Metrosexuality – Is It A Choice?

Is metrosexuality something that can be thought of as a choice, or has the term itself already lost its meaning? If we’re thinking about metrosexuality as an idea, it’s worth considering how being fashionable and a man doesn’t need to be justified by having a label attached to it. With easy access to grooming products and the chance to pick up high quality items from clothes websites such as londonw11.com, it’s arguable that men with a strong sense of style just aren’t that unusual anymore, and shouldn’t be singled out by one term.

In terms of what metrosexuality is, the term was first coined in the 1990s by British journalist Mark Simpson, and is further described in dictionaries as a ‘man who is attracted to women sexually but who is also interested in fashion and his appearance’. As a result, the term metrosexual almost seems to imply that being invested in fashion has to be qualified by being heterosexual.

For me, the term metrosexual itself doesn’t really do justice to the wide range of different styles and approaches to fashion that men now take. You don’t have to put yourself in a specific category if you go to the gym or spend more money on haircuts than others. While there are extremes that people can go to with their spending or their time in front of the mirror, this is rarely something that should be seen as being beyond the norm.

Indeed, metrosexuality itself seems to be increasingly a relic of the late 1990s and early 2000s, where celebrities like David Beckham were focused on for highlighting less gender-specific fashions in public; some of the general styles of metrosexuality, including cashmere sweaters, button-down shirts, accessories and sunglasses, are now widespread enough to be a choice only in the sense that they’re options available to most people to try.

Metrosexual style is something that people can latch onto, but is becoming more generally mixed in with smart casualwear than as something that implies a broader lifestyle. The effectiveness of ‘metrosexuality’ to really describe a group of men was already being questioned in 2003, when it was discussed as being as much a marketing buzzword as something that had sprung out of a supposedly more sensitive generation of men in the 1990s.

Recent surveys of men are also suggesting that many people are rejecting metrosexuality as being a style choice that they even think about in any depth. These surveys show that some men consider the term to have ‘run its course’ and that taking better care of yourself and shopping for good clothes and grooming products doesn’t need to be tied up with ideas about sexuality. To this end, it’s probably time to put the concept of metrosexuality as being a conscious choice to bed.