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Metro sexual, an unfamiliar word of foreign origin, is no longer strange to us. An Internet portal site encyclopedia defines the word as "a term denoting males who possess feministic esthetic sense and who show great interest in one's looks and fashions." At this juncture in time, at the least, metro sexual is undoubtedly a new "commodity" of the mass media and an attraction. The cable satellite channel On Style introduces metro sexual singles determined to disclose to the world their "secret daily lives," self-recommended or recommended by others, in a reality program dubbed "Singles in Seoul 2 - Metro Sexual," slated for its first broadcast Friday.
Of the performers, Pak Jun-hong, 36, a dermatologist; Kim Chi-ho, 36, an interior designer; Yi Lu-ma, 27, a pianist; Brian Lee, 34, a broadcasting MC; and Ian Seo Dong-hyun, 24, a model gathered together on Monday. The occupations are those often seen in trendy dramas. Television that showed dandy lives with fictional stories has taken a step forward to "reality programs."
Heroes in "Men in Black," the first episode of the reality program, are Hwang Ui-gon, representative of a publicity firm, and Brian Lee. They will show how they work at their jobs, people they meet and how they play. Clothes they wear, places they visit, meals they take and houses they live in will all be consumed as attractions through the media. What is the identity of the metro sexual? "I always read fashion magazines. I've my own styles in my head." "We get fat and it's difficult to reduce our weight. So, I eat meals counting calories at the beginning."
They have a lot to talk about "living in Korea as males" and "marriage." "A decade ago we could expand the size of their houses with only the husband working hard and saving. But today, it's difficult to make ends meet unless both the husband and wife earn together. Consequently, male status is bound to suffer." "With females' social advances being taken for granted, difference in male and female functions has disappeared. Metro sexual has come into being amid such an atmosphere." "It's a wrong notion that a man should marry if he is beyond 30 in age. If one gets desperate in finding his spouse, he is bound to end up with a wrong life-partner." "The job is too important to be faithful to family life. I cannot give up my job, and I won't get married in haste."
The metro sexual world could be a show window of changing Korean society. Their talks are full of remarks about perceptions of gender differences and functions, family and husband and wife and marriage that we could hardly expect from males of yesteryear. It is yet to be seen if metro sexual will become a window showing changes in our society or end up as just visual satisfaction by displaying male dandies.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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