In Male Impersonators, Mark Simpson explores the range of male life and masculinity, posing witty and important questions about bodybuilding, tatoos, pornography, cruising, advertising, and team sports. Simpson looks at how gay men appropriate the skinhead phenomenon and why; how Marky Mark exploits the hustler mystique and hwat it says to gay and straight men; how the Men's movement is being sought out by men--straight or gay--who feel alienated from a macho culture, and compares the participation and reactions of men to various "manly pursuits." Throughout, Male Impersonators examines the roles of homoeroticism and narcissism in the male world, and the performativity of masculinity itself.
Brit author and journalist Mark Simpson is credited with 'fathering' the metrosexual in the UK's Independent newspaper in 1994 (and also his hairy-backed anti-thesis the retrosexual).
Simpson introduced his insufferably pretty offspring to the US in 2002, naming David Beckham as the prime exemplar and starting the current global epidemic of metrosexmania.
In 2010 the global cool-hunting/trend-spotting website Science of the Time described him as 'the world's most perceptive writer about masculinity'.
Both the New York Times and The London Times acclaimed his saucy new concept of 'Sporno' ('the place where sport and porn meet and produce a spectacular money shot') as one of their 'Ideas of the Year'.
In December 2008 GQ Russia listed him - topless and oiled up - in their top ten Things That Changed Men's Lives, above Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigmund Freud and even Biotherm Homme.
Publications Simpson has written for include The Times, Playboy, Out, the Independent, the Seattle Stranger, the Guardian, Vogues Hommes International and Details. He is also Senior Contributing Editor at the world's leading men's fashmag, Arena Hommes Plus.
