A Sunday Read On Monday

Just not that into ewes: ‘gay sheep’ escape slaughter and take over a New York catwalk

I ram what I ram: Michael Stücke, the co-founder of Rainbow Wool, a company that produces wool from ‘gay sheep’ saved from slaughter, with his flock in Germany. Photograph: Steve Marais for Rainbow Wool

Designer Michael Schmidt’s 36-piece collection was made from the wool of rams who have shown same-sex attraction

Julia Carrie WongFri 5 Dec 2025 10.00 ESTShare

When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath – what is known in the world of animal husbandry as a “flehmen response” – it is often a sign of arousal. Sheep have a small sensory organ located above the roof of the mouth, and the flehmen response helps to flood it with any sex pheromones wafting about.

Usually, rams flehmen when they encounter ewes during the mating period, according to Michael Stücke, a farmer with 30 years of experience raising sheep in Westphalia, Germany. But on Stücke’s farm, the rams flehmen “all the time”.

“They do this all the time, because they find each other attractive,” said Stücke of his 35 male sheep. “They’re cuddling. They’re showing signs of affection. They’re jumping on each other. It’s undeniable that they’re attracted to each other.”

Stücke is the proud shepherd of the world’s first and probably only flock of gay rams. Though researchers have found that as many as 8% of male sheep are “male-oriented”, homosexuality is viewed disfavorably by most farmers, who expect rams to perform a breeding function. Rams who refuse to breed are often slaughtered for meat, and it was during a discussion of this harsh reality with Stücke’s friend and business partner Nadia Leytes that the idea for Rainbow Wool was born: “What can we do to not send all of them to the slaughterhouse?”

“My heart beats for the weak and oppressed in general,” Stücke told the Guardian, with Leytes translating. “I am gay myself and know the prejudices and obstacles that come with being a gay man, especially in the agricultural business.”

Rainbow Wool’s solution has been to buy gay rams directly from breeders, outbidding the price they might receive from a slaughterhouse, and keep them for their wool. The flock now numbers 35, and the farm has a waiting list. Individual sheep can be named and sponsored – they include a Bentheimer landschaf named Wolli Wonka, a Shropshire named Prince Wolliam, and Jean Woll Gaultier – and the wool is processed by a mill in Spain. All profits are donated to LGBTQ+ charities in Germany. “A couple of sheep [have been] saved but also a couple of people,” Leytes said, noting that their donations have supported relocating people living in countries where being gay is illegal.

Correctly identifying a sheep’s sexual orientation can be tricky. “Everybody can just say: ‘Hey I have a gay ram,’” Stücke said, “but what we’re doing is observing their behavior.”

“Some rams basically jump on everything, whether it’s female or male,” he added. “That would not qualify as being a gay ram. That would qualify as being a dominant. But if a ram consistently refuses to mate with a female sheep, this is the sign that you know he prefers other rams.”

Stücke’s flock burst on to the fashion scene last month when they provided the raw material for a knitwear collection designed by Chrome Hearts collaborator Michael Schmidt and sponsored by the gay dating app Grindr. Schmidt sent 36 looks down a New York City catwalk, all knit or crocheted from the wool of Stücke’s gay sheep. Each look represented a male archetype, starting with Adam sans Eve and including a pool boy, sailor, pizza delivery boy, plumber and leather daddy.

Models wait backstage at Michael Schmidt’s presentation of I Wool Survive at Manhattan’s Altman Building. Photograph: Oliver Halfin

“I really wanted to lean into the gay,” Schmidt told the New York Times. “I view it as an art project. It’s selling an idea more than a collection of clothing, and the idea it’s selling is that homosexuality is not only part of the human condition, but of the animal world. That puts the lie to this concept that being gay is a choice. It’s part of nature.”

The naturalness of homosexuality as demonstrated by the gayness of sheep has been a subject of media fascination for decades, thanks in large part to Charles Roselli, a professor of biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University. Roselli’s research into how sex hormones affect brain development is the source of the statistic about one in 12 rams being gay. (there is MORE on the page; it’s quite intriguing)

Meet Nick Dumont: the Oppenheimer Actor Comes Out as Trans, Updates Pronouns

The actor shared the new name and pronouns in a major gender update to TMZ.

