David Beckham

Ronaldo’s Coming Home

Football may not be coming home, after England’s Euros finals defeat earlier this year. But football’s greatest star, and perhaps the world’s most famous face and body, is going to be ‘back where I belong’. In England. According to his recent Insta post (336m followers). The striking Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo is returning, in total triumph, from Juventus to the place where he began his international career, Manchester United FC – with a two year contract: a cool 20M Euros for those hot lallies. Now… Read More »Ronaldo’s Coming Home

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Insta-Lovefest

The world’s most famous man this week became the first person to pass 250 million followers on Instagram. A milestone in human e-volution. Already the most popular personality on social media, 35-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo is now just rubbing our noses in it. The Juventus star has 100 million more followers than all 20 Premier League clubs combined. His arch-rival Lionel Messi trails way behind him, in seventh place, with ‘only’ 174 million followers. Obviously they’re not posting enough totally shredded topless pics. The five-time Ballon… Read More »Cristiano Ronaldo’s Insta-Lovefest

Objectify Yourself: Why Straight Young Men Crave Gay Adulation

Mark Simpson on the (self) sexualisation of the male body Male self-objectification is, as they like to say on social media, a “thing.” There’s been a rash lately of so-called “gender flip” memes, in which people pretend to be impressed by male hipsters pretending to subvert sexism by ironically adopting the clichéd poses of sexualized women. Although sometimes funny and instructive, especially when it involves licking sledgehammers, the anti-sexism of many of these gender flip memes depends on a (hetero)sexist assumption that men just aren’t… Read More »Objectify Yourself: Why Straight Young Men Crave Gay Adulation

From Metrosexual to Spornosexual – Two Decades of Male Deliciousness

‘Metrodaddy’ Mark Simpson on the evolution of male vanity (Originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph June 10, 2015) In a development which will probably have him running to the mirror yet again to search anxiously for lines, this year the metrosexual leaves his teens and turns twenty. How quickly your children grow up. Although it seems only yesterday, I first wrote about him in 1994 after attending an exhibition organised by GQ magazine called ‘It’s a Man’s World’. I’d seen the future of masculinity and it was moisturised.… Read More »From Metrosexual to Spornosexual – Two Decades of Male Deliciousness

Reset the Gaydar – Tom Daley’s ‘Not Gay’

(Originally appeared on Guardian CiF, 11/09/13) Tom Daley isn’t gay. But the bronze medallist Olympic diver and presenter of celebrity Speedo show Splash! – recently voted ‘World’s Sexiest Man’ by the readers of gay mag Attitude – doesn’t mind if you think he is. Last weekend he told The Mirror: “I think it’s funny when people say I’m gay… I laugh it off,” says Tom… “I’m not. But even if I was, I wouldn’t be ashamed. It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest what people thought.’ Quite… Read More »Reset the Gaydar – Tom Daley’s ‘Not Gay’