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.
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.
I’d be outright ostracised, casted out, spat on if I showed up with painted nails/eye shadow to work here in England
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.
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.