Metal Bed Frames Are Good, Actually
Beds have really been having a hard time lately. Last week, rumors swirled that cardboard beds were being used to discourage Olympian from having sex. Now, people on Twitter are going after metal bed frames, which also apparently have the same effect of discouraging intercourse. That's news to me!
Over the weekend, writer Lyz Lenz tweeted: "if you are a single cis man over 35 what does your bed look like and why is it just a full mattress sitting on a metal bedframe with one maroon bottom sheet?" sparking quite a bit of conversation in the process. This isn't the first time there's been toxic discourse surrounding how men sleep: Over the years, I've seen a lot of tweets, memes, and TikToks about all the single straight cis men out there who have just a mattress on their bedroom floors, apparently rendering them utterly unadult and therefore unfuckable. While this topic has been commented on so regularly at this point that it hardly deserves any attention, this updated take feels like it's gone too far. I ask you: What is so wrong with metal bed frames?!
Insulting men who use metal bed frames for their beds implies that if they don't care enough about appearing put-together to invest money in a bed frame that isn't purely utilitarian, then they aren't actually a responsible adult worthy of any attention. There's an inherently dated quality to this take, since it's directed at cis men, and thus assumes that being put-together or caring about aesthetics and hominess is a feminine quality. Odd, since I slept on a metal bed frame from June 2015 to November 2020, and it was a glorious period of my life. Allow me to tell you all about it.
The metal bed frame in question was one I inherited from the random person from whom I sublet a $900-a-month room when I first moved to Brooklyn. At the time, I had not one but two unpaid internships and was living off money I'd saved from working at a sandwich shop in college, as well as some freelancing gigs. The bedframe was convenient — unlike the apartment; and reliable — unlike the freelancing gigs. It also — and this isn't to brag, but is important — never impacted my ability to get it.
During that period of my life, many a single cis man saw my bedroom and I saw the bedrooms of many a single cis man — including some over 35, most of whom had non-metal bedframes. Also of note, I did date a bisexual cis man who didn't even have a bed. He slept on a futon mattress with no sheets on the floor, which he rolled away during the day to free up space. Not only did this not make me automatically judge how all bisexual men slept, but also it never occurred to me that this sleeping situation was at all undesirable. After all, New Yorkers have to do what they have to do for living space and also he was open, interesting, really nice to me, and extremely hot. Plus, the futon mattress did its job so what did I care?
