It makes me shudder, too, and I don’t think there’s even a hint of homophobia involved since, like a few others, I don’t even like long nails on women. The do, however, strike me as dirty, probably because they come across as flimsy and nothing is hidden by polish. If I were dating again, that would be a deal-breaker for me.
It strikes me more as either just laziness / blue collar if they aren’t kept nice or gothy / other subculture if they are.
It turns me off, but I don’t like long nails on women either.
It also makes me wonder about practical considerations. If I’m away from home and forgot my clippers or whatever, I find it increasingly annoying to use my iPod touch or type on a keyboard. And accidental scrapes while rubbing my eyes, washing, or masturbating become much more common.
I think that if you hold your hand up palmside to you and you can see any white tips, your nails are too long. And the edges should be smooth, not ragged. I don’t care if the nails are manicured or not, but a smooth edge tells me you’re aware of personal hygiene and can wield a nail clipper or file with ease.
For what it’s worth, that’s how they checked us for the OB rotation (even though we didn’t actually do any pelvic exams, we had to meet code for the floor), so I assume that’s a good length for not slicing vaginas during fun time, too.
I’m with the posters who have a visceral “ick” reaction to long nails on men (and usually women, too, for that matter). I keep my own nails short mostly because they start to drive me crazy when they get even slightly long.
I’m curious what the OP gets out of having long nails. Do you just think they’re pretty, and don’t care what anyone else thinks? If so, do you have a partner, and what does he or she think? If you don’t have a partner, does it not bother you that this is a huge turnoff to a large majority of the dating pool?
I’ll go with WhyNot’s fingertip thing, although I think fingertip length is pushing it for a guy. And yes, people are judging you harshly for it. 
I’m not into really long nails on a woman, but I tend to forget about my own nails and let them grow out pretty long. I started growing them long as a child to prove I could stop compulsively biting them.
Right now I have one thumbnail that’s pretty long, that I didn’t trim when I last did the others. I guess that’s creepy then.
ETA: The others are “too long” by WhyNot’s OB standard. Heh. Good. Maybe I can leave my hair unkempt and wear one colored contact lens…
I don’t like long nails on guys, either - I’m not totally disgusted or anything, but I just don’t like them. I do worry about hygiene with long nails, on both men and women. What really grosses me out is waitstaff with long nails - you better be scrubbing those puppies hourly to keep them clean!
Anyone here see Doubt (the movie or the play)? 
Long nails on guys are very unattractive. It tells me he can’t fix stuff, and it tells me he has no idea about being intimate with a woman. Both of those things rule him right out from dating prospects, and probably from friendship, too. ('Cause my guy friends help me fix stuff.)
(I’m female with short nails like these, though did have relatively short acrylics for several years in the 90’s - those are nice and smooth and not sharp at all, though, a lot like these)
I personally don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other with regard to my own nails. Mine aren’t freakishly long, but they are long. I do not care what anyone but my partner thinks. He really, really, really likes long, slut-red nails. He also really, really, really likes slut-red toenails. Because catering to this fetish does not put me out in any way and I don’t mind, I cater to his fetish. ETA: My nails currently look a lot like the second link posted in the post just above this one. If I weren’t catering to the fetish, I would keep them just a little bit shorter because I tend to make more typing mistakes when they are this long.
Exactly what I thought of when I saw this thread.
{checking nails using WhyNot’s technique} … Whew. Looks like I’m OK. I did just trim them recently though. It’s good to know why I get those funny looks from people all the time.
I’m cool, then. (Whew!) If they approached that length, I’d have a hard time typing.
I have seen many men in different countries in Asia that have long fingernails.
I have been told that it is to show that they work do not have to with their hands.
Not sure about them being parasites, as perhaps they are trying to tell people that they
have a job that does not require manual labor, but I do think it looks really nasty.
Some of them do not keep the nails clean, and I have observed them using the long nails to clean their ears and noses.
It’s gross, just utterly icky on a guy.
Two men I work with have long nails and the women at work commonly discuss how squicked out we all are by the thought of either of those two guys touching us. One fellow seems to just be careless about fingernail trimming in general, it looks like when they get too long for him he whacks them off straight across, leaving long sharp corners on each finger. Looks dangerous.
The other guy is a total creep on many different levels, he’s got carefully filed oval nails with a good quarter inch of white on each, and the oh-so-special pinky nails nearly an inch long.
The odd thing is that they’re both guys that work with their hands for a living, so they must have to really make an effort to not break those things. It’s cringe-inducing whenever I notice it, and I make a concerted effort to look at their faces and not their hands whenever I interact with them.
What is stranger a man with long nails or you folk that think it is creepy or gross or all of these other reaaly nasty and ignorant comments? To me its all of you who voiced such negative reactions because you are so programmed to believe the binary gender identity syatem we have.
If a man wants to express his feminine self by growing out his nails like me (they are 1/4" past my fingertips and polished, clean and white at all times) then so what? It doesnt make me a perv or a creep. I just like the way it makes me feel when I touch things and I love the way they look too.
If you dont like the way they look then that is a personal preference. But to ascribe sucb mean and hateful attributes to them (you wouldnt even be friends with a guy with long nails…Really? Youre a shitty person and youre doing the long-nailed man such a favor) is just plane ignorant.
No wonder the transgender community is treated so poorly around the world. Normal sucks. Long live people who are proud enough to be who they are.
I was seeing a guy who just had the long pinky nail. I never asked him but I believe it was something relating to Asian culture. I figure either that, or he was doing drugs. I have to say, whatever it was, it was a turn off.
Doesn’t make me think “gay” so much as “there’s a guy who does little to no manual labor”. Yes, I know of gloves, but that’s my initial reaction.
It would never even occur to me to pay attention to the length of a guy’s nails (unless there was something really odd about them, like the long pinky nail thing).
I think long nails are gross on men, but they are equally gross on women. Same goes for painted nails.
Long nails on guys are for booger pickin’ or coke snortin’, neither of which I want any part of.