It's Official: France Declares Male Heterosexuality Dead

Don't sweat it, though. Twits, especially of the French variety, are perpetually declaring this and that dead -- cinema, theater, the novel, God. Everything except the EU Treaty, really.

Macho man is an endangered species, with today's male more likely to opt for a pink flowered shirt and swingers' clubs than the traditional role as family super-hero, fashion industry insiders say. A study along these lines led by French marketing and style consultants Nelly Rodi was unveiled to Fashion Group International during a seminar Tuesday on future strategy for the fashion industry in Europe.

"The masculine ideal is being completely modified. All the traditional male values of authority, infallibility, virility and strength are being completely overturned," said Pierre Francois Le Louet, the agency's managing director.

Instead today's males are turning more towards "creativity, sensitivity and multiplicity," as seen already in recent seasons on the catwalks of Paris and Milan.

Arnold Schwarznegger and Sylvester Stallone are being replaced by the 21st-century man who "no longer wants to be the family super-hero", but instead has the guts to be himself, to test his own limits.

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

Here's why: I've seen HBO's Real Sex. I've seen these partner-swapping clubs. And let me just say, I can see why everyone there wants to swap partners.

Sociologists and other experts spent three months analyzing some 150 magazines and books and 146 Internet sites, as well as interviewing a dozen experts from Europe, the United States and China.

Here's the problem here: Fashion agazines are dominated by women and gay men. That might just skew your research.

Try reading Field & Stream or Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Mad Max Movies.

The traditional man still exists in China, Le Louet said, and "is not ready to go". But in Europe and the United States, a new species is emerging, apparently unafraid of anything.

Except spiders, mice, and vaginas.

...

Today's consumer wants to feel pampered, but also to be able to take time out, feel good and feel alive.

"We have to help people to create their own look. And we absolutely must help people to dream, and if we help people to dream perhaps the world will be a little bit better," he said.

I have seen the future, and it is Jm J. Bullock.

Thanks to LauraW.

posted by Ace at 03:05 PM

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