I've rarely been the person who thinks of toe nails and fingernails as jewelry. I've rarely been the person who had the time to do my nails. Or the money to spend. My hands are large and used. So are my feet. I walk extensively. There are better things to be doing than nails.
For a few weeks in high school I tried to grow my fingernails long and polished them up with that traditional pink frosty polish that was allowable on teens by their mothers who also approved pink frosty lipstick. Too much make-up and you'd look like a whore, is what the mothers thought, so there was monitoring of daughters and just how much Maybelline. My pink frosty long nails were tied into being given a real ring - not a class ring or a football ring - from my boyfriend. He told me my nails looked nice. He once took my right hand in his just to look at them. I soon enough gave it up. Polish didn't dry quickly then and it didn't last more than a few days. To me keeping one's nails polished was like proving you were dull enough to sit around, maybe watching TV, while the polish dried. I hated the waiting and always managed to get a dent or smudge. Did all my classmates who had long nails polished have maids hovering? I had to wash dishes and cashier.
And those of us who were artists had paint all over.
Feet jammed in closed toed shoes most of the year, it didn't occur to me to also paint my toe nails because who would see them? Today I think how strange it is to have done only your fingers or only your toes, as if these body parts are so separate and distanced from each other that they have nothing in common and are not part of the same body.
So years went by and then, circa 1998 if I recall, I saw a polish I loved. It was a sheer pastel, holding iridescence of many colors like the inside of a abalone, as if it were from nature, and it cost a dollar. I started doing my short fingernails with it. I also loved that it dried fast and, if I had no time to keep it up, so light that it faded rather than needing to be removed. That was good because even when women in rock and roll and certain actresses were doing magazine covers looking like they hadn't had time to dye their roots or remove chipped polish, I hated their unkempt look that suggested that most of the time they were too drunk or high to let an on-set pro make-up artist or an exclusive salon repair the damage.
A flash back to high school though. In a wood shop class there was one student who had taken to painted his fingernails black with real paint, tempera maybe, that had no shine, and he liked to wave his hands around with it. No doubt his dad feared he was a 'sissy' because we later heard that the man had actually staged a stag party for him and some of our male classmates in which they watched hard core hetero porn. No doubt this was the sort of father who advised 'man-ing up." How truly terrible. Do I think maybe this student was 'really gay?" I do.
I did try, one time, black polish with sheen. An older friend said "Really, Christine, You? Black?"
Well, it felt subversive for five minutes.
Then, several years ago, because I wear sandals so much, I became dedicated to keeping my feet nice, and applying polish to my toenails. The newly invented polish that dried quickly and that stayed unchipped for longer was a large part of my willingness to do it. Still, on my fingernails the same polish was good for maybe three days. I resented the time that it took to focus on upkeep. On my busy days it was one more thing to do.
Earlier this year I was out shopping and I wanted only one color polish, the right shade of plain almost skin-matchy-orangey pink, which would not look like a fashion statement. I found it in a six pack at Ross Dress For Less. I'd been out somewhere when I heard a group of men talking, and one of them said, "Christine has the best feet. If a woman takes good care of her feet, you know she's taking good care of the rest of herself." These men apparently, unknown to us women, were watching feet.
Wow!
Believe me I do not have the best feet. I have medieval feet, like on a statue made hundreds of years ago. I blame the intermarriage of petty nobility, when asked.
But then, around 2000, I had been falsely accused of wearing simple navy blue flat sandals "on purpose" by one of the regulars at an independent coffee house in the Valley. All I cared about was being cool on a hot day. Seeking an explanation for such a comment via one of his friends, a man who carried around a rubber shoulder sack, I was told, "You have good toe cleavage."
Toe cleavage? Ah.... So this was a foot fetish? Or was it?
Which brings us to 2023, August, a time when, according to astrologer, the Lions Gate is open.
I re-met a man I used to see around. I was crossing the street and he had pulled over outside the store after waving and calling my name, so I went over and talked with him. He asked me to come over and have dinner with him. We had some catching up to do, sort-of, as I had not been around for at least eight months and he said he had wondered if he would ever see me again. He made us a good dinner and we talked about this and that - the fate of the independent coffee house where we had seen each other around - not the one in the Valley from years before - certain personalities there. I can't remember how the conversation flowed but around one bend we got onto the trendy topic of transgender-ism, and that a Gay Pride Parade was coming up, and he said "I can only wave the flag for foot fetishism."
Oh, that's why the last time I saw him he had made the comment that the shoes I was wearing, which were simple, black, quasi sneakers, fairly unisex I admit. "Those look like men's shoes, " he said. "What size are they?" When he did, I curled my toes in them. It had taken me a dozen try-ons to find a simple, black, quasi sneaker, fairly unisex, that fit.
