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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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I - a bloke - sometimes paint my nails. If they're still painted when I go to work you can guarantee I'll get a few comments from guys questioning whether they "should be worried" around me*. Meanwhile, the few women who work there think it's wonderful and have offered to do them properly for me. _ *they needn't be worried. My standards aren't that low
I have thought long and hard about what would go into a mainstream, masculine nail-painting style that would actually catch on and be popular and add something to most men's style, and not just young, waifish catboys with narrow hips, but would also benefit Carl down in accounting. (Rusty metal? Lumberjack plaid? little dicks painted on each?) And after that mental exercise I realized two things.
1 - Nothing we do as a species makes any sense and our attachment to social norms is never, ever going away.
2 - Gendered expression that isn't just hanging a sign around your neck with an arrow pointing to your genitals is utter nonsense also. Why do so many people associate painted vestigial claws with femininity? If you paint your dog's nails in a color you or others will start viewing your dog through gendered lenses. We are a silly creature.
Why give so many fucks about style? Who cares what anyone thinks right? Shouldn't we all just dress comfortably and quit worrying about appearances? Focus on what matters? Meaning of course, our personalities and our humanity. People always wanna act like how we appear somehow matters. I hate vanity, which is why I dress plainly, rock a plain haircut, and don't "express" myself through visuals even though I would "get more pussy" if I catered to society's expectations. Instead I let my principles and morals shine through my actions, which actually have an impact on the world.
While nothing you said is incorrect from your own personal views and desires, avoiding fashion or stylistic expression is as much your own paradigm as someone who does choose to wear certain things or express themselves in certain ways. IE: choosing no style is also a style. You simply cannot escape self-expression unless you are utterly alone on an island, and it could be argued that even then self-expression will be valuable for preserving your sense of self.
Self expression and creating identity is just a human thing that we're never going to get away from, nor should we unless we're ready to like... become absorbed by some kind of hive-mind. We are social creatures, we literally can die without social identity.
When guys ask if they should be worried around you, do they expect women to be worried around them?
Yes. And women should be worried around them.
I'd be outright ostracised, casted out, spat on if I showed up with painted nails/eye shadow to work here in England
I'm also in England, though in the South, where we're all soft fairies.
And yeah, the response can be annoying, but the way I see it, I'm a gobby, fat, mostly-straight cis guy who's married to a woman, so the abuse I might receive is nothing compared to some others. So if I can go any way at all towards helping to normalise something as benign as painted nails on a straight man, then I will.
It depends so much on regional norms.
Out on the West Coast of the US, painted nails on men is very common, while usually an indicator of an "alt" lifestyle or a particular attachment to fashion, it's not entirely uncommon to see a dude in a suit with black nails and might only get a few passing comments like "Wow, you pull that off!" or "Haha, how does your wife feel about you using her cosmetics?" at worst.
But if you move East by one state boundary you literally might get cussed out or glanced at like a predator or worse, depending on how deep you go into small town mormon communities and the like.