In Hungary, Only Real Men Wear Purses

Say what you will about Euro 2004, but if nothing else it offered an unparalleled opportunity for trans-continental boy-watching. Just by sitting on your duff in front of the TV, you got to see the latest in male fashion from across Europe, and, more to the point, how much some of the boys on and off the pitch are starting to look like girls.

That’s right. Even though his team crapped out in the quarter-finals partly because of his own mistake, foppish English captain David Beckham is still Europe’s undisputed style champion. And from France to Sweden to Portugal and Bulgaria, European men are following Becks’ example, fussing with their hair, getting their chests and butts waxed, hugging their best mates, wearing the occasional skirt or diamond earring, and otherwise helping to spread the metrosexual revolution into the farthest and darkest corners of Europe.

Brown shoes, with that suit? As if!

If you haven’t yet heard the expression, “metrosexual” is one of those great terms that marketers and sociologists occasionally invent to describe some new social trend or demographic sub-group. According to one definition, a metrosexual is “an urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.” Another describes the typical metrosexual as “a man who seems stereotypically gay except when it comes to sexual orientation.”

Either way, Hungary seems to be positively bursting with metrosexuality. In Budapest, almost every street now has a fancy fodrász (hairdresser) and turbo-solarium, and it isn’t just girls getting blow-dried, tinted and bronzed. In fact, when I went to my own hairdresser and pedicurist last week to ask them about recent advances in male grooming in Hungary, they couldn’t tell me anything, because they were fully booked.

In case you think I am joking, consider the Mandala Day Spa. Nestled into the equally metrosexy Kleopátra Ház complex in the thirteenth district, it offers a range of outlandishly metrosexual treatments for men, including an hour-long Ft 8,600 (€34.25) facial using Clarins beauty products. Last Thursday I went to investigate, and after warming up with a cup of herbal tea, a leisurely, candle-lit salt bath, and an 80-minute body, head and face massage at the lightly-oiled and scented hands of an disturbingly soft-spoken fellow who I believe was named László (though I could swear he said “Leslie”) I asked the manager what in the Wide World of Sports was going on.

I say we blow this popsicle stand and go get facials

According to the manager, a serene beauty named Zadradna Toya, the Mandala is currently performing only a handful of male facials each week. But she said they were seeing more interest in such treatments, especially among Hungarian businessmen.

Then there is the increasingly gay-friendly attitude of Hungarian men. If you doubt me, just ask a gay Bulgarian. This isn’t as difficult as it may seem, because given the chance the average gay Bulgarian will immediately pack his hatboxes and move to Budapest, and many have. Actually, when I asked one gay Bulgarian I know whether Hungarian men were more comfortable with homosexuality than straights back in Sofia, he rolled his eyes at the silliness of my question. Sad to say, being “out” in most countries in the region is still like jumping into the Polar bear enclosure at the zoo with a pork chop tied around your neck, while last Saturday Budapest hosted a Gay Pride parade (more on that below).

And did I mention the handbags?

Ah, yes, the male purse, or as some people call it, the “manbag.”

To the visitor from the US and some other countries, perhaps the most shocking spectacle they will see on the streets of Budapest is the sight of grown men carrying around these jaunty little carryalls, which are usually the size and shape of a woman’s disco-bag, and often accessorized with a darling strap to shimmy your wrist through.

But take a closer look at that pocketbook and you will see that Hungarian metrosexuality is still no more than a twinkle in the eye of a few trend-consultants and gender-studies weenies. Because in this part of Europe, a purse on a man is about as girly as the kilt Mel Gibson wore while killing all those English poofs in Braveheart. It’s not about “embracing your feminine side” or anything other than having a place to put your keys, mobile phone or handgun. Like the still-common male habit of giving close male friends a peck on the cheek, the male purse is best seen as proof of secure masculinity.

The same goes for clothes. In the US, Britain or France, even the most diehard metrosexual will draw the line at certain fashion combinations, for fear of giving in the incorrect impression. But in Hungary, gay male fashions from abroad – and remember, all male fashions start life as a gay male fashions – often enter the local style palette without anyone here being even remotely suspicious.

And the beauty treatments? Well, I don’t know about the Clarins facial, but in my experience a pedicure in Hungary is significantly less fruity than a manicure in New York, as it is generally considered a medical procedure rather than a beauty treatment. Ditto for the public baths, with certain spectacular exceptions not suitable for mention on a family-oriented website.

Finally, there is the issue of women. In the UK or US, the driving force behind the metrosexual revolution is the willingness on the part of men to please or attract women, and no doubt, this is what drives some otherwise normal Hungarian havers to dress like buzis. But clothes do not make the metrosexual, and in the west, serious modern men are expected to take this women-pleasing thing to its illogical conclusion, by aggressively getting in contact with their own femininity. And suffice to say that it’s going to be a while before this idea gains wide currency in Budapest, not to mention Békéscsaba or Balácapuszta. In fact, if you were to ask the average Hungarian man whether he was “getting in contact with his femininity,” he would probably think you were asking whether he beat his wife, and would proudly answer persze! ("every night before dinner, like a friggin’ gong") before fussing with his purse and mincing off down the boulevard.