He also said that he had never seen me so relaxed or wearing a dress - so feminine. It was true. I rarely wear a dress or skirt if it isn't summer. Whenever he saw me around I was almost always there with things I was working on and wearing my usual pants, top, sweater or hoodie, bundled up. But that day I had been at the pool and was wearing a dress-cover up. He wondered if I dressed as I did so that none of the men at the coffee house would hit on me. Well, actually, some had, in their way, but I dressed (and dress) as I do for warmth and comfort.
Now that he was out of the foot fetish closet, I went on-line to learn more about it. The first time I had bothered. What I read on various websites had various effects on me, from a certain sense of humor, perhaps delight, to troubling and sickening. See, I see feet as part of the body, not necessarily weird or in need of worship, and I would rather spend money on a foot massage than on a pedicure, but I very rarely have. To me a foot massage is akin to acupressure, holistic health, but it's not erotic. Giving one or getting one has nothing to do with dominance or subservience.
Eventually, the man I see around who I had dinner with, asked me if I ever wore high strappy sandals, toe-exposing ones, toe nails polished red. I said no and he said that he would buy me them. I said "No, don't buy me anything." He said, "You won't have to do anything, just stand there." The thought that I would ever just stand there in improbable pumps, totally out of character for me, was ridiculous and hilarious. I can't imagine ever wearing red nail polish, even though it's a classic polish, and, I read, a favorite of men because it reminds them of their mothers! So I asked him when had this started and he said he thought it was with his mother, baths with his mother...
Those pro-fetish web sites that I found, many of them from a not-hetero perspective, advised people that if their "lover" would not go with their fetish then they were selfish lovers, because they were not willing to do whatever turned the other person on. My thoughts and feelings about this are diametrically opposed. I don't think anyone should do anything that they are uncomfortable with and it's selfish of someone who is kinky to expect others to give in to their kink. There is also a slippery slope - a no end to the things that a person might ask, and I imagined that if I had given in to this man's request, he would have enjoyed breaking down one of my boundaries - or barriers - and than there would be something else.
I also felt sorry for him because I think fetishists are people who are objectifying body parts or objects (i.e. shoes, socks, stockings) and I truly wonder if they can be with the real person, plain and naked. I feel sorry for him to be obsessed with feet and shoes and toe polish and to approach women from the feet up rather than the head down.
At the same time I also thought about the advice mostly women get about how it is our responsibility - especially once in a committed relationship - to satisfy someone else - for the rest of our lives. Even when the so-called partner is doing little to nothing of the usual to satisfy us. It's a good reason to be independent and not have a man in your life.
But, this is a Talking to Stranger's post. So here goes.
Soon after the Gay Pride Parade, which I did not attend... I was walking along one morning, humming as I do, in a good mood, when suddenly a young, maybe 18ish, man, beautiful and with flowing hair, skateboarded over to me.
"Mam, " he said, I noticed your nail polish. That pink chrome - is it chrome? It goes perfectly with that top you're wearing!" I was wearing a rather flamboyant summer top with hints of charcoal and pink, grey and flashes of neon yellow.
I stopped.
"Where did you get that polish?"
I said, "Oh it was in an inexpensive six pack that I bought at Ross Dress For Less," but I don't think much of the brand. I guess it's sort of chrome but there was one surprise in the six pack. There was what looked like a garish gold flecked polish that I never thought I would wear. But I tried it and it was mostly clear with just sparks of gold that caught the sunlight. It's the perfect polish for the beach or pool."
He smiled. "I never thought about buying polish at Ross..." He looked dreamy. "Where did you get your mani-pedi?"
"I did it myself. Why? Are you going to school to be a manicurist?"
"No, I work at a hotel." He indicated not far away.
"Well, maybe you could..."
He pulled out his cell phone. On it he showed me that he had photographed dozens of women's feet with different colors of nail polish. He didn't have to ask.
"I don't want you taking pictures of my feet."
He did not and we parted."
I thought, Jesus, it must be the Lion's Gate.
Later I thought that if he continued to be hyper interested in feet, he might do himself in, refusing to see the whole person, the variants of beauty, and reject perfectly wonderful persons romantically and sexually because to comply for them would be unnatural.
And there is this. Feminists don't want to be entirely sex objects or objects at all. Not even one part of us.
I can't find my nail polish remover.
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
Note: For the record I've known gay men who hated the whole exhibitionist outrageous aspect of Gay Pride Parades which they feel miscast all gay people as undignified buffoons who ought not be taken seriously as professionals. However, perhaps there is something to be said about playing with stereotypes and having a good sense of humor about oneself. I did attend one Gay Pride parade in West Hollywood years ago and laughed out loud at the Dykes on Bikes with Spikes.
Note: This is not an advert for Maybelline or Ross Dress For Less.
