Cosmetic surgery DOES affect others

[EmmaDilemma5]

I'm sick of reading people who defend others cosmetic surgery/procedures with;

"it's their body, they can do as they please"

"Each to their own"

"If it makes them feel happier then what's the harm?"

The harm is, that it sets a ridiculous standard that most (usually young women) can't meet naturally and therefore feel pressured to undergo changes to their body to look "good".

It's not a personal decision, because collectively, it's impacting society norms and pressures on people.

I'm not talking about those that truly help people with abnormally different features. I totally get why someone with ears that grow out at 90° may want them pinned back. Or someone with a huge nose may want to reduce it to a more "normal" size. I still hope they'd feel fine in their own skin but get why the majority of people may struggle with largely unusual features.

But I am actually angry sometimes at those that "enhance" normal looks. Lip fillers, tattoo makeup on eyebrows, lips, boob jobs. It seems to me that the majority of women who have these procedures have very normal features before having them and it's just really sad that they feel they need to undergo them to feel ok.

Lip fillers are the worst for me. It's affordable and easy to arrange. I fear my daughter will grow up thinking her lips aren't big enough (if her parents' are anything to go by anyway) because every other person seems to have massive lips and to look beautiful she'll need to pump her face with crap.

When do we say, enough is enough, we don't want the next generation living like this?!

It’s a bit embarrassing people falling over themselves to say they don’t want to look younger by Botox-ing.

Frowning at 15y: no lines.
At 25, possibly faint lines from 25 years of frowning.
At 35, some people have significant lines from 35 years of frowning

Inject the frown lines and they disappear! 35 years of frowning ‘evidence’ gone!

ie you look younger!

The fact people don’t want to ‘own it’ is interesting!

You don’t usually have frown lines at 15 because you are young. They deepen with age. Botox reverses that. Ie reverses ageing.

I agree in the respect that a lot of humans are very sheep like and do follow the herd as it were.

However, I think promoting healthy self esteem is much more important. Showing natural beauty AND enhanced beauty. Showing that neither is better or worse, If some prefer what they look like with procedures surely that is up to them. The same way I personally feel much better when I look natural.

I don't think putting a ban on women being able to make a choice is the way to go at all.

There will always be people we think are prettier than us - actresses/singers/dancers. All of these people I looked to as beautiful growing up - it didn't make me want to do anything drastic to my face. I just thought they were beautiful.

Most people I know haven't had cosmetic procedures either.

There is a rejection of these stereotypes of eternal youth and beauty and that sets up an “us and them” mentality. To flip that around, there’s some equally unpleasant comments on here about women who HAVEN’T had work done from those who have. If you don’t have work done, then you must look like an angry old hag and eeeewwww, who wants to look like that, right?!

Absolute nonsense. If this thread is anything to go by, the overwhelming majority of people with a "them and us" mentality are women who don't have procedures and are spiteful towards women who do. Only one or two women with work done have made unpleasant comments and that was in response to being called ugly, crap mothers, fake, accused of lying about their motivations etc etc etc.

And the trouble is, the techniques aren’t perfect or always applied with skill so often while wrinkles etc may disappear, there’s something slightly “off”. That might be a frozen forehead, an unnaturally puffy face or a smoothness which looks artificial.

In badly done work, or overdone work. It is by no means inevitable, much as many posters who don't know anything about it wish it. It's been proven when several people embarrassed themselves by spotting work where there was none. And those of us who report our experiences are told that others with no experience and who can't see us know better.

But if you hate the look, and au naturel is so much more beautiful, that's fine. Don't do it.

As for the woman who received the comments - she voluntarily posted her photo and invited others to assess her face. That was her choice.

You have missed both key points. One, everyone who spotted work on her was wrong. Two, most of them were unbelievably rude and cruel about it. They could have just said they thought she had XYZ but they chose instead to use insulting words like "bulbous" and "blown up". That's not OK.

Lots of women do have an issue with being surrounded by others who have fillers, Botox etc.

Why? According to you, we have frozen foreheads, unnaturally puffy faces or a smoothness which looks artificial. What are these women upset about, if we look so awful?

And anyway, that's not my problem. I have an issue being surrounded by rude idiots who spread misinformation, body shame women when they don't approve of them, ignore everything we say and think they know our experiences better than we do. What are they going to do about it?

It's very embarrassing when people insist on framing their inability to understand two words as other people lying by using them correctly.

I and others have said it over and over: we look our age. One reason I got Botox was because I was indeed too young to have those lines, but after a traumatic year they appeared anyway.

I'd be very embarrassed to keep having Botox to look younger when I know from six years of it that it doesn't do that. It simply erases the lines that make me look angry and scowly.

The fact that you don't understand that frowning and ageing are two different things, and that age shows in far more ways than 11s, is not my failing and certainly does not embarrass me.

You would not have those frown lines if you were 18. Can you really not see that?!

What’s your point?

Who cares if people want to look younger.

Younger people look better than older people in the majority of cases.

Actually, Sally Morgan, I did. I've been asked why I look so worried since I was ten. But the lines were faint so they didn't bother me too much. They got much worse after a traumatic year at 32.

But so what if I didn't? When I first had Botox I was 32 and looked it, but with 11s. Afterwards, I still looked 32, just not unduly angry and scowly. And now I look 38, just not a perpetually scowling 38.

This is literally a pointless conversation because you will insist you know what I look like better than I do and reduce all signs of ageing down to the 11s, as if that's literally the only difference between my face now and 20 years ago. If you don't understand that removing those lines doesn't take 20 years off me, I can't help you. I can obky assume you never actually look at humans.

So go on, believe that I look like a teenager now. The more I think about that, the less it bothers me.

