The New Era Of Man?

A male model dressed as a woman wears a Claudia Pegus design at Caribbean Fashionweek at the National Indoor Sports Centre in 2009. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Oxy Moron, Contributor

When I was a youngster, which is not many years ago, it was taboo for men to wear white pants and shoes, pants without back pockets, floral clothes, anklets and bangles, anything pink, earrings, slippers, to press and cream their hair, to 'carry news' and gossip, and to join a school's dance troupe. Today, Jamaican men have broken from the shackles of gender stereotype. It's the age of liberation.

Body-hugging, very short-sleeved, short, floral shirts. Cream hair. Exposed polka-dot boxers. Pink pants with its waist at his knees. With passengers he pleads, "give the baby-mother a seat".

Two earrings, perfectly arched eyebrows, glossy lips. White knee-length cargo pants and purple slippers. On a shop piazza, somewhere in rural Jamaica, he's getting his hair done. Further down the valley, Farmer Joe, as old as yonder hills, is tilling the soil.

Bleached face and neck, black lips, mass of unkempt hair. Red, heart-shaped tattoo on neck. Lean, shirtless torso. Right hand kneading vegetable matter in left palm. It is 10 in the morn. He tells a passerby he wants to "eat a food" because "nutt'n nah gwaan".

Pink

It's the end of lunchtime. Face is washed with bar of blue washing soap. Face is pat-dried by pink fluffy rag. Small, pink-frame mirror is consulted and eyebrows are rearranged. Lip balm is applied. Soap, rag, mirror and lip balm are replaced into pink shoulder bag. Then, off he 'skanks' in his khaki pants cum tights.

Three earrings in one ear, shoulder-length plaited hair. Cropped jeans, extending just below the knees, are harnessed to his waist by a bright yellow belt. In matching bright yellow slippers he goes, flip-flopping on the construction site, donning yellow-frame sunglasses to protect his sight.

Downtown Kingston. Tall, black-skinned vendor selling panties and brassieres, one of which he stuffs and wears, shouting to people to go and buy his wares. They are oblivious to the fact that he's also donning shimmering slippers, blond braids, plastic hoop earrings and false fingernails.

'Brown boy in the ring, shalla-la-la-la. Show me yuh motion, shalla-la-la-la,' the music blares. Out-dancing and out-styling the girls they are, executing every move under the stars. Arms in arms they twirl, around and around they go on that television dancin' show.

Yesterday morning, he told her, "Dem man deh fi dead!" She retorted, "Mi like him, a so him stay." "Man a thug," he scowled. Last night. She and her thug man were at the front. She was dying with laughter, but still contained herself. And he? Thug spent most of the evening on the floor, rolling and laughing uproariously at Shebada's jokes.

ENDS

Some notes:

Well the writer is dead on with some of the types of descriptions and behaviours of some Jamaican so called thugs or heaviots (the gay ones) as we call them colloquially I detect however a kind of admiration and or obsession from the writer's point of view they seem to be romantically caught up in the phenomenon which is by no means new if we were paying attention from as far back as the late nineties. The changes in how men look and behave in this country have been glaring and leading the charge oddly has always been the dancehall DJs surprisingly despite their open challenge to gay themed lifestyles and aesthetics. Who can remember the days of bleached hair by artists such as General Degree and Elephant Man in the height of the rapid releases of "murder music" from the production houses.

Now we have arrived at the "Cake Soap" era and we all know who is leading that charge none other than the "teacher" Vybz Kartel who is quick to disassociate himself to any homosexual references in the song's first line "Mi nuh love man so tek yuh mind offa mi" (I don't love men so take your mind off me) so clearly while the metro-sexual lifestyles are clearly being tolerated their is still an underlined belief that it is gays who really start or do more of these now mainstream trends than heterosexuals.

See my posts below in the Kartel cake soap issue and more.

Peace and tolerance.

H