Forget the wax, chest hair is back
It's not comfortable sourcing a story to Annanova, but what the hell, this one seems to be pushing a new term.
It seems that rugged-looking men are back in, and over-groomed 'metrosexual' men are out. Well, according to a survey carried out by Remington of 25000 people, which was good for a couple of pars on the news wires. Apparently "Almost half of women preferred men with a rugged appearance, rather than the 'metrosexual' look of people like David Beckham".
I observe that 'metrosexual' appears to be gender-neutral: the context is "people like Beckham", while further into the peice, the author writes that "women prefer a well-groomed man to an over-preened modern metrosexual male".
"Metrosexual" also carries connotations of urbanisation, which is not mentioned here, nor is the term applied to females, though over-preening is certainly a non-gender-specific activity. It appears to be mostly applied to men. There are citations for its use back to 1994. Salon refers to Becks as "an international-standard narcissist, what would once have just been called, in the Anglo world at least, 'a sissy.'" However the SMH credits Becks for "breaking masculine codes", not just wearing nail polish and getting away with it.
So it seems that Remmington would like to put the razor to the "metrosexual" - their survey finds women prefer the "well groomed" but "rugged" type, which means "having a haircut and removing nose and ear hair", presumably. Does one suppose a manufacturer of male grooming products may have had a vested interest in the survey's outcome?
Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:00 am ::
