Category Archives: masculinity

‘Get Your Filthy Hands Off Me!’ Gorgeous George’s Glamorous Legacy

Rather than watch the Olympics, and all that noble, serious sporting uplift, I’ve been reading a book about a carny, corny, shameless 1940s-50s American wrestler: Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture, by John Capouya. My American chum Chris Supermarky recommended it to me, thinking it would be of interest. He wasn’t …

August 9, 2012 – 12:37 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, metrosexual, popular culture, sport | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (5)

Winsome, Losesome, Mansome

It’s always tricky as a writer talking to a researcher for a TV or film documentary. On the one hand you want your ideas to be taken seriously and the historical record to be as accurate as possible. And of course we all like attention. Especially from a visual medium we probably don’t belong in. …

May 8, 2012 – 5:42 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, metrosexual | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (17)

The Few, The Proud

The mythology, the rituals, the dogma, the cult of masculinity and most of all the haircut, set US Marines apart. Mark Simpson takes a look at a memoir of the First Gulf War. (Independent on Sunday 23/03/2003) It may seem odd that the United States Marine Corps, the elite fourth branch of the US Armed …

April 21, 2012 – 12:58 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, journalism, masculinity, review | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

The New Bromanticism

Just over half of British and American men are currently in or have had a ‘bromance’ in the past according to a survey, not by Dr Kinsey, but by Badoo (‘the world’s largest social network for meeting new people’). The Badoo press release – issued on Valentine’s Day last week – claims that the survey …

February 24, 2012 – 12:33 am | By Mark Simpson | Posted in Bromance, commentary, masculinity | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (26)

Let me Hear Your Body Talk

Are men the new women? I’ve always avoided using that line until now. As the (hetero)sexual division of labour and loving and looking continues to fall apart, men are the new everything. Just as women are. But in the last few months we’ve been told men now take longer getting ready than women, mercifully deleting at …

January 9, 2012 – 11:00 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, metrosexual, sport | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (15)

Anders Breivik: Metro-Psycho

When I first saw the images of Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik, the ones he had so helpfully included in his press pack that accompanied his ‘manifesto’, two thoughts immediately popped into my net-addled head: a) They look photoshopped. Especially the soft-focus glamour one in the Lacoste jumper with the collar turned up b) The ‘action …

August 3, 2011 – 3:46 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, current affairs, masculinity, metrosexy | Tagged , , , , | Comments (7)

The Earring Wars are Over

Last Saturday’s The London Times Magazine ran an extract from ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt’, a memoir by Jon-Jon Goulian ‘the New York Review of Books first cross-dressing staffer’. I haven’t read it yet, but the extract inclined me to do so very soon. Here’s Goulian on the semantics of earrings in the 1980s — a semantics which I …

July 20, 2011 – 1:28 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, fashion, masculinity, metrosexy | Tagged , , | Comments (4)

Henry Finally Throws in the Towel

Much-loved British heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper died this week. Unborn in 1963, the year he nearly defeated Cassius Clay (the Brits love near-winners much more than winners), I remember him for the curious Brut TV commercials he did in the 1970s that helped usher in the world of male product aisles in supermarkets and spornographic …

May 8, 2011 – 1:37 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in advertising, commentary, masculinity, metrosexual | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Assume the Position: a queer defence of hazing

Mark Simpson wants to be be soundly smacked with a paddle (Out magazine, 2006) When I joined my local rugby team, I was made to do terrible, awful things. Even now, all these years later, I feel distressed and choked up recounting what happened. I had to stand on a chair as a full pint …

April 28, 2011 – 12:20 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in article, commentary, journalism, masculinity | Tagged , , , , | Comments (11)

Touching Another Dude Dudely

I’m not sure I entirely believe the preamble from the overly dudey — if very easy on the eye — presenter and star of this ‘experiment’ in ‘touching dudes softly’. Particularly the bit about ‘nothing makes me uncomfortable!’ But it is interesting to watch the responses of the men he decides to monster with ‘inappropriate’ …

April 15, 2011 – 1:52 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity | Tagged , , | Comments Off