Why I Paint My Nails

In preparation for starting a new week in the office, I am sat at my desk, dabbing a tissue in acetone remover, wiping the blue polish from my fingernails. I am confident that my colleagues would be nothing but supportive should I wish to keep my nails coloured at work, but, in the same way I have conditioned myself to put on and take-off ‘work-clothes’, I have casually linked painting my nails with the periods where I am not in someone else’s employ.

With the polish on, I feel bolder and more autonomous. I feel happier and more connected to my sense of self. The act of applying it, looking at my fingers adorned, and gesturing with hands brightened at the extremities feels like me, and helps me to act more confidently as me.

I cannot remember the first time I deliberately painted my nails.

When I was eleven or twelve, I was deeply into Nirvana, and whilst listening to the CDs I would flick through the artwork (as well as monthly music magazines) looking at the way Kurt dressed and thinking, this guy doesn’t look like all the other boring boys - he’s got the confidence to dress how he wants to dress. Of course, there is a contradiction then with the young me mimicking his fashions (loosely) but this misinterpretation still put me in the audience of people like him who had ideas that I instinctively knew would lead me down the right track. I have yet to doubt those choices, and as I’ve grown, I have further understood what drew me to them instinctively.

I had never considered painting my nails an act of transvestism until it was brought up in 2014 by my counsellor at the time. A good fifteen years had passed since I had started to take my coloured nails out for concerted walks, and this idea had never entered my mind. Of course, it meets the Oxford Dictionary definition: The action or practice of dressing in clothes primarily associated with the opposite sex. Wearing polish, in the societies I have grown up in, has commonly been presented as a choice for a woman. When taking this choice for myself at school, friends and acquaintances would ridicule me, but those moments never lead to further analysis.

In terms of emotional traits and their traditional gendering, sporting nail polish, to me, has been less about connecting with my feminine side, than it has been connecting more with my masculinity; they draw a link to my assertiveness, confidence, and passion. I also feel the act is linked with reaching to my more combative/confrontational side. They further extend a representation of my values, and for that, a bank of resilience is strengthened.

However, the more I have learned about the failings of men, particularly in relation to women, across society, with my own coming into acute focus, the more dug-in this personal ritual has become. On some level, I think this firmer commitment is linked to my wish to express my disassociation with a certain male viewpoint which is not mine; one which has a narrow view on gender. So, perhaps this is done also as a gesture to myself - to constantly be checking my privilege and my accountability as a man.

Although I appreciate the need to understand these gender links in a social context, personally I rather make the distinction of whether this outward practice helps draw more of ‘me’ out, or presses it down.

When my tips sparkle out and about in public, as well as being a delight to any observer, I hope they have the tributary effect of offering a similar comfort to those whose eyes might be looking for someone wearing a safety pin. I hope they’re a fish in the sand for those seeking a friend to those who identify with ideas such as inclusion, respect and the celebration of each others differences. This small outward gesture links to the things inside me that I care about the most and provides a further way to make an outward connection.