On the Lumbersexual trend

Recent media interpretations of the lumbersexual “trend”:

A sign that masculinity is “in crisis.”

The latest gay ‘look’ co-opted by straights

Perhaps the first archetype created in response to technology’s affect on gender.

Oh do calm the hell down.

The analysis of “lumbersexuals” is as overblown as their estimated percent of the male population. And this continued faux-psycho-analysis is only going to perpetuate the lame game of label slapping.

Bought a pair of Red Wings in the last year? Why… you must be one of those lumbersexuals!

Come on.

  

Can’t a pair of boots just be a pair of boots?

Now, there is a difference between wearing a pair of workboots with jeans and a flannel shirt on the weekends, and showing up to a swanky cocktail party wearing that kind of getup. The latter is no different than showing up to a cocktail party in a Darth Vader costume. It’s a costume, it’s out of place, and like Darth sipping an old fashioned, it’s probably not happening all that often.

But buying and wearing better looking versions of the outdoor clothes you wore as a kid in the scouts, or while growing up in a rural area, or both, or neither, shouldn’t be seen as some flailing attempt to compensate for a lack of masculinity.

Sometimes a pair of boots is just a pair of boots. It doesn’t mean the wearer is concerned about his perceived level of manliness, “craves gay adulation,” or feels like technology has neutered his gender identity. Just as it also doesn’t mean that when he goes home, he takes off those Wolverine 1000 milers and switches over to high heels and a bra.

And if he does, perhaps the better question is… what’s it to you?

Editor’s Note: The author of this post owns and often wears two pairs of “nice” workboots, and strongly dislikes flannel shirts. The author of this post is also the editor.