Retrosexual Rules!


Now that I’m living at a more laid-back pace, I get to hang out a lot more at my favourite restaurant, Annie’s, and sometimes there’s an added bonus of guy candy to brighten my day. Friday’s treat came in the form of half the England rugby team popping by for a slap-up brunch. My, they are a strapping bunch – and don’t they make footballers look like beta males!

Not being a sports fan, my impression of rugby players was cast in stone many years ago on long, boring teenage afternoons of being forced to watch short, squat males with thighs the size of sequoia tree trunks ramming into each other on the pitch. It’s given me a life-long aversion to any form of sport and particularly Neanderthal-looking men. That’s why the England rugby players were such a delightful surprise. They looked well-built, manly and personable – a far cry from the intellectually-underachieving prop forwards of my mis-spent youth.

If football considers itself the beautiful game, it’s now got some tough competition in the shape of classically retrosexual rugby. As Newsweek describes it, retrosexuals are “men who shun metrosexuality, with its often feminine aesthetic, in favour of old-school masculinity.” And, quite frankly, thank god they do. Who wants a man who spends more time in the bathroom than you do?

In the gender wars of the late 20th century, the rise of feminism has left a lot of men struggling to adapt to a world where masculine traits are not valued and they’re pilloried for not having a feminine level of emotional intelligence or a fashion sense to die for like all of our gay friends. I’m beginning to think this is one case where the rule of ‘don’t wish too hard for what you want or then you might get it’ absolutely applies. Some of us are finally realising that we don’t want men to be shopping companions, gossipy confidantes or househusbands – in fact, we’d quite like them to be … men.

One piece of unforgettable wisdom from Marianne Williamson, the author of A Return To Love, is that – whatever the form of the intimate relationship – there will always be a man and a woman in that relationship, in the sense of the partners playing out the masculine and feminine roles. This has nothing to do with gender or sexuality and everything to do with an enduring relationship being a counterbalance of those two energies.

A friend told me a while ago how, in her native New Zealand, as women became more successful (particularly in politics) and took on more masculine characteristics, their men became more passive and sensitive, tending to become the ones who stayed at home and looked after the children. Rather than a question of who should embody those roles, it’s more of an indication that Marianne Williamson is right on the money – the emotional male/female balance of a relationship will seek to sustain itself, regardless of whether it’s the man or the woman who’s playing the masculine or feminine role.

Given that I’m on a one-woman mission to honour the feminine, you’ll have no trouble guessing why retrosexual men are so appealing. It’s about time we got comfortable with the fact that men and women are different and sought to see the inherent value in both sexes, rather than trying to make them conform with each other.

This week, try getting retrosexual, whatever your gender. Let’s celebrate the joys of being a girl or let it all hang out on the masculine front in an anti-metrosexual revolt. Let’s think ‘boys will be boys’ with a secret smile, rather than a glare of disapproval. We don’t expect them to understand why we need a vast array of shoes or handbags, so let’s not quibble over that strange guy stuff either. It might not be our cup of tea, but perhaps we should be very thankful for that!

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 27 Aug 07)