MANicure

So you know the trend where everything has to be EXTREME? Well, I've just fallen victim to the latest trend of "extreme pedicures". Check it out. That's right...tiny little carp will nibble at the dead skin on your feet to make them all smooth and luxurious. And on this coming Saturday, my friend Becca and I will be offering our tootsies up as a morning snack to a school of hungry garra rufa. You may be asking yourself, "What in the sam hill?!" I ask you, "Why the sam hill not?!" I mean it's not like these little guys have teeth, so it won't hurt... I hope. I just hope my feet are at their most calloused, so I can provide them with a really good meal. Admittedly, when I first heard about this, my "wig-out" factor was at a level 8.9, but I was also secretly attracted by the idea. I mean...what a novelty, right? And who knows? I might actually like it!

And this leads me to the heart of my post. Thanks to gmail, the announcement of my upcoming ichthyotherapy caused a male friend to remark "As a self-respecting heterosexual male, I don't do pedicures in general, but the idea of fish chewing my feet does seem intriguing." So I wondered...do the majority of heterosexual men feel this way? Would the only way to get them in a pedicurist's chair be to tempt them w/ the promise of having fish gnaw the dead skin off their feet? Or is that just a ploy? Do they secretly want to indulge in something like a pedicure, but can't feasibly do so without the guise of "scientific experiment" or the excuse "my sister (wife, etc.) made me do it"?

Thinking that I'd prove my friend wrong about his gender, I began to poll all of my other available male friends on pedicures. My question of "Have you ever had a pedicure?" produced a wealth of responses:

• No way!
• That's a rather personal question...but no. I haven't.
• No, I'm a man.
• I have feet?
• No. Wait. I mean hell no.

So out of the eight men that I polled, only two of them had previously had pedicures and both were in favor of doing it again. Okay, I get it, guys. You don't want to be thought of as a nancy-boy, a metrosexual, a whoppsy. Fine. But does the occasional act of someone scraping the dead crap off of your feet really make you into a girly man? Would it really bring your manhood into question? Speaking as a woman, I see nothing wrong with a man who enjoys a pedicure from time to time. I mean, he doesn't need to get his nails painted - that would be going too far in my estimation. But, to me, a pedicure would in no way injure his manliness. But guys, are you more afraid of what other guys will think or of what women will think of you?

I'm not really trying to define a gender line here, I'm just wondering if maybe we're more similar than we are different. I know that often for women, our insecurities deal more with how we imagine we might be perceived by our sister peers, rather than by the male population. Are we really more fascinated by things deemed "feminine" or "masculine" than we let on, because we are afraid of how it might look if we show too much interest?

I didn't exactly expect my musings on foot-nibbling fish to end up where it did, but I'm curious to know your thoughts.