So, you put on make-up, something invented to make women look appealing to men, and then you say to your man, who says (do you believe him?) he finds you appealing without it, “It’s not about you.” Thing is, it so obviously is about him, but what it says just isn’t that good.

I was particularly struck by the hostility of it. Did he say “It makes you look like a whore.”? Is that what you heard? You could have said “It makes me feel good. I don’t know why that matters to me, but it does.” That would imply logically that the choice is not “about him,” but it also says “I know you care enough about me to want me to feel how wearing it makes me feel” rather than “I know you don’t care how I feel.” This is your “boyfriend,” you say? This is not a conversation between two people who know each other, much less like each other.

You don’t have to defend getting self-esteem from making yourself more attractive to men. I, as a man, find that appropriate, as I find opening a door for a woman appropriate even if she has working limbs. But if some uberfeminist says “I can open my own doors, thank you,” I don’t reply “It’s not about you,” even though that bit of obsolete gallantry makes me feel good about myself. I just stop doing it. But that woman never becomes my girlfriend, just as a woman who replies to “I like how you look” with “It’s not about you” wouldn’t be my girlfriend.

Sounds like you are prettying yourself up out of resentment of not getting to pretty your self up. So, call it “war paint” if you must, because a thing is what a thing does, and if you are wearing the lipstick our of belligerence, warpaint it is. But what do you say to the man who hits on you because the lipstick, in standard usage, says “hit on me”? What if he says “I love your lipstick”? I’m thinking “Fuck off; it’s not about you.” Warpaint indeed.