By James Factora December 6, 2024

Nick Dumont, the actor who played Jackie Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer, has come out as transmasculine and nonbinary.

As first reported by TMZ on Thursday, the actor recently changed their pronouns and name on their Instagram bio. Though their handle is still @emmadumont, their name is now listed as Nick Dumont on their profile, and their pronouns are listed as “they/them.” Their bio includes a collection of heart emojis that appear to correspond to the lesbian and nonbinary flags, as well as the phrases “Carmy coded,” as in the main character from The Bear, and “McCutcheon apologist,” as in the polarizing anti-hero Shane from the original L Word. Now that’s a transmasculine nonbinary Instagram bio if ever we’ve seen one.

Though Dumont has changed their pronouns and name on their Instagram profile, they have not yet directly posted about their coming out to social media. A representative for the actor told TMZ that they identify “as a transmasculine nonbinary person.” “Their work name is still going to be Emma Dumont, but they will go by Nick with friends and family,” the rep said. (snip-MORE)

https://www.them.us/story/nick-dumont-oppenheimer-comes-out-trans-nonbinary-pronouns

Break out the hairspray and rollers: big hair is back

Don’t worry – the stiff helmets of 1980s TV soaps are a thing of the past. Here’s how to bulk out your bouffant the 2024 way

Not a thing I thought I would see again, “helmet” or not, though I know things come back around every 20 years. But it’s been resisted for so long! Anyway, for those who care about their hairstyle. I loved bigger hair on me, but I simply don’t have time anymore.

Snippets:

If you’ve spent the past 10 years trying – and failing – to do those loose, carefree, beachy waves, then you can finally put down your tongs, tend to your burns and give it all up as a bad job. Hair is changing. And, it seems, expanding outwards.

Big hair is back on the catwalk, with models wearing backcombed bouffants befitting the Oil Baron’s Ball. But, says revered hairstylist Sam McKnight, who took inspiration from Princess Michael of Kent and 1980s Sloane Rangers for the hair at Vivienne Westwood SS25, and backcombed big, pouffy supermodel blowdries at 16 Arlington, the new big hair is nothing like the helmet hair of 80s fashion.

The new “Dynasty hair” is strong, but much softer-looking. And thanks to an explosion in DIY hair tutorials online, it’s something that can be achieved fairly quickly at home. “It’s not about a proper, painstaking blow-dry with loads of sections and a round brush,” McKnight told me post-fashion week. (snip-procedure on the page)

Even if this “easier” way to volumise is above your pay grade, just rolling your hair up in jumbo bendy rollers will give it way more volume come morning, as the heat from your head moulds it. Believe me, I was sceptical. But a light mist of dry shampoo such as Batsite Overnight Deep Cleanse (£4.25), one Satin Jumbo Flexi-Rod by Kitsch (£19 for four) at the front, winding backwards, another at the back winding under, and one at each side, worn to bed, give my flat, fine barnet major bounce at breakfast.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2024/oct/19/sali-hughes-hairspray-and-rollers-big-hair-is-back

Remembering Metrosexuality, the Trend That Taught Straight Men It’s OK to Be a Little Gay

From David Beckham’s poreless skin to the tastes of Queer Eye’s original Fab Five, metrosexuality marked an essential step toward a more open masculinity.

(This came from a magazine Janet linked a few days ago. I’m sitting and reading around in it today, and this struck me, especially in light of certain dark comments made over the past few years by the Republican VP nom. So I’m posting for juju. Or mojo. Mostly humorous spite, on my part. NVM me and enjoy the story.)

By Chris Erik Thomas

2004 Was So Gay is Them’s look back at a pivotal year for queer history and pop culture. Read more from the series here.

“Precise, smooth, and powerful:” the sexual energy rippling through Gillette’s 2004 ad campaign nearly leaps from the page — not because razors were suddenly sexy, but because its star, David Beckham, was known at the time as “the biggest metrosexual in Britain.” With a freshly shaved head, glistening muscles, and a green-tipped razor in hand, the image cemented what the world already knew, by way of a £40 million global ad campaign. This British soccer star — this man who wore pink nail polish and, occasionally, his wife’s panties — was seen as the peak of masculinity that year, and nobody else came close. As Gillette’s tagline went, Beckham was “the best a man can get.”

