Faulty fingernails

There's something very wrong with people when a five-year-old Massa-chusetts boy who likes wearing nail polish is so viciously attacked by his fellow pupils that he goes home demoralised and in tears.

Sam Gouveia's father said "Sam was ridiculed for being a boy with nail polish. They called him names and told him to take it off. This lasted the entire day. He was devastated at how other kids turned on him, even his friends."

It seems that by the age of five, most boys have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into the idea of masculine and feminine clothing that something as trivial as wearing nail polish is jumped on as if some major crime has been committed.

If a five-year-old boy wants to wear nail polish, what's the problem? It's not harming anybody, it's not threatening anybody, it's not disrupting lessons. If other boys find it threatening, because it challenges their macho fixations, that's their problem and not his.

There has been similar bullying of boys who want to wear skirts or dresses or long hair or any kind of "female" clothing. The bullying is often supported by teachers quoting the official school dress code.

Surely boys who misbehave, disrupt lessons, and abuse teachers are the real problem, not boys who like to have shocking pink fingernails or floaty skirts? Surely the quality of the teaching is more important than what a boy puts on his fingers?

The idea of gender fluidity may be popular in certain fashionable quarters, but clearly it hasn't caught on with the general population, who still rigorously enforce masculine and feminine boundaries.

Think twice before you dress. The gender police are watching you!

Pic: Sam Gouveia

Doctor M's breakthrough

After over a year of intensive therapy with the venerated Dr Melissa Flinch (Shrink of the Year 2007, Mind Mender Award 2008), it seemed we were getting nowhere. I was the same tangled, confused Nick as the day I started.

I lay gloomily on the couch, gazing at the faded portrait of Sigmund Freud. Melissa sat gloomily on her cane chair, examining a chipped fingernail. Suddenly her eyes lit up.

"Of course, of course" she exclaimed. "How stupid of me, it's all so obvious, it's been staring me in the face all this time."

"What has?"

"There's nothing wrong with you at all. All these neuroses and phobias and obsessions you claim to have. All these crippling hang-ups and complexes. They don't exist. They never did."

"Come again?"

"You're actually completely sane, your psyche is 100% healthy. But you pretend to have all these afflictions because you think it makes you more interesting. You think lots of gorgeous women will see your tortured soul as an exciting challenge."

"No no, you're way off track there."

"Well, I've got news for you, Mr Screwball. Nobody enjoys a loonie. They run a mile. People want normal, conventional, reliable. They don't want some Psycho Simon with a hatchet in his pants. So why don't you just drop the act and show me your real self?"

I thought now wasn't the time to reveal the sharpened hatchet in my Armani man-bag. I played for time.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, Melissa. I really am thoroughly dysfunctional. I hardly know if I'm coming or going. I could flip at any time. I need help desperately."

"Okay, Nick, your time's up. See you next week. You don't have any nail restorer, do you?"

"Sorry. I've got some rather splendid magenta nail polish though."

"That'll do nicely."