays a statuesque body as he contorts against the background of skyscrapers.
The camera shows low angle shots reminiscent of Leni Riefenstahl's Athletes and
Triumph of the Will.
JAW keeps his lips parted throughout the entire sequence, in a display of sensuality, until he falls exhausted on a sofa, with the indolence of a teenager, and protects his eyes from the sun with his forearm.
The impact on social networks generated a value of 12.7 million dollars in just 48 hours, according to Launchmetrics, a company dedicated to measuring advertising returns.
“In that campaign there was no longer any need to reaffirm that JAW is a normal, straight guy…, all of that is taken for granted.
It was an immediate success.
But the flip side is that the impact of this campaign has been ephemeral, it only lasted a couple of weeks,” warns Simpson.
—And the one between Wahlberg and Moss became a legend…
—Exactly, which the media did not stop discussing and debating for years.
It was a sensation that is difficult to repeat today —she remembers.
Christian Bale exercises in a scene from 'American Psycho' (2000).Landmark Media (Alamy / Cordon P
The generational icon that does represent a challenge for someone like Simpson is Harry Styles, an artist who seeks an ideal of beauty that is vain and defiant, but virile at the same time, and emerged from the working class.
“Many imagined metrosexuality as representing the middle class, you know?
Because it implied that you had to have money,” his explanation begins.
Or the justification for it.
“But that's not necessarily how it works, especially in the British context.
The famous teddy boys of the 1950s were working-class guys who saved all their money to buy a tailored suit and a colorful vest, and get a haircut and quiff.
For the middle class, they symbolized a vulgar taste,” he explains.
Teddy is the diminutive of Edward, and those dandies wanted to pay homage to the gentlemen of the British Edwardian era, in the first decade of the 20th century, who had their suits made to measure at the tailors on London's Saville Row and competed in elegance.
“If you don't have property or capital, your weapon is yourself.
And the way to rebel, to show that your body is not simply a tool to work and produce, is to show off.
David Beckham was also working class.
The world of football is that of the working class,” he defends.
—Yes, but Harry Styles can also be a canon of male beauty.
-Yes of course.
And it represents a new opening.
But I can't help the feeling that his style has something planned, that it aims to evoke a glam era that we already knew before with David Bowie.
In any case, it symbolizes something very important: the idea that male beauty is something that is no longer forbidden, he admits.
He is very careful about entering into the mud of the debate on gender identities, an issue that deserves great respect.
But he celebrates at least one break with all that came before that is exhilarating.
“All certainties regarding sexuality have been broken.
And to gender.
And in particular, regarding monosexuality.
That idea that we called normality, and which was basically heterosexuality, with all the characteristics that it incorporated, has been left behind.
And its correlate, abnormality, which was basically homosexuality.
The new generation has left that monosexuality behind,” celebrates Simpson.
Cristiano Ronaldo as the image of his underwear brand.CR7 Underwear (Getty Images)
—But then there is no longer a canon of male beauty?
—The rupture of all these identities, assumptions and certainties has meant that male beauty is no longer something coherent, but rather fractured and fragmented —he defends.
—And it no longer makes sense to talk about someone as metrosexual…
—It's the new normal.
It no longer makes sense to identify someone as metrosexual.
I did it in 2003 because people were still in denial, unable to assimilate what was happening around them.
Today it is absurd to highlight it because it is simply the water in which everyone swims.
In 2015, Simpson recalls, Ford launched a provocative ad for its Ecosport model that showcased the vehicle's innovative keyless entry.
A sensor detected the proximity of the key and the doors were unlocked.
A male model emerged from the sea, wearing a tight blue swimsuit, and headed towards his car.
As he walked through the arena, he attracted the eyes of women and men, young and old.
“Logic leads you to think that everyone was wondering where he kept the keys,” he explains.
In fact, the ad's slogan said something like "Everyone is free to keep their keys wherever they want."
“But the relevant thing,” Simpson points out, “is that everyone was looking at the swimmer's beautiful body.
And the ad ends with a close-up of his muscular butt.
The male body has become a feast for the eyes to which everyone is invited.”
—And there is no room today for the beauty of Ben Whishaw or Andrew Scott?
Is that kind of intellectual softness no longer worth it?
-I hope so.
But I fear we live in superficial times.
It is evident that beauty manifests itself in many forms, not only in those that manage to succeed on Instagram.
But now it is a world without mercy.
And much of all this beauty can also contain some ugliness, she warns.
Mark Simpson, the journalist who coined the terms metrosexual (1994) and 'spornosexual' (2014), poses in Manchester.Manuel Vázquez
The evolution of the relationship between men and their image has turned the traditional scenario upside down.
An entire generation has chosen to objectify their body and, in doing so, they have destroyed the idea that this objectification can take away your power.
“On the contrary, they have discovered all the power that is contained in the possibility of attracting people's interest and seducing them.”
—Isn't there something superfluous in that idea?
—The older man in me finds it terrifying.
But at the same time I see how they have turned it into something social, nothing alienating.
Not good not bad.
"It's something necessary for his survival," Simpson reflects.
But, above all, what has happened is that a younger generation of men has discovered their love for the male body, something that until recently was considered a pathology.
That love is only exclusive to gays.
Provocative and ironic, kind and complicit in the conversation, he staunchly defends the muscular display of social networks.
“What, especially in the English environment, some call vulgarity, I call feeling alive,” he says with a wink.