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?!

Yes, that did come across a bit barbed sounding, didn't it? It wasn't intentional, just an observation of changing times and language.
Young women do seem to have reframed overweight as a positive, or at least as a neutral, with terminology to reflect that. Which interests me in light of the hours DS and his friends spend in the gym, weighing themselves and trying to run off a Kilo.

Indeed. I often speculate that it's partly influenced by the increased cultural/ethnic diversity we see in fashion/music nowadays and reflects the aesthetic preference for a 'thick' figure.

Cosmetic surgery is harmful to society because it makes others feel less attractive is like saying tutoring is bad for society as it makes people not having the benefits of tutoring feel more stupid or after school and weekend sports clubs are damaging to society as it makes those who don't get to attend feel inadequate on the sports field or designer shops are bad for society because they make those on a limited budget feel crap or cars are bad for society as it makes those who have to take the bus feel like shit.

I agree. If anything makes other people feel less attractive its seeing people closer to the current beauty ideal than they are, including where this is natural. Unless we're also going to get naturally beautiful people to wear bags on their heads, then the problem remains. Cosmetic procedures merely provide options for people to bring their appearance more in line with what they would like to see in the mirror. Removing that option is not going to make people suddenly feel happy about the way they look.

But my post was really about the ethics of allowing this to happen. Shouldn't the government protect people and, knowing pumping chemicals into your body so unnecessarily isn't a good thing for society, and that the use of these things us getting to be very mainstream, ban it? Or put stricter regulations around it?

Nope. Nothing to do with the government. They have better things to be doing.

Fashion changes. Trends changes.

In the early noughties huge boobs were in fashion. Katie Price, Jodie Marsh etc. Now, not so much. Also being stick thin was desirable and in “fashion”. Now, having curves, fuller buttocks, BBL’s are trending.

In a few years I guarantee the lip filler, cat eye facial threads and similar trends will die out.

if you don’t like a procedure, then don’t have it done. Don’t bash other women who choose to have work done. Same goes for your daughter.