Where Are Your Nuts? - Male Feminization Pt. 2

by Preston Swagger orig. posted 09/08

I received several comments here and on a few other sites as well as emails regarding PART 1 and that was just the prelude. Some people thought that I was overreacting.

I’m sure that I am…but just humor me for a few more moments:

So the “women like it” + the “it’s a new fad” combination takes hold and the “queer eye” phenomena begins to grow. Guys are trying new products and realizing that they weren’t so bad.

This movement even gives rise to a new term, “metrosexual”.

How large has that term become?

Most spell checkers don’t correct it anymore. Now that’s the mark of something that has truly permeated society.

But you know what? That’s not even the problem. I’m not saying men should be hairy disgusting creatures. Nor do I mean to imply that “hairy”, “unkempt”, “smelly” or any other adjective in that vein defines manhood. Just as a neat and well dressed man isn’t a “pussy”.

I’ll put myself out there. And just for fun I’ll highlight the things that someone could interpret as girly.

I’ve never had a manicure.

I do have a loofah.

I work in Los Angeles and when I’m at a lunch or dinner meeting I know what wine to order with what foods.

I don’t kick it at home and sip Chablis.

If we go out, my goatee will be immaculately trimmed and my head will have a fresh baldy.

Right now: 5 o’clock shadow like a muthafucka.

I love sports, and I love gambling.

I’m honestly not that good with my hands. I can put the shit from Ikea together but I’m nothing special.

And if you hear a sound from under the hood of your car…I can’t do much more than refer you to a good mechanic.

If I’d been Tom Hanks in Castaway…you would’ve found my corpse! Right next to the twigs where I tried in vain to light a fire before I starved to death!

I’m an average cat.

But what I’m saying here…..the point of this article….is that THINGS HAVE GONE WAY PAST AVERAGE. They’ve gone way past metrosexual. Take the Blogxilla post I referenced at the end of part 1 on this topic. He kept hearing about guys doing some really punk ass shit. So, via twitter, he opened up his site and let women comment. Did you read those comments?????

IT IS WAY PAST AVERAGE.

I’ve copied some of the highlights lowlights here for you to read for yourself:

@Blogxilla: just yesterday, this guy was literally sitting next to his phone waiting 4 me 2 call.. Every 30 mins he’d hit me up Or when a guy is strictly your friend and he starts with…”It really hurt my feelings when…”

@Blogxilla this guy I work with, a girl told him he looked chunky at the club and he wouldn’t leave the dj booth for 2 hours lmao

@Blogxilla OMG!!! Me and ALL my girls been sayin this same shit ALL summer… I dont know, when or why but it seems like men an women are swapping places when it comes to relationships and sex. Used to be men complaining about women being clingy, jealous, insecure, stalkin… an now it’s them. Gettin feelins hurt, catchin feelins, whining, complaining, naggin and blowin a Bitch UP!!! XILLA wuts goin on?!

I love this post Xilla..I just recently broke up with my ex because he would not let me be the female in the relationship..he did most of what was mentioned above..There are a lot of dudes out there like this and its scary/crazy all at the same time

This clearly goes beyond a guy’s choice in exfoliate or whether he chooses wide leg or skinny jeans!!

But it is entirely possible that I’m blowing this out of proportion…

To be sure, let’s take a look at this last comment left on this very site:

Can’t we come to some sort of middle ground on this? Where is the “middleman”? Caveman ~ Hairy / Metroman ~ Waxed (or even worse, a fucking landing strip [true story])

FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!

A LANDING STRIP!!!

C’mon fellas!! Really?!?!?!?!!?

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!!

Now let’s take a quick look at hip-hop. What does EVERY SINGLE RAPPER say when they are criticized for rapping about drugs, violence or women in a misogynistic way?

I’m just rapping about what I see every day! I’m just talking about what’s in front of me. I’m a reflection of the hood.

