Plucking Away at the Modern Metrosexual

Guy Fawkes is a personality only vaguely familiar here in the 50 colonies. Unless you’re addled with Princess Di Syndrome, are a member of the English Speaking Union or have pledged your devotion to David Beckham or the Spice gal to whom he is betrothed.

There’s a survey documenting that 89 percent of people who wear ascots know of Guy Fawkes. But you rarely see any of that ilk around anymore. Ascots are a fashion trend unlikely to resurface soon, a blessing worthy of a bonus tithe.

There’s a lass of this description — “red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme” — now residing in Alaska who knows about Guy Fawkes. Fawkes, for the uninitiated, participated in a plot to blow up Parliament in 1605. He was arrested on Nov. 4, but, for some bizarre reason, Britain commemorates the event yearly in a Halloween kind of way with fireworks and other tomfoolery on Nov. 5.

Anyway, our gal, sly to the core but never much of a rah-rah during her co-ed days, noted that Homecoming one year fell on Nov 5. So she plastered the campus with posters announcing a Guy Fawkes Day Queen Contest and Parade. The frat boys were perplexed.

Most of which has little to do with today’s topic — metrosexuality — except for the fact that Mark Simpson, like Guy Fawkes, was born in York and attended the same elementary school. Or whatever they call the early grades over there.

Mark Simpson, I’ve learned after a recent 24-hour crash course in the history of metrosexuality, appears to be the inventor of that cultural/sexual term for the trend that is currently on the rampage across America. Somewhere Benedict Arnold is smiling.

Simpson is an outré commentator of the passing scene in merrie ol’ England, a Camille Paglia-ish observer of all that must be discussed when having one’s nails done, a gay Jack the Ripper with keyboard.

Metrosexual — an odd designation, don’t you agree? — is defined as “a dandyish narcissist in love with not only himself, but also his urban lifestyle; a straight man who is in touch with his feminine side.”

At the advent of this new species, around ’94, Simpson wrote, “the promotion of metrosexuality was left to the men’s style press, magazines such as … GQ, Esquire … (and) the new media that took off in the Eighties and is still growing.”

Upon reading this passage, my synapses started flashing. It wasn’t lightning, either. My thinking: “I’ve subscribed to Esquire. I get GQ monthly right now.” I thought of an openly lesbian co-worker who constantly called me “the gayest straight guy I’ve ever met.”

At a concert not long ago, I wore a spiffy T-shirt with flowers on it. An old friend, checking out my attire, commented, “You sure must be comfortable with your masculinity.”

The more I thought about Simpson and his schtick, the more memories cascaded, the greater my inner perplexation. Back in the day, the guy with whom I chased women and I had the same color cars, yellow ones at that. More than a few folks thought we were lovers. It bemused rather than bothered us. That he is now known as Mr. Bunny is of no consequence. He’s married with two kids, and, beyond that, as I, assuredly heterosexual.

Once a new hair stylist — didn’t they used to be called barbers? — tried to pluck my eyebrows. But I refuse to delve further on that incident.

Then there have been times I’d bring ladies to my pad, which, if not Architectural Digest, has a sense of style. Several looked around, their comments something to the effect of, “Gee, this is kind of nice. I’m surprised.” Because I’m straight, a sports junkie, a former Little Leaguer, did they expect a jockstrap draped over the television, a stack of empty Impellizzeri’s boxes in the corner, a photo of Bear Bryant on the mantel and dust balls floating about like tumbling tumbleweed?

Is there some imperative that a heterosexual man cannot have a sense of interior design? All these years I’ve thrived under the delusion a fellow doesn’t necessarily have to be gay to care about the cut of his jacket, the shine on his shoes, his complexion or the art on his walls.

Now, thanks to some angry English wanker, and queer-eye-for-a-straight-guy mentality — an epidemic even the Center for Infectious Diseases can’t thwart — I’m forced to consider a personality trait I never knew existed until last week.

I might be … gasp … metrosexual.

Perhaps that explains my cuticles run amuck and the manicure of my obsession.

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