Have
you ever visited a beauty store and found shelves and shelves of products for
men? Or simply noticed your brother or a close friend not leave the house
without a glance in the mirror? Yes, it’s raining mirror men!
Vanity
and grooming are considered to be stereotypical to homosexuals, but why is it
beautifying oneself thought of as feminine or gay? While Indian men still
struggle to find peace with the concept of metro sexuality, their foreign
counterparts are way ahead.
Father, son, husband
of a Spice Girl, fashion icon, role model, sporting ambassador. It is sometimes
easy to forget that David Beckham was ever a midfielder of the highest caliber
with more than 100 appearances for England. He has worn a head scarf, nail
varnish, adorned his body with tattoos and changed his expertly styled hair-do
every other week. He speaks sparingly and when he does, it is a slightly
high-pitched effeminate whine. And as far as anyone can tell, his female
partner seems to make all the important decisions. And yet his masculinity was
never in doubt.
Masculinity has been
established in a bizarre way. The man has to be strong, needs to have a beard
or a mustache, have chest hair, shouldn’t have groomed nails and so
on. But it’s time to stop defining masculinity by such dated ideas. Would you
prefer a man who is clean shaven and has waxed his body hair in an
advertisement or a hairy man with a big belly and a beard?
In a conformist
country as ours, our men shy away from wanting to look more appealing. Despite,
urban youth being open to stepping into metro sexuality, the concept still
doesn’t appeal a major chunk of the heterosexuals. A traditional hetero sexual will
however consider any man who is in touch with his feminine side, gay.
