20 YEARS AGO, Mark Simpson coined the phrase ‘metrosexual’ to describe the modern, well-groomed man. In an Independent article, he outlined the meterosexual as
the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are). Metrosexual man is a commodity fetishist: a collector of fantasies about the male sold to him by advertising.
The term didn’t get a massive amount of attention until this Salon article appeared in 2002, in which Simpson used David Beckham to illustrate the species. But now that the metrosexual male is almost the norm these days, who are the peacocks?
Step aside Mr. Metrosexual, and make way for the Spornosexual. Writing in The Telegraph on Tuesday, Simpson introduced the new breed of the hyper-sexual, image-conscience, athletic gym-dweller.
Bye bye perfectly fitting clothes, the Spornosexual wears none. He goes to the gym instead of the stylist. Simpson says it’s the meeting of sport with porn, the new-aged jocks who are “fetishising themselves” on social media with the desire to be wanted for their bodies and “certainly not their minds”.
Basically, the put the the “sexual” into metrosexuality, and have the selfies to prove it.
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.
The thing that remains consistent through the iteration, is David Beckham, describing spornosexuals as “pumped-up offspring of those Ronaldo and Beckham lunch-box ads, where sport got into bed with porn while Mr Armani took pictures”.
He gives examples of UK reality TV star Dan Osborne, Gladiator David McIntosh, and rugby player Thom Evans as embodying this modern man.
But it’s not just skin deep, with Simpson explaining:
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.
So the term has been coined, but will the phenomenon be as widely adopted as the metrosexual was?
Social media has been abuzz with THIS photo of some TOWIE stars in half-thongs some are classing as a good example of the spornosexual, which isn’t exactly doing it any favours.
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