ABC News International: Charm Schools Reaching the New Metrosexual Male Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From ABC News International, December 16, 2006:

In the era of the metrosexual male, primping and preening are no longer just for the ladies. More and more men are trading in their beer and chips for something more refined.

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On its Web site, The Finishing Academy in Scotland announces: "The Finishing Academy is not only for today's young ladies. Due to popular demand we are now running courses for ladies, gentlemen, young gentlemen and business people."

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The metrosexual revolution has spurred the booming male beauty industry. Men are getting in touch with their feminine sides, and retailers are taking notice.

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, known more for its minds than its manners, has a charm school. The eight-year-old program now has more than 1,000 students, including many men. Those who complete six courses receive a bachelor's certificate in charm, but those who attend all 12 courses earn an etiquette PhD, proving geekiness is no obstacle to gracefulness.

I suspect that this development arises from economic changes that favor white-collar service professionals over previously strong blue-collar industrial workers in the U.S. Fred Flintstone got outsourced or underpriced.

Crablaw will stand up for the dignity of old-school, hair-on-your-back masculinity that makes a man get his ass up at 5 AM to catch a train, bus or mine elevator to a job to take care of his family or do what otherwise simply needs to get done. We like wine here but do not in any way disparage the decidedly non-feminine tradition of enjoying a beer and a shot, such as you will find drunk down in many a bar in coal country in Eastern Pennsylvania, by men doing dangerous work and lacking time for a shower, let alone white-collar finishing school.

Yeah, fellows, you want to take your lady out? Take advice from a homely man with two kids and a wife who has only packed my clothes up in anger once in eight years: a razor and a bar of soap get you 98% the way to acceptable looking. You can buy these items in grocery stores in the U.S or, in Louisiana, wherever you buy your beer, including drive-thru liquor stores. A few mysterious phrases like "Good evening" and "May I help you with that" will make you look civilized, even if you are not. Congratulations, you just graduated. You can PayPal me the $750.00 tuition at bruce.godfrey [at//] crablaw.com, 'cause my wife deserves a very nice night out.

Snark aside, have the basic rules of gentlemenly conduct - not metrosexual chic, just old-school gentlemenliness - been so completely forgotten that they must be taught like Latin to the descendants of people who spoke it? Do fathers not teach these things? Or are the fathers too busy billing and primping and wining and dining clients (or their mistresses?)

As for the "feminine side", no thanks. We are pro gay-rights here at Crablaw - loudly and staunchly so - but we don't apologize either for being old-school straight, any more than we ask gay folks to apologize for who they are as individuals. Old-school straight - not the new "hey, let's impregnate the Zip Code like Wilt Chamberlain" straight. The kind of straight that changes a diarrhea-laden diaper at 4 AM (though many a gay parent does the same, peace be with them.) Amish straight. Sheriff's deputy with six daughters and a baby son in Harford County straight. Not bumbling-ass buffoon dad and husband on the 1,000th stereotyped sitcom (put one bumbling wife on a sitcom since Lucy Ricardo and all hell breaks loose.) Just like real women are not Barbie dolls, real men (straight or gay, for that matter) are not Ken dolls existing to be dressed up cute. Unlike Ken, we have real problems, hair on our backs and balls.