So I’m sure it’s a coincidence that so many rappers become extremely successful and then start singing. Starting with Ja Rule, and running right on through 50, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. Just cause you’re singing into a box that makes your voice sound like a computer doesn’t make it “hard” man! Stop fuckin singin to me. What part of the “hood” are you reflecting with that shit?? When did you see THAT in front of you? Lil Wayne sang more than Static Major on “Lollipop” and he PAID Static Major to sing on that song! And Kanye damn near ruins Young Jeezy’s “Put On” by whining through a computer all over the refrain of the song.

Need more? Cause I could still just be trippin…

How about how every rappers favorite line nowadays seems to be, “it ain’t trickin if you got it”…

Yes it is, you hoecake!!!

Rappers love to reference pimps. Whether it’s Goldie, Magic Don Juan, A Pimp Named Slickback…whomever… But you know what...give those guys a BILLION dollars and guess how much they’d trick…

Zero Point Zero Zero dollars.

That’s how much!

Anytime you throw money in to replace a lack of game…YOU ARE TRICKIN. Pimps could be broke and still talk a chick right up out her clothes. Just cause you sold a million records doesn’t mean you’re not fuckin the game up. It’s trickin……..stop kidding yourself.

But maybe the queer eye phenomenom leading to the metrosexual craze leading to the outright girly men and singing rappers we have today is all just a coincidence…

So get mani/pedi’s, spa treatments, skinny jeans, those miniature scarves, and the best facial mask you can find. It’s not my swagg but go for it if it makes you happy. I’m not saying it’s wrong or you shouldn’t do it. Just be sure and reach into your pants and check for your nuts every now and then…

Because clearly, a lot of dudes have misplaced them.

The Feminization Of Men - Part 1

Written by Preston Swagger originally posted 09/08

It became noticeable when “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” hit its peak. Men are and always will be susceptible to two things: Women and Fads.

The “women” part was common knowledge. But fads are a bit more interesting though. This is especially true of fads that take guys out of their comfort zone. You have to coax a guy into that place.

For example:

Remember when “loofahs” first came out?! That spongy, kinda brillo pad type thing on a string (don’t front like you don’t know what I’m talking about). Well do you remember when guys slowly began to use them?

After the Ironhead Hayward commercial!! (5 cool points if you know what I’m talking about)!

I’ll explain: So the loofah comes out and guys aren’t touching it with a 10-foot pole. So someone has the great idea to get Denver Broncos star, Craig “Ironhead” Hayward to do a commercial for it. Moreover the commercial basically just consisted of Ironhead showing you how much more “lather” you can get with the loofah over the standard wash cloth and then him yelling and mocking the guys who thought the thing was too girly.

Fucking.

Brilliant.

So this guy’s guy reassures us. Tells us it’s ok to use this thing. So we do. He’s our excuse. I watch Ironhead run over fools on a football field every Sunday!! If he’s cool with the loufah…I’m cool too.

Queer Eye did the same thing, but in a different fashion. These guys would take a guy with a girlfriend or wife (that was ESSENTIAL, he HAD to have a girlfriend or wife) and shave him, fix up his crib, buy him a gang of new clothes and then go, “See…now isn’t this better”?? To which most guys would probably answer:

No!

Bitch!

But that wasn’t the entire scenario. The full picture was these guys going, “See…now isn’t this better”?? While his girl was standing right there!! She’s grinning from ear to ear because sex no longer involves a mouthful of chest hair and he just nods and is like, “yeah. I guess this is better”. And then they’d broadcast that shit into millions of homes across the country. And the Ironhead theorem would slowly kick in. Every week more men would fall victim as their girl would turn to them and say shit like,

“it’s not that bad”

“if that guy did it, so can you”,

“he was a Giants fan just like you, and now he looks great in skinny jeans”.

These same men would rationalize to their male friends after they’d given in.

“Yo, dog…exfoliating is kinda cool”.

“Pimps get manicures all the time”.

“Chicks love the way this new milk of magnesia, aloe vera, cocoa body butter smells”!!

