Finally, the days of shaving your chest hair and whittling your beard down to a handlebar mustache to get the ladies are coming to an end. No longer do you have to feel obligated to stock up on every color of oxford shirt, ironic tees and sweatshirts, and hipster glasses. Instead, think of the Brawny Paper Towel guy as your new style icon.
Yes, exit “metrosexuality,” enter “lumbersexuality” — and just in time for “No Shave November,” too.
We can already hear all those living in backwoods country hacking a tree down in angry for turning their way of life into a trend. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where the term “lumbersexual” originated from, but you can probably bet it was concocted in some Brooklyn hipster’s loft as he brandished the axe he keeps hanging on his wall as decoration.
According to Gear Junkie, a member of this subsect of man “is bar-hopping, but he looks like he could fell a Norway Pine. He looks like a man of the woods, but works at The Nerdery, programming for a healthy salary and benefits. His backpack carries a MacBook Air, but looks like it should carry a lumberjack’s axe.”
The trend is becoming increasingly more widespread, and has already made the rounds on Gawker, Cosmopolitan and Racked. And, according to The Daily Beast, we all have gay men to thank. It was they who gave you metrosexuality — the term was coined by gay author Mark Simpson in an essay “Here Come the Mirror Men: Why the Future Is Metrosexual” — and it was the more furry members of this community that’s inspiring lumbersexuality.
“Straight culture has gobbled gay culture as ravenously as Cookie Monster atomizes baked dough,” writes Tim Teeman in his analysis for The Daily Beast, a pretty intense image that might shake the masculinity you’re trying to project. Well, suck it up! If you’re gonna be a true lumbersexual, you must be as unyielding and steadfast as the great oak tree you’re about to chop down with the ax you bought off Gilt Groupe.
So, bros, in short — stop shaving, buy some plaid and hiking boots, and rub the “pine forest” car deodorizer under your armpits. Apparently, the ladies will love it.