Emergence of homosexuality that triggered the male cosmetic industry

Between the 1880 and 1945, homosexuality was regarded as a negative impact on the society. The society would discriminate this group of people treating them as abnormal people. After years of tolerance, an American writer by the name of Walt Withman wrote a poem on homosexual love which later on inspires many other homosexual writers to follow his footsteps (Gloobts, 2009). In the mid 20^th century, literature was written, songs on homosexuality were sung, with the emergence of underground social networks for gays (Gloobts, 2009). The attitude of the society towards homosexuality began to change after World War II, this marks the beginning of the gay rights activism in the U.S. But what actually triggered the social change?

After World War II, the war resulted large geographical migrations, people were moving out from their homes and familiar place, cutting of tradition social interaction and allowing individuals to create new social identities (Hurley, 2005). It was further added that this indirectly created long-term ideological adjustments toward sexuality, family, and gender. Homosexuality, nudity, prostitution became more lenient and permissive, and the society has shift to a new level of tolerance on this elements (Chong, 1994). Because the society has greater tolerance for sexual matters in the mid 1960s, there was a decriminalization of homosexuality and widespread availability of sexually explicit materials (Treas, 2002). Than in the 1970s, a riot broke out by the open resistance of gay men to police harassment in New York and after that numerous lesbians and gay established liberation organisations and decided a call for “gay liberation”. Because of the public display of riot by the homosexual people, the society shows a greater tolerance between the years 1976-1988 (Wilson, 1994). More recently according to Brooks (2000), they are even increasing public that supports for the rights of homosexuals in employment, education and acceptance.

This started to shows the public acceptance towards homosexuality, gays and lesbians. Even so, there were still a minority of people that continues to discriminate homosexuality. Today, with the increasing visibility of gays and lesbians in the fashion, beauty and entertainment and mass media, shows like Queer Eye For The Straight Guy which is a show on homosexuality encourage more homosexuals or gay to stand for their rights and are not embarrassed of themselves because they are gay. The increasing advertisement of cosmetics and skin care products and availability throughout stores motivated homosexuals to purchase and wear cosmetics openly. But as we know, cosmetics are initially targeted towards female only therefore when gays start using the solution it does not produce similar affect. Loreal began to see a potential in the gay market segment using cosmetics, but is the market big enough to worth targeting and developing new range of cosmetics solely for men? According to Solomon (2002) the potential size of the homosexual segment spends around $250 billion to $350 billion a year! The results were astonishing as it displays the homosexuals compared to heterosexual are 12 times likely more to hold professional jobs, twice as likely to own a vacation home and eight times more likely to own a notebook computer. It is further added homosexuals are active internet users and more than 70 percent of homosexuals actually do online shopping. Seeing a huge potential market in the male industry, organisation developed cosmetics and skincare for males because the skin of the male is different from the female (HealthySkinCare, 2009). But until 1985, there was no other organisation except Loreal was bold enough to launch itself it this market segment with the brand Biotherm Homme that focused on anti wrinkle creams and producing masculinity effect (Loreal, 2009). Loreal enjoyed almost no competitors for almost 15 years where than other organisation like Vichy for Men, Clarins, Nickel and etc entered to the male cosmetic market providing cosmetics that focus on masculinity. Thus, this is the beginning of male starting to use cosmetics and for the first time cosmetics are made available for male....