Beckham may have been the gold standard for The Metrosexual, a “type” of man that entered the popular consciousness in the mid-2000s, but really the inspiration for the movement looked more like Stefon from Saturday Night Live. The character, played by Bill Hader, stopped by Weekend Update with highlights in his side-swept hair and Ed Hardy’s rhinestone regalia covering his body to let viewers in on the hottest new spots in nightlife. Stefon’s outfits were modeled after 2000s nightlife looks, a fitting visual metaphor for the chaotic, homoerotic overtones of the early 2000s.

Much like the fictitious clubs Stefon gushed over, metrosexuality had everything. There were the menswear bibles you had to subscribe to (Details, Esquire, and GQ); must-have fashion labels (from Paul Smith and Hugo Boss to Dolce & Gabbana); and, of course, grooming brands like Axe body spray, which launched in the U.S. in 2002. On TV, the metrosexual movement was dominated by the likes of Queer Eye’s “Fab Five,” who burst into straight men’s homes like a glitterati SWAT team, and by Stacy London and Clinton Kelly on What Not to Wear, the more composed (but equally bitchy) spiritual sister in the makeover reality show genre.

Men had been Yassified, remade in His image; “His” being, if it weren’t clear by now, a fashion-conscious, grooming-obsessed gay man. Yes, the homoerotic undertones of metrosexuality weren’t exactly subtle, but it was the 2000s, damnit, and men were allowed to be a little fruity and high maintenance as a treat. For those caught in the metrosexualmania, the fad might’ve felt like a flash of lightning: suddenly there, lighting up every follicle and pore. Google search results for the phrase exploded from 25,000 in mid-2002 to nearly a million by the end of 2005. But the term had roots far beyond its early 2000s heyday, first entering the cultural lexicon via the self-proclaimed “daddy” of metrosexuality, Mark Simpson, and his seminal 1994 essay, “Here Come the Mirror Men: Why the Future is Metrosexual.”

Written as a taxonomy on fascinating, capitalist animals who’d just discovered oil-free moisturizer and form-fitting pants, Simpson’s essay announced the arrival of the “[m]etrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade […] he’s everywhere, and he’s going shopping.” Or put more succinctly: “Metrosexual man is a commodity fetishist: a collector of fantasies about the male sold to him by advertising.”

The notion that you should spend more time and money on clothes, grooming, and fitness wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel. What made metrosexuality unique wasn’t its deep roots in capitalism, but rather its flirtation with queering masculinity in a way that felt fundamentally new. This was a tectonic vibe shift that democratized desire, cracking open the door for straight men to edge into femininity. Metrosexuality’s origin was also fundamentally shaped by the HIV pandemic, which spawned its own obsession with self-image. LGBTQ+ people — and particularly gay men — idolized gym-hardened bodies and obsessed over looking affluent and “healthy.”

The rise of the “metrosexual” may have been a straight thing, but the through lines of these two movements ran concurrently, separated more by who you wanted to sleep with and less by what designer brand you went shopping for. We may feel trapped today in a timeline that’s more metro than ever, but the newness and, frankly, the edginess of metrosexuality 20 years ago was historic — especially as it grew from that tiny 1994-era seedling into a blossoming flower.

Like Simpson’s read of heterosexuality in 90s menswear magazines being “so self-conscious, so studied, that it’s actually rather camp,” it was the self-serious, studied, and camp character of Patrick Bateman in 2000’s American Psycho that finally put the nail in the coffin of the 1990s’ dominant, grungy aesthetic. The film about full-time Wall Street hotshot and part-time murderer, played perfectly by a svelte and smug Christian Bale, rewrote the codes of the New Man for a new decade within its first 10 minutes. In an opening monologue that feels created in a lab for future metrosexuals to studiously replicate, Bateman walks through a morning routine that includes ice-pack facials, a thousand stomach crunches, deep pore cleanser lotion, water-activated gel cleanser, honey almond body scrub, exfoliating gel scrub, herb-mint facial masque (leave on for 10 minutes), moisturizer, anti-aging eye balm, and aftershave lotion with no alcohol (“because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.”) By the time the film shows him studying himself in a mirror, flexing his muscles as he mindlessly fucks a woman, the codes of this new kind of man were crystallized.

