Mark Simpson, a British and outspokenly gay social “commentarist,” first published the term in a 1994 article called “Here Come The Mirror Men,” which ran in Britain’s Independent.
In a Salon.com article entitled “Meet The Metrosexual” (July 2003), Simpson said, “old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, un-moisturized masculinity was being given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The old fashioned, rugged straight male didn’t shop enough — his role was to earn money for his wife to spend — so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his role and much more interested in his image… A man, in other words, who is an advertiser’s walking “wet dream.” A man who could be molded in whatever form necessary to help pawn off the latest fashion and societal trends needed to be born. However, compared to past ideals, this wasn’t even much of a man. These old cultural ideologies set up men to be nothing more than an embodiment of Conan the Barbarian. These ideals put a man’s purpose as making some money, and protecting the family. It never considered the man simply doing something for himself. It disregarded the fact that men even have feelings and are also sometimes sensitive to the stresses of life.

In a recent interview, Simpson goes on: “Commercially… it makes perfect sense to maintain that metrosexuals are all straight — after all, advertising is trying to persuade as many men as possible to relax their sphincter muscles, cooing in their ear that there’s nothing gay about being f***ed by Corporate consumerism. Which, ironically, is true.” If Mark Simpson is gay, does that mean metrosexuals are too? Most current references point to no. However, according to Simpson’s original definition, orientation is unimportant. Simpson clarified this point in an interview with Russia’s OM Magazine, explaining, “Metrosexuality is in fact the end of ’sexuality’.” He envisions a world that doesn’t care about sexuality. To him, sexuality “is utterly immaterial because the metrosexual has taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual aim. Desire in the metrosexual has been uncoupled, or at least irretrievably loosened, from reproduction and gender — and reattached to commercial signs. Adverts. Images. Icons. Brands.” In esseence, he means that these roles which our societies have for so long been embedded into our minds are changing. Those roles we previously thought only were for men, can now be for women, and vice versa. Basically, it is ok to be whoever you like.

In general everyday use, to be called metrosexual is not to be called gay, but rather sensitive, chic and cultured. In many ways it is more of a compliment than it is a put down. Though some more conservative men would see it other wise, to be called metrosexual is a way of saying that you have evolved with the changing times and you are ready to take on whatever is next.