Also at verveslag.

The official measure of any cultural movement is whether or not it's caught on in Ohio. Okay, well I made that up. But when the movement has its roots in Europe and maps its hotbeds to trendy corners of major cities, it's not a bad finish line to set. I'm talking, of course (or not so of course), about metrosexuals, who made headlines this weekend in the Akron Beacon Journal. That's right, pretty men in Ohio.

So now that metrosexuality has come of age, what more is left for it? Enduring cultural transformation? Flash in the pan? Not quite — like all revolutions, metrosexuality has already begun eating its own children. It isn't happening overnight, and it hasn't stricken everyone and everywhere yet. But in my twenty-something hipster enclave, it's definitely beginning. They're going gay. Or at least bi. Even just curious. They shop, they prim, they gel, and they're making out with each other while drunk the way girls did in the late nineties.

Of course, this team-switching undermines the entire notion of the metrosexual movement. This was supposed to be the great liberation of the world's straight men, but it's turning into National Coming Out Day decidedly not but once a year. Everyone thought traditional masculinity was dead. But by all accounts it may be alive and well (though not quite kicking) — it's old-time heterosexuality there on the floor bleeding. Metro is the hip new way to be out about being closet.

Except for me. I'm totally straight.