The Male Hysteric

I guess I’m having a lot of thoughts in the pandemic, as being at home the vast majority of the time has given me a lot of freedom of what to do with my face. I like to wear makeup, and even when not wanting to look like I wear it, I have seborrheic dermatitis which, even when inactive can make the middle of my face very red so some light foundation and concealer helps with that, and matte bronzer can do wonders for a slight double chin. However these days i can go a lot further than that without thinking about it because, again, I have nowhere to be, and wearing a mask covering stubble can make anyone look more androgynous. There are a lot of women finding wearing no makeup very freeing, while at the same time there are a lot of women doing more editorial looks because it’s the only thing you can see with a mask on, or they have more free time, or they don’t have to worry about office comments about “how much better [they] look without makeup”.

There is a lot made about men and male-passing people wearing makeup, from some men complaining that if women have acne or “are ugly” they can wear it while they can’t, to lines of makeup made especially for men (and tend to be even more overpriced than normal makeup), male MUAs and the like. Makeup has not always been strictly feminine and has always been used by everyone being photographed or filmed so even now it’s not. But I do not think the problem with “men wearing makeup” is adequately understood by most people — they have a blanket idea of “makeup = feminine” and do not understand why.

I remember hearing somewhere that you only adorn things that you already think are beautiful. There is no point in adorning something that is not meant to be looked at as beautiful and I think that’s a big part of the taboo, and this is why I like to wear it, in some form of rebellion. I’m not supposed to see myself as worthy of adornment, so knowing how to do it and doing it myself is taboo, whereas in photoshoots it is others making the decision and putting makeup on the men so it’s in effect “not their fault” to be seen as beautiful, but rather something forced on them by others. Culturally women, especially young women, are “supposed” to be beautiful so that expectation wins out over the sin of looking at oneself as beautiful and adorning oneself, even though the self-adornment is still criticized (“you look so much better without makeup”).

Men’s fashion and presentation is such a mess culturally because of the taboo of thinking of oneself as beautiful. Often fashion for men is boiled down to one piece — a blazer, a Rolex watch, a Jordan’s shoe — and furthermore these pieces are often branded to be more a display of wealth rather than adorning oneself. To adorn oneself is to be “gay” because the only reason a man would do it is to attract the attention of other men. Straight women tend to have mixed feelings about it, because seeing a man as attractive is something they do, but one that intentionally signals it must be signaling to men, while acknowledging the double standard of “naturally pretty” for themselves.

Aside from rebellion there’s the matter of doing something artistic every day, and a beauty in ephemeral art, something meditative about making a whole work and then literally washing it down the drain every day. My other artwork, especially writing, is Sisyphean, written over and over again and rarely getting anywhere, which may be why this appeals to me. I don’t know. Maybe it is a form of that “self care” that people keep talking about, to look at my own face and examine it each day and decide what to do with it, for no one but myself. Or maybe, during the pandemic, I’m just really, really bored, and need the fifteen minutes of diversion in the morning.

If you don’t usually wear makeup, it may be worth it to try some concealer, eyeliner, blush, and think of yourself as worthy of adornment every day for once. In a world that doesn’t seem to value you, it may help.