My paper will attempt to analyse the term metrosexual taking into account possible reasons for its emergence and its various manifestations in today's world. The metrosexual man seems to have become the 'other' of the supposedly normal, stoic, self-denying, modest, 'straight' male. He is far more interested in his image and is comfortable being seen as less certain of his masculine identity. Within this context, I will also look at the concept of the metrosexual in relation to fairly widely held images or conceptions of the 'gay' male.
Metrosexuality is a term which is generally applied to heterosexual men with a strong concern for their appearance or whose lifestyles display the exploration of their own selves in a so-called feminine manner. The term originated in an article by Mark Simpson published on November 15, 1994, in The Independent. Simpson wrote, "Metrosexual man. The single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that's where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines , in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he's everywhere and he's going shopping." Thus Simpson's metrosexual man can be seen as a person who does not seem to flinch away from the thought of pampering himself and would not mind going a step further by flaunting this desire. It is within this framework of metrosexuality that one should be able to distinguish male homosexuality or being gay as a different offshoot of masculine identity altogether. Homosexuality or being gay is not primarily image oriented. While metrosexuality deals with experimentation in terms of one's outward physical appearance, homosexuality primarily deals with an alternative sexual preference. Even though at the outset both these terms evoked very similar images in the world of popular perception, in reality they assume a host of completely different implications.