I was looking at someone’s nails. A nameless girl, no doubt a scenester in New York City. Her nails were long – like really long – and pointy, very very pointy. They looked like daggers – except fake daggers, press-on daggers…but daggers nonetheless. And while looking at them, I was plagued by an unrelenting concern. Was I missing something? How, in the name of Sasha Grey, does this girl masturbate?

Seriously though. One time a porn star let me in on some insider secrets and the first thing she told me was that women in the industry HATE it when women they’re working with have long nails. Apparently women who do lesbian scenes, but don’t cut their nails, are infamous for not being real lesbians. Because to be a lesbian is to be aware of and sensitive to the female body, and to thus know that no woman likes anything remotely sharp being shoved up her V hole.

So I’ll ask this again: how do you girls with the long-ass pointy fingernails even masturbate?

I’m guessing the answer to this is that they don’t; that they forgo fingering themselves to instead sport claws and nail art. It’s an odd decision, but also an unsurprising one in the life of an anti-normcore.

For those who haven’t read the now-viral article on The Cut, “Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion,” normcore is the pervasive NYC trend of wearing mom jeans and Nike sweaters; of Patagonia zip-up fleeces and Birkenstocks; of track pants and sweatshirts. It exists in downtown New York City, and is manifested in Jerry Seinfeld-looking dudes who are into Dis Magazine and probably sculpt. As Jeremy Lewis, the founder and editor of Garmento, put it, it’s “the idea that one doesn’t need their clothes to make a statement.” Of course there are the downtown staples who are genuinely interested in fashion and the quality of a garment, who have depth and other interests – like boxing, photography, or grander life-changing ambitions – but as The Cut lamented, there are also hordes of people who make a “huge effort with their clothing,” and are oblivious to the idea of “letting go of the need to look distinctive, to make time for something new.”

As observers, we can sit here and lament all we want, but it’s really these people – the ones making a “huge effort” – who suffer in the end. The irony is that, while The Cut describes normcore’s aesthetic as “flat,” it’s really the anti-normcore aesthetic that’s truly and inherently flat. The anti-normcore are the people who, as Lewis explains, “use fashion as a means to buy rather than discover an identity.” Their attitude, if you think about it, is almost robotic. Which I guess answers my initial question…because, robots don’t get horny, right?