But little did women know that these new products and body care regiments would seep into far more than the guy’s skin. It ended up permeating millions of guy’s very being and leading to the epidemic of bitchassness that is RAMPANT today.

I’m looking at you Day 26!!

In part 2 we discuss how bad things are today and how rappers have even become plagued by this phenomena as well. (IT’S STILL TRICKIN EVEN IF YOU HAVE IT!!!! YOU PUNK ASS!!)

Until tomorrow,

P. Swagg

Metro (Sexual) Man

by Preston Swagger

LOOK! Up in the sky!! It’s a bird!! It’s a plane!! No….It’s….Metro-Man

So the fellas and I are out playing pool and drinking. A few ladies are with us and were all just shootin the shit and having a good time. I make some comment about sports, or beer, or women, or all three (I honestly can’t remember), and one of the girls laughs and turns to me and says,

“Preston, you are such a guy”.

Honestly….It was one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a while.

I’m proud to be a “guy’s guy”. I’m proud to be Mel Gibson from the first half of “What Women Want” or Eddie Murphy from the first half of “Boomerang”. I enjoy it. (Although Eddie was a little too pretty in that movie). So we got into a drunken, pool playing discussion about what makes a guy metro or not (is there really any other way to discuss these things?).
So here’s my take on the whole metrosexual thing. I’m fine with the term, I just don’t like the guys that represent the idea of the classic metrosexuals. I mean, there are some things that I do (no, I’m not telling you) that could be considered metro, and I acknowledge that. I just don’t like being called metro because most people think of someone like Ryan Seacrest or Ricky Martin or some shit. Growing up, getting called a “pretty boy” was fighting words. I guess I still don’t take too kindly to it.

So you may be asking yourself, “Yo Preston, if you admittedly do some things that can be considered metro…why aren’t you a metrosexual?” To which I’d reply, “Mind your neck!!!.” Then, after I laughed I would tell you the real reason…

PRIORITIES… my good friend….priorities.

Let me give an example:

I was watching one of those “The Fabulous Life Of…” shows on VH-1. They showed a clip of Diddy on the phone in his penthouse office while some lady was giving him a pedicure. Now I don’t think that is a metrosexual thing to do. If I had millions of dollars, then sure I’d pay some chick a few bucks to massage my feet and cut my toenails for me. I mean, bending down and cutting my own toenails isn’t something I’ll miss doing…so…Why the fuck not…

I’m rich biatch!!

But if you’re a guy making around $40,000 and you’re just 9-5ing it like most people–but still finding time (and money) to go get mani/pedis?!?! YOU, my friend are a metrosexual.
And that’s what I mean about priorities. If I have to make an appointment and go to the salon and spend money that I would otherwise use for drinking, or clubbing, or seeing a ballgame with the boys…that would be ridiculous. That would be a metrosexual. But if I’m rich as all hell and can snap my fingers and have a chick there rubbin down my boats?!

Well that’s just pimp!

TM Throwback - "The Truth Merchants Guide to Workplace Etiquette"

Below is an article from September 2009 by one of the staff writters, KP. We've been out of the game since 2009???



Amongst my peers I often get clowned for receiving the Golden W-2 award for most jobs in a lifetime.

Hardy har.

I don’t argue that I’ve bounced around. That also makes me uniquely qualified to write this guide. Don’t mistake this for some white collar bull that’s going to tell you how to properly format a meeting memo.
I’m going to tell you how not to be the office asshole or weirdo. Print this out. Put it up in your cube. Study it at night. Whatever. Just don’t be that person!

First and foremost guys please DON'T be the office perv. (I’ll get to the ladies in a sec) Besides the possible HR issue, you’re just creepy dude. Always got your hand in your pocket, staring at anything that shakes, sending those “little Johnny” halfway dirty emails.

Just stop it.

If you slide up next to a female co-worker trying to strike up a conversation, and she never turns to look at you. Walk away! If she turns down one invite for drinks or “lunch.” Don’t ask again! The only thing worse than being the office perv is being the old office perv.