The global metrosexual revolution may be real, but, at least for the time being, Hungary seems to be safe. So the next time you hear a buff young swain with frosted highlights wearing a skin-tight sequined T-shirt and knee-high white Capri pants with a teal-blue thong showing through complaining that he’s late for his pedicure because he left his pocketbook at the Turkish bath, remember, he’s probably just a clueless male chauvinist pig like the rest of us.

In tantalizingly almost related news, CNN is reporting that some leading international health authorities are challenging the results of a Hungarian study released last week which claims that mobile phones may damage men’s sperm counts. The study, apparently led by a doctor from the University of Szeged, alleged that men who carried a mobile phone in their hip pocket on the waist could cut sperm count by nearly 30 percent. But other experts in male reproduction aren’t biting. According to the report, one such skeptic, a leading Dutch researcher who is a former president of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, openly criticized the study for not taking into account several potentially crucial variables, such as what type of jobs the subjects had, or whether they were cigarette smokers. Count me stumped as well. I mean, why would a man carry his mobile phone in his hip pocket or on his waist when he could just toss it into his purse like everyone else?

Speaking of real men and sissies, this year's Fourth of July weekend featured both the obligatory American Independence Day celebrations as well as Budapest’s annual Gay Pride Parade.

I didn't make the Pride parade due to a lack of publicity outside the gay community. But Stink gay affairs editor Kelly reported back that despite the lack of advance publicity, the event featured upwards of a thousand local queens, queers and assorted friends. Appropriately enough, the march began at Hosok tér (Heroes Square), and the heroes flew the red-orange-yellow-green-blue and purple as they proudly marched up regal Andrassy avenue.

I also didn't make the "official" expat Fourth of July celebration on Saturday at the Marine House up in the castle district, though for slightly different reasons. (Actually, there were two parties: One for official guests on Friday, which drew upwards of 1,000 diplomats, dignitaries, journalists, and other freeloaders, and one on Saturday for ordinary citizens and friends of the US, which was attended by about 300-400.)

¿Quién es mas macho? (top to bottom): Parading for Gay Pride, registering to vote without armed guards at Iguana, and the beseiged US embassy.

First of all, the embassy did its best to avoid spreading the word that there would be a party for expatriates, not even telling those of us who are on the slightly KGBesque American Citizen Services Warden list, and who voluntarily wasted a whole day helping the US Army practice evacuating the embassy. Then they required interested parties to R.S.V.P. a week before the event with their name and the number of the ID they planned to use, so a background check could be done on them. Needless to say, those who got through the pre-party screening also had to make it past a gauntlet of metal detectors, frisky security officers and other obstacles.

I didn’t hear about the party until the Monday before, so I wasn't able to go. Happily, I was then free to do something even better, and more American: I went to Iguana, had three delicious beef enchiladas with rice and refried beans, and registered to vote. That’s right – as the embassy staff and their marine guards were cowering in their virtually undisclosed location up in the Buda hills, a courageous group of Democrats Abroad had set up a table at the most conspicuous Yank hangout in Pest and started registering local Americans to vote. And they didn’t even flinch when I told them I thought John Kerry was a revolting wimp.

But back to the fags. Some readers may be wondering why a patriotic, straight, quasi-Republican like me would be trashing the US embassy on the Fourth of July while lauding a bunch of foreign fruits wearing ball gowns and tinker-bell wings. The answer is not that I'm peeved at getting left off the embassy's A-list and didn't have enough time to send over my passport number, stool sample and whatever else was required to get in. Instead, it's that the queers, and not the official representatives of the US government, are the ones who seem to actually understand the Spirit of '76, and especially how it relates to the world today.

If there’s anything the average person in Hungary or anywhere else hates more than an American – and wants to kill more than an American – it’s a queer. Indeed, in past years, the fearless marchers in the Pride Parade would have risked death or dismemberment for showing their colors in public.

But if we've learned anything else in the past few centuries of human history, it’s that cowering under fire only brings more fire. By turning this year’s Fourth of July party into something like a get-together of closeted gays back in 1950s small-town America, the US embassy only served to further embolden our terrorist enemies. Contrast this to the triumph of Budapest’s hero queers, who let everyone know they mean business by parading through town like – well, like a bunch of proud citizens celebrating the Fourth of July back in 1950s small-town America.

(They also have American scripture on their side: "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him," Thomas Jefferson once wrote, neatly summing up the governing philosophy of us pro-sodomy conservatives.)

So to the tough guys at the security office at the embassy, and whoever in Washington is responsible for subjecting us proud Americans abroad to such sissification, I say this: It’s time to butch up, ladies, and show our enemies what we are made of. Instead of hiding next year’s Independence Day party in the gilded cage of the Marine House, let's have an old fashioned Forth of July weenie roast right downtown, and right in the open, across from the embassy on the lawn of the newly-renovated Szabadság tér (Freedom Square). And while we’re at it, let's take down some of the ridiculous siege defenses that have made the embassy a symbol of America's isolation, mirroring the protective barrier the authorities have been forced to put around the hated Soviet memorial just a few meters away.

Would it be more dangerous then the current set-up? Absolutely! But what could be more fitting for a party commemorating a near-suicidal act of sedition by 56 men, of whom nine were killed in action, five were captured and tortured, and 12 had their houses ransacked and burned. And if the situation gets too hairy for embassy security, I know of some real men who might be in the neighborhood on the day in question, and willing to come by and help another threatened minority – especially if some of the marines can be prevailed on to share their wieners and buns.