Her point is that she is accusing me of lying about my reasons to have Botox. She wants to believe that I do it to look 18, not because I want to stop looking angry.

Why she wants to believe this, I don't know, especially as I've said over and over that I look my age and Botox doesn't change that. But God knows she's in good company. I guess, like others, she can't understand that we don't fit the stupid stereotype in their head of people who have Botox.

It's OK. These people think I look like a teenager. Works for me.

There's absolutely no point having any kind of conversation with someone who refuses to accept there are nuances to the conversation around cosmetic alterations, and is only interested in validating her own life choices.

You crack on. I'm not wasting my time on someone who can't see the wider picture.

The moralising here from people is tedious.

Loads of 'I'm "natural" (ergo "better") and you are artificial and therefore less'

Don't pretend it's anything but a sense of righteous superiority.

Women judging other women.

My next “big birthday” is 60 and I’m lucky (is that the right word) in that I am regularly told I look 45 ish. But when I see previously attractive celebrities especially A listers of my age who very obviously have had “work done” I want to scream “when has getting old become so unacceptable, what messages are we sending out?’ Getting old Id unacceptable and unattractive. We are all getting old, it’s part of life and we should embrace it and realise that the natural processes that occur to our bodies as we age may not mean we no longer conform to the accepted view on beauty but that we are still beautiful and that beauty is not superficial but comes from deep inside. I regularly meet an old lady when I walk my dogs she is late 70’s and has a serious illness but she has the most beautiful face ok covered in lines that so many of us are afraid of but it doesn’t detract from her beauty in any way.

There is certainly no point in having any discussion with someone who talks about procedures while knowing nothing about them, and sees nothing wrong in nasty, body shaming - and factually inaccurate - comments about another woman's face.

I cannot think what I've said to give you the impression that I want "validation" from a poster who is fine with ignorance and body shaming, but I can't pretend you're not consistent.

It’s so pathetic isn’t it.

I can’t see any post where you claim you want to look 18. Even with Botox most women 35+ still look 35+. They just have fresher faces.

I got my Botox and fat dissolvers on my gobble-gobble today and thought I’d this thread while I did 😂

Who is Sally Morgan?

Yes exactly.

Whereas us Botox lovers are happy to say “you do you”.

Genuinely never thought anyone gave so much as a second thought to the harmless actions and choices of strangers

I won’t say any more on this topic but I get it.

Women have Botox as they get older, and it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with looking younger.

Why am I even attempting a conversation with someone who can't Google?

@StalkedByASpider
'As for the woman who received the comments - she voluntarily posted her photo and invited others to assess her face. That was her choice. And she has had work done. On a different thread no one would be making those comments, even if they secretly thought it - she literally posted and said tell me what you think so 🤷‍♀️'

Yes. I did invite women to put across their point of view. But you've totally missed the point. Which I think you're choosing to do. Firstly, they pointed out work that I HAVEN'T had done. ^^ (Lip filler and forehead Botox) which again, proves my point that everybody is so quick to scorn women with big lips and smooth foreheads, whether they've had work done or not. And 2, there are more educated ways of speaking about somebodies (my) appearance than being disgusting and foul mouthed saying things like 'bulbous, blown up, out of proportion, shiny head'. When ironically those are the areas I HAVEN'T had work done.

So realistically those women are attacking me on my own natural features. Would those women go up to someone and say 'cor your lips are blown up' if they knew they didn't have work done? No. Of course not. I posted the image to prove a point and that point has been proven by all the miserable women on here scorning us people who have had work done. If they were that comfortable in their own skin then surely they'd live and let live, and not let what others choose to do bother them. No one's forcing them to get work done.

Truth is most of these women being disgusting towards me, id probably think they're pretty boring to look at myself. I wouldn't think their face was telling a story, I probably wouldn't look at them twice. But they seem to feel happier in themselves when they attack other women who have had work done on their lips (or not, in my case) to make themselves feel better about their wrinkly faces and thin lips. Difference is, their faces wouldn't even enter my head space. But us women who have had work done seem to live rent free in these womens boring minds.

These ill mannered women on this thread seem to be projecting a lot more insecurity than us having work done. I couldn't care less if someone hasn't had Botox or fillers. But the women who haven't, seem to strangely care a LOT about us who have.

I can’t be bothered. I assume it was a dig and I wanted you to explain it. Never mind.

ReneBumsWombats saying people with lines look angry and scowly isn't quite fitting with you also saying how you're all kind and other people are all rude and mean. If you're happy with your surgery/injectables good luck to you.

The thread was about if these things have a societal impact. And it does obviously when older women are made to feel they can't walk around with their natural face.

So you don’t know what it actually means either?

Ok, we are on the same page.

‘Genuinely never thought anyone gave so much as a second thought to the harmless actions and choices of strangers‘

Most people don’t care in real life. Online however, people debate all sorts that they don’t care about, due to boredom and time to kill!

Where did she say:imply all people with lines look angry?

Some people who have lines have an angry resting face and the lines exacerbate this. That’s what I took from Rene’s posts

To be frank I’m sick and tired of hearing about “what most blokes think”

If you had augmented breasts they’d most likely alter their narrative to fit the company that they were in.
If you had natural breasts they’d tell you what they thought you’d want to hear also.

“Most blokes” will follow the narrative that’ll give them the least grief.

If you’re having breast augmentation to suit “most blokes” you’re doing it for the wrong reason.

Suit your f**king selves, most blokes do.

If a woman feels good augmenting herself in whatever way or eschewing augmentation of the cosmetic variation it should not matter and it should come without judgement from anybody.
we are and should be autonomous; end of f**king story.