Confused Metrosexuals Hit on Subway Cars and ATMs
Self-proclaimed metrosexual Ben Epapsero approaches L-train and asks, “Hey baby, you come here often?” - photo by Dan Zembrosky
Abe Epperson
Since the American “metrosexual craze” of 2003, police departments have received an increasing number of reports of a disturbing trend—male activities ranging from small talk to attempted coitus with urban fixtures including ATMs, subway seats, and tenement gutters. Currently, puzzled city police officers are arresting perpetrators on charges of vandalism, public nudity, and other indecency laws. Most of the accused blame their audacity on simply mistaking the definition of “metrosexual” to be literal.
The term “metrosexual” was first coined by British writer Mark Simpson. “The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis—because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference,” Simpson explains. He acknowledges the possibility for misinterpretation inherent in the term “metrosexual,” and admits that the moniker “came to me while I was riding a bus… a very good-looking bus.”
After being arrested for indecent exposure while attempting coitus with a “positively rockin’ bike lane” in New York, William Orange exulted, “I never knew there was a category for people like me! I’ve been waiting years for this [romance with features of large cities] to catch on. I just love the city. Seriously… I just love the city.”
Seeking “love, acceptance, and a plain old good time,” an increasing number of men are finding long-term relationships with public property and facilities. Samuel Yip, 22, maintained a three-month relationship with a subway car, but decided to call it quits due to the car’s “clear negligence, inability to commit, and poor punctuality.” Yip, currently being charged with several counts of vandalism and disturbing the peace, reported that the “emotionally draining” breakup “hurt more than hell.”
Citizens of the same cities that metrosexuals call their homes, distraught over the “defacement of public property,” are petitioning police departments to increase punishments for the “lewd acts in question,” said Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton. Bratton himself admits discomfort over the new trend. “On my way to work this morning, I saw a man no older than 18 reading poetry to an ATM . After a brief transaction, the ATM said ‘Thank You,’ you know, one of them talking ATMs, and the boy said, ‘No, ATM. Thank you.’ I mean, you should be able to book a guy for something like that.”
In response to the public’s outrage, advocacy organizations such as Reactionaries United Against Discrimination, Landscape Oppression, and Violence and UrbanJoy are stepping in to “help struggling metrosexuals in their fight against the mainstream culture-sourced discrimination.”
These organizations have built dance clubs, health spas, and brightly colored hair salons to address the needs of the growing number of metrosexuals, employing only “outed” metrosexuals who have been laid off due to their sexual presentation.
UrbanJoy is embarking on a new project to construct mock subway cars, ATMs, bike lanes, and other urban fixtures. As UrbanJoy spokesman and affirmed metrosexual Rick Springer said, “our new facilities will allow us metrosexuals to love what we want, when we want. We should be able to flirt a little without snarling traffic, getting run over, short-circuiting our favorite ATM, or contracting cholera from a good game of tonsil hockey with a storm drain.”