The lumbersexual and pretensions of masculinity. Once upon a time metrosexual was all the rage. As far as I can tell, men thought that women thought that men would be better if they were lithe, well dressed, controlled their eyebrows to the point of looking like a Kardashian and talked excessively about fair trade organic coffee while writing their next screenplay. Like most style trends, this one bore the seeds of its own destruction and the coiner of the term metrosexual, Mark Simpson, also coined the term retrosexual , which originally referred to people who rejected the trappings of metrosexual style and went for a butcher, less coiffed look (retrosexual eventually got eaten by Don Draper wannabes and means something different now–if it’s used at all).

Lumberjacks are examplars of manliness with the most dangerous job in America and hundreds of years of rugged masculine history, and killing them and wearing their skin is one of the faster ways to cheat your way to a butcher you. And since people are lazy as fuck about their portmanteaus (cf every political scandal being -gate), we ended up with “lumbersexual.”

I am, admittedly sitting at my desk, very bearded and in a flannel shirt as I type this (and looking damn fine). So I’m hardly immune to such trends; although like a good hipster, I would contend that I was wearing flannel shirts after grunge had been abandoned, but before it had been rediscovered as a way of taking a decent looking fellow and giving him just a touch of oomph. One doesn’t really even need the flannel as you can see by this musclebear with a beard and a log. Handing someone an axe to make them look like less of a cityslicker does have its limits though:

 

Your author not pulling off lumberjack drag very well for Halloween last year.