By 2004, “metrosexual” had been crowned “Word of the Year” by the American Dialect Society. Naturally, culture was flooded with glistening bodies, clouds of cologne, hardened hair gel, and at least five pairs of queer eyes regularly dissecting and rebuilding straight guys. These habits and inclinations toward presenting health and wealth have hardened with the passing of time, like a particularly sculpted torso. To put this in more Shakespearean terms: Metrosexuality by any other name (say, a looksmaxxing alpha male, or muscle gay) smells just as strongly of whatever scent we’re being marketed that day. Just like in 2004, turn on the TV or open a fashion publication’s homepage, and you’ll be knocked on your ass by capitalism’s consumptive frenzy; the major difference now is the somehow more relentless push to sculpt, shop and spend, driven into hyperdrive by our social media feeds. No matter if you’re gay, straight, femme, or them, we’re bombarded by messaging that tells us to work out, dress better, and start an 84-step skincare routine. My algorithm seems to hit me with a barrage of perfectly toned, sexually ambiguous guys every time I doomscroll.

It doesn’t take an armchair anthropologist to tell you that every trend, no matter how culturally ingrained it seems, will fade out over time. See “demure,” “Brat,” and whatever microtrend TikTok’s algorithms push today. As culture shifted and economics crashed, so did the desire to spend exorbitantly on grooming. The word “metrosexual” now feels as dated as Carson Kressley and the other original Fab Five members I simply cannot remember, but its cultural impact has lived on; every subsequent movement owes a debt to the metrosexual — from hipsters and their gallons of beard oil all the way to streetwear bros with sneaker collections rivaling even Carrie Bradshaw.

Metrosexuality’s chokehold on the 2000s taught men to be more comfortable in their femininity, but in the 20 years that have passed, our cultural understanding of manhood has splintered. There is the darker side, filtering metrosexuality’s obsessive grooming into a toxic, warped worldview dominated by obsessively coiffed, overly buff, and deeply insecure influencers. This is the side where young men are breaking their legs to be taller and smashing their jaws to be more “alpha.”

But luckily, it’s not all broken bones and toxic trauma. There’s a more healthy, nuanced exploration of modern masculinity that leans into the queerer side of our metrosexual forefathers. One that has allowed rockstars like Harry Styles to grace magazine covers in womenswear, release a gender-neutral beauty brand (Pleasing), and say, “I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine” in a 2018 interview with fellow softboy Timothée Chalamet. You can see it during a night out as you spot straight men with painted nails and crop tops dancing with their girlfriends. You can see it in the celebrity role models of Steve Lacy, Paul Mescal, and Josh O’Connor — the latter helping launch both the “rat boy” and “fruity boy” micro-trends. This particular flavor of New Man is united in an embrace of and comfort with the duality of their feminine and masculine sides — and, notably, not separated by sexuality. Omar Apollo, Steve Lacy, Frank Ocean, and Tyler, the Creator meld effortlessly with the likes of Jaden Smith and the airbrushed perfection of K-pop supergroup BTS.

It has been thirty years since the “metrosexual” emerged and twenty years since its cultural reign. As we continue to navigate this modern era, redefining what it means to be a man, we’d do well to remember just how many boundaries metrosexuality broke down. Sure, it may be responsible for the poisonous clouds of Axe body spray we endured and ushered in a new era of hyper-commodification, but it also brought newfound sexual confidence and liberation to masculinity that taught us that it’s okay to be a little gay. Had it not been for our metrosexual forefathers (and the queers that guided them), who knows what rigid sartorial hellscape we’d all be living in today.

https://www.them.us/story/metrosexuality-retrospective-history-2000s-david-beckham-fab-five