The Bowery Girls

I dunno if I can ever forgive Mark Simpson for "post-gay" (his Anti-Gay had to be the first book of that nature) let alone "metrosexual," but he's spot-on regarding Lady GaGa. (Which is just a snappier way of saying, "This guy's saying exactly what I've been saying!")

In an Out essay, he demolishes Camille Paglia's demolition of GaGa, pointing out most incisively that GaGa's is not unsexy, she's post-sexy. And he's completely right that Madonna was the transition from sexy to post-; she was considered sexy in the '80s and early '90s, and ever since Sex most people think of her as being of sex, not sexy.

He also puts it well when talking about originality, saying for this generation, "creativity is curation". And as for theft?

"In the indignant roll call of the artists Gaga has 'ripped off,' one who is rarely mentioned is the Australian-born performance artist Leigh Bowery, who died in 1994 of AIDS-related illnesses. Bowery defied gender, and pretty much any category you care to mention, with his stunning, hilarious, and terrifying body-morphing outfits, sometimes fashioned out of his own (ample) flesh...Famously, he once lay on a divan in a shop window in a London art gallery preening himself for a week. Gaga, however, is reclining in the shop window of the world."

Paglia gets credit for getting Madonna 20 years ago, but Simpson gets credit for getting GaGa here and now.