We see them a lot these days on our commutes between classes: boot wearing, beard growing, plaid shirt rocking “lumbersexuals.” The latest trend in the rapidly changing kaleidoscope of contemporary masculinity, the lumbersexual is a newly coined term for the man who refuses the fashionably groomed and clean-shaven looks of yesteryears, “metrosexual.” Rejecting the high fashion standards of the well-groomed metro-man, the rough and ready lumbersexual instead wishes for the return of “real” manhood where men can be free to grow out their beards, wear loose clothes and leave fashion to the other gender. Many see the lumbersexual trend as a return to essential manhood, a solution to an imagined crisis in contemporary masculinity.
Yet for all the apparent contrasts between the metrosexual and the lumbersexual, the core concept of lumbersexuality is almost identical to metrosexuality: it exists as yet another choice in an array of sub-masculinities during a time when masculinity has become a changeable trend rather a social category. By throwing on Patagonia jackets and wearing L.L. Bean duck boots, men aren't reclaiming some abstract essence of an outdoorsman; rather, they are foolhardily buying into another style promoted by the runways of Paris. Ever since the lumbersexual portmanteu was coined, the market has rushed to capitalize on what individuals see as the next cash cow of men’s fashion. Already there exist entire catalogs catering to lumbersexual accesorries, holiday gift guides for lumbersexuals and shopping lists for lumbersexuals. Clearly, there are certain material prerequisites one must posses to properly identify with the lumberseuxals conception of manliness; GearCoop explains that if you want to be lumbersexual, you should “top off your visage with a bold beanie, and keep your exposed face rugged but protected with sunscreen and stylish shades.” Thus, the sexuality of men as seen through the trends of the lumbersexual represtent the commercialization of gender stereotypes, where masculinity is something one can buy or consume.
Of course, real modern-day lumberjacks still exist. And many lumbersexuals may indeed have a genuine interest in the outdoors and forestry. Still, lumbersexuality, like metrosexuality, is primarily market and culture driven, a symptom of an era when men switched their traditional roles as producers to newer roles of consumers. Susan Alexander, in analyzing and comparing gender themes in the novel “Shampoo Planet” to contemporary gender roles, writes how the traditional role of masculinity has been “mutating under the stresses of a new social structure in which consumption is more important than production. Masculinity itself is constructed as a product available for consumption if one merely chooses the appropriate brand names.” The idea of masculinity as a product is perhaps shown best in BespokePost, an online men’s store that delivers a box full of manly gear to your door once a month. The implementation of this indirectly hints at the idea that masculinity is an object one can buy for a monthly fee in the form of a delivered box of assorted goods. In this way, modern masculinity has become more defined by the current marketed fashion fad than by a solidified set of characteristics or some intrinsic sense of “true masculinity” (if such a notion even exists). And the occurence of the lumbersexual is only one such sub-masculinity — from Bronies to gamers to hipsters, there is a sea of other cultural associations that have come to mold masculinity into their own diverse forms. In the vacuum of traditional male roles within the context of post-industrial society, weaker categories, subcultures and associations have come to define masculinity.
No better can this phenomenon be observed than in the analysis of the #GamerGate incident within the self-identified gaming community. While #GamerGate was a fairly complex situation, it ultimately boiled down to a portion of young males gamers attacking and threatening women in the videogame industry over the internet. At one point, when female game critics like Anita Sarkeesian tried to show the sexist content embedded in modern video games, they were met with death threats by GamerGaters who saw women like Sarkesian as trying to destroy their gaming community. These young men — the GamerGaters — don't just see the gamer community as a secondary subculture. For them, being part of the community is an important part of their masculinity, which they must defend by warding of women who corrupt the perceived masculinity of the gaming subculture.
As feminist philosophy and women's studies have expanded over the last few years, western society has seen the masculine identity quietly splinter into various different sub-masculinities: gamer, brony, metrosexual and lumbersexual, to name a few. Little emphasis has been put on studying contemporary forms of masculinity and how masculinity has become fragmented by trends in the context of post-industrial consumerist society. Despite the confidently poised models splashed on men’s style magazines, the modern man is more lost than ever before in identifying his masculinity. The lumbersexual trend, rather than signifiying a return to true masculinity, is in fact yet another fashion fad set squarely within this bleak context.
Hasan Khan is an Opinion columnist for the Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at h.khan@cavalierdaily.com.
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