When straight men weren’t afraid to be fabulous
Before 'alpha males' and 'masculine energy' took over, men embraced fashion, skincare, and a little self-expression - without fear of losing their man card.
There was a time, dear reader, when the straight men of the world allowed themselves a little fun. A bit of bronzer. A well-placed highlight. A bootcut jean that actually fit. We called it metrosexuality, and for a brief, glimmering moment in the early 2000s, it was okay to be a little bit gay - not actually gay, of course, heaven forbid - but just gay enough.
David Beckham, in all his sarong-clad, diamond-earringed glory, was the patron saint of this movement. The original Fab Five flounced onto screens and instructed a generation of men on the virtues of exfoliation, tailored blazers, and a well-placed throw pillow. And did the world stop turning? Did civilization collapse under the weight of tinted moisturizer and blow-dried hair? No, it did not. But looking at today’s landscape of chest-thumping, knuckle-dragging “alpha males,” you’d think that we narrowly escaped total societal ruin.
Enter 2025, where the fragile masculinity of the internet’s favorite pseudo-intellectuals has successfully erased any memory of a time when men could simply exist without their masculinity being a 24/7 performance piece. Thanks to the likes of Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan’s protein-fueled sermonising, and, most recently, Mark Zuckerberg’s astonishing midlife transformation into a jiu-jitsu monk preaching “masculine energy,” we are now fully submerged in the era of hyper-masculine hysteria.
Men today are no longer allowed to be merely well-groomed or vaguely stylish without it becoming a political statement. God forbid a man moisturise lest he risk being accused of furthering the “woke agenda.” The same men who once happily let Queer Eye’s Carson Kressley teach them the magic of a French tuck are now paying $50 a month for Hustler’s University lessons on how to be a Sigma Male Warrior.
What happened? How did we go from Beckham’s delightful gender fluidity-lite to Zuckerberg, shirtless and brooding, mumbling about “energetic vibrations” in between sparring sessions? How did metrosexuality, once the great cultural olive branch between straight and gay men, become an abandoned relic, tossed aside in favour of clout-chasing cavemen who think eating raw liver is a personality?
The great irony, of course, is that none of this newfound machismo actually makes men stronger. The performance of masculinity today is more fragile than ever, one step out of line, one scented candle too many, and suddenly, a man is at risk of exile from the brotherhood. They’ve even turned against Beckham, a man who once defined straight male aspiration, for daring to wear a sarong again in his Netflix documentary. “What happened to real men?” the internet howled, as though the sight of a fabric-draped leg might unspool the very fabric of masculinity itself.
But here’s the thing. The world didn’t fall apart when men were a little softer. When they borrowed from queer culture instead of fearing it. When they dressed up, groomed themselves, and weren’t so suffocatingly self-conscious about how it might look. The early 2000s were far from perfect (we let Justin Timberlake’s ramen curls happen), but at least we weren’t stuck in this exhausting cycle of policing every aspect of what a man can and cannot do.
Let’s be honest, wasn’t life better when men weren’t so damn scared all the time? When they could enjoy a little self-care without fear of ridicule? Let’s take a moment to remember a simpler time, when masculinity wasn’t a rigid manifesto, but an open invitation to explore, to play, to dabble in a little foundation without existential dread. Let’s remember when being a little gay was just part of being a well-rounded man and no one had to perform hand-to-hand combat to prove otherwise.
Loved this - though I actually feel like my experience has been that at least from a sartorial perspective, Gen Z are becoming (in the cities I've been living in - so not a representative sample!) less and less gendered in their clothing, and I'm often reading young men as queer when they're not, they're just incarnating a queer aesthetic. That obviously comes with its own issues but...yes. I think the metrosexual is not dead just yet ;-)
Cowardice is contagious, and we are bloody cowardly these days!