Ladies DON'T be the Transit Authority at work. In other words, don’t give everyone a ride (yes, that kind of ride). Office romance is romance. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about giving anybody who brings you some staples a happy ending. I kid...but I don’t. As we’ve mentioned several times on this site, we won’t respect you. And the women in the office will hate you.

DON'T be the office mouth waterfall. If someone asks “how’s it going?” or “how are you?” just say “Good and you?” and keep it moving. No one wants you to lie down on the couch and spill your guts. That question once had me hemmed up in a break room listening to an eerily Maury-esque story about her 16 yr. old getting pregnant. When people ask those questions...they don’t want to know! And contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to speak at all. A smile and nod does wonders.
Exceptions to this rule include: “How was your weekend?” and “How is your family?” You are then given a maximum of two short anecdotes or one long one to sum it up and keep it moving.

Don’t be the office terrorist. Blowing up the bathroom at work deserves water boarding, in my opinion. I know some gastrointestinal issues are too much to handle. Sh** happens. (ha!) I feel you! But I’ve got three words for you.

COURTESY FLUSH MOTHERFUCKER!

I’ve walked into some bathrooms and the pain of singed nose hairs immediately trumped my bladder. Just because you wanted Taco Hell for lunch; why does everyone else have to choose between breathing and pissing? The courtesy flush is dual purpose though. You know when the fireworks are gonna pop off bub, you know when the Hershey squirts are about to begin. Flush to cover that up...PLEASE!

Don’t be the office ashtray. This rule is for those who take smoke breaks (which I am 100% against). You f***ing stink. That’s it. Aint no more to it.

Don’t be the Food Nazi. The food Nazi is the person that might put in their order with everyone else for delivery and have eleventy million order modifications. Then gets mad if one thing is wrong. Your special needs a** should order for yourself! Oh yeah, extra duck sauce means at most a handful. Not the whole damn condiment bag! (that one was personal) Or the person who feels the need to rule pot lucks with an iron fist. There are bound to be some pot luck pirates for every work function. Let it go! There is no need to have a clipboard checking shit off like a nightclub bouncer. Which leads me to.

Don’t be the Pot Luck Pirate. Or at least…don’t get caught!. If your cheap ass didn’t want to sign up or missed signing up for the napkins and cups cop out, don’t have your happy ass in line talking about how good everything looks. And don’t pile up plates like your going into a fallout bunker. Put some blinders on, get a small sample of each dish, cover it up and eat it later. This is key. You are only fanning flames by sitting with the people who chipped in.
The only exception to this rule is during your birthday month. Feel free to crash any and all celebrations or pot lucks during your birthday this period without chipping in for any of them. Consider it your birthday gift.

Don’t be Pig-Pen from the Peanuts. I know there are times when we all run late and skip some morning rituals. But at least cover the booger bases. Nose and eye! Furthermore, don’t get all offended when someone gives you the “nose brush” to let you know you have some booger dust present. And that Tide commercial with the talking stain is on the money. Dirty clothes speak louder than you do. Trust.

Speaking of clothes. Don’t be the office Betty Boop or Austin Powers. Ladies I appreciate your desire to want to look sexy. But if you drop something at work and can’t pick it up without doing yoga. Your clothes might be a little too tight. I know business casual is a very loose term but I don’t think a purple Baby Phat tank top fits. I also know that talking about shoes to women is like walking into a minefield, blindfolded, with clown shoes on buuuuuut shouldn’t your shoes look more like your going to work the polls and not a pole? I’m just saying. Fellas if you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “does this work?” IT DOESN’T! I’m not hating on your fashion hustle but are sweater vests and bow ties necessary? I’m not advocating going out and buying name brand or changing your entire wardrobe. I just want you to hang up that suit with the shoulder pads. Look like your wearing a Frankenstein costume without the mask.

And with that I’m done, but please don’t consider this list complete. I know there are office transgressions I’ve missed that warrant calling out. So let’s have it.

What else are people just not getting at work?

KP