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?!

But this has been happening for years! Elizabeth the first is believed to have possibly died from a form of lead poisoning because she conformed to the then fashionable idea that bright white skin was great. Ladies in china would have their feet bound to create the illusion that they had tiny feet rendering them crippled. I don't and never have given a shite what others are having done, or looking like. I still have my eyebrows because I didn't pluck the shit out of them in the 1990s like my friends did who now have about 3 strands left on their face - my sister among them. It's not my job to tell others how to treat their bodies or to be affected by them but it is my job to teach my child that they don't HAVE to do that if they don't want to.

Photoshop does more harm than cosmetic procedures. Add social media, and it's a ticking time bomb of poor health decisions, riskier procedures and terrible mental health.

There's also an epidemic of men using steroids, which I think is a step up from cosmetic fillers in terms of health.

But at the same time you describe having your ears pinned back or surgery on a ’huge nose’ to make it a more "normal" size and say that you understand ‘why the majority of people may struggle with largely unusual features’.

Is that not objective and decided by the media? ‘a reaction to feeling you don't fit society's beauty standards’?

Btw I’ve not had any surgery or ‘tweakments’.

How would changing what society sees as beautiful help? Change it to what? 'Natural' beauty? Because very few people have that, so I can't see that's going to raise the collective self esteem of women. Or should we ban all beautiful people too so we have no one to compare ourselves with and feel bad?

I’ve not RTFT but YABU.

I was born deformed and have had extensive maxillofacial (sorry ‘cosmetic’) surgery to try to fix this, to the extent possible.

Leave other people alone. Who are you to sit in judgement over someone like me?

I work with people post surgeries, providing rehab and lymphatic drainage.

The cosmetic surgery market is booming, because social media implies one has to look a certain way. Especially for the young generation.

I blame a lot of the providers, as I feel they don't do enough to warn people of the risks. I've seen some very sad cases.

I totally get why someone with ears that grow out at 90° may want them pinned back.

MN seems to think sticking out ears are one of ugliest features a person can have. This actually makes me quite angry.

Not ugly but a target for bullies.. My brother was horribly bullied until he got them pinned back.

I don't think it's ugly at all! Genuinely!

It was an example of where someone may feel regularly self conscious because it's quite different from the norm. Same with very big noses. They aren't ugly at all, but if you have a feature that vastly different to the 'norm' then you are more likely to suffer mentally with it.

But so many young women are having cosmetic procedures when their natural features arent significantly different from the natural average anyway. That's the problem. Cosmetic surgery is getting more and more utilised and accepted, which WILL make other, probably young and impressionable women, feel they need it too.

As I said, I was (still am) very happy not to wear make up, although it has always been something I've enjoyed. I can't speak for others, in my mother's case it was a bit of a curse.

It is paint though and I will always think different to having substances injected in to your face, with dubious results in a lot of cases.

@LynetteScavo I know what you mean. It seems some things are accepted as undesirable e.g. crooked teeth including mildly crooked teeth (not talking about teeth that impact your bite), thin hair, crooked nose, sticking out ears and so on... And fixing these things is acceptable How did that come to pass? And yet many of us accept it without question. This trend the OP is concerned about started many many years ago

Beauty isnt a fact. No one 'has' beauty.

Some are considered beautiful because they fit societal standards of beauty. So it's not about swapping from one norm to another.

I may be naive but restricting these procedures, broadening the type of models media use and being more honest about what a real body looks like, would be a start. Then more celebrating the normal changes in a body.

Everyone in society (except those who gain from strict views of beauty - or those who fit those standards) would benefit from feeling fine in their natural state. No pressure to be 'beautiful' or anything they aren't.

I am very body confident generally. I have small lips and even I've felt pressured at times to get bigger lips. A decade ago I wouldn't have thought twice about it but it's so readily used and available now that it's hard to not see it and want it. I hate the industry. It's exploitative and makes money from people's insecurities.

I've noticed more and more women resembling something known as the 'instagram' face - essentially an amalgamation of various ethnicities' features blended into one. It's quite fascinating if not sad. At the very least young women now know that looking that way is paid for - these days it's all out in the open. There was a time when women would feel bad because they weren't born that way. It's been said before and I'll say it again: no-one is ugly, just broke.

I'm not actually against plastic surgery - for some people it can be very positive, but like you said there really should be more regulation, and maybe a law to raise the age limit for elective surgery to 21 or something. Or at least a crack down on dodgy places giving lip fillers to teenagers.

But there's lots of things out there that are unhealthy or a bad influence on young people - smoking, drugs, drink, obesity. Advertising has always been unrealistic and designed to make us feel shit about ourselves. Photoshopping has a lot to answer for.

And plastic surgery is not new, it's been around for decades. I was a teenager in the 90's and we had Baywatch and ridiculous inflatable boobs were the trend back then. The difference these days I suppose is social media, and the fact that smaller procedures like botox and filler are now cheap and available to the masses.

I also don't agree that somehow nose jobs and ears pinned back are the exception - surely they are elective also, and may put more pressure on those with larger noses etc. to get them 'fixed' - who are we to decide which procedures are acceptable or not?

None of these examples involve foreign substances being injected into or implanted in the body.

I'll be having a foreign substance implanted into my body in a year or two and I can't wait, it's going to change my life!
The foreign body will be a brand new knee. Why is that acceptable but a modification for cosmetic purposes not? If cosmetic procedures are regulated just the same as medicine and carried out by appropriately qualified practitioners then I see no problem.
When a lash tech does a day long course in lip fillers, starts calling herself an 'aesthetician' and sends women out into the street looking like they have baboons buttocks for a mouth, that's when I think things aren't right. I really do think that too many inexperienced people are performing these enhancements.

I have yet to see collagen enhanced lips or tattooed eyebrows that didn't look utterly ridiculous.

I completely agree. I honestly don't get the lip filler craze I think it looks so ugly why the fk does anyone want to look like a duck! never ever seen it look nice on anyone. I have a teen dd and have asked her to please not ruin herself by having these stupid unnecessary procedures she's in agreement with me that it looks rubbish. (up to now anyway hope she doesn't change her mind)

But those things take time out of womens days. If young women feel they have to spend a few hours a day working on how they look, because of how other people look, that’s also having a huge impact on them.

It’s still costing them money. Cost them time. It’s still making them feel they have to adhere to a beauty standard that is unattainable for most people.

They still have the same impacts, wether they are injecting something into their body or not. Woman have still been under pressure to adhere to a ‘beauty standard’ before fillers became a thing.

But you think that a larger nose should be corrected, or rather you think it would be reasonable to do that.

None of these examples involve foreign substances being injected into or implanted in the body.
But the OPs objection was that filers and Botox move the goalposts and create a false level of beauty that affects other' insecurities. It is the same with the things I mentioned. You can't go around thinking you are the determinant who gets to decide what processes are ok and which aren't with regards to modifying natural looks.

Then you haven't see good ones.

Stop being silly, you have no idea how many you saw and did not notice they had work done.

OP, everyone needs to take responsability for themselves I sm sorry but my filler should not be the reason of your insecurity simply because it has nothing to do with you.
For all of you who say about looking ridoculous, of course, but your ridiculous is someonelese's beautiful iregardless if is about fillers, hair colour, clothes, make up and so on. Why does it bother you how other look, rodiculous or not? You can see they have work done , so the lipstick, hair colour you can see is not natural either. So? I see people tattoed head to toe thsg look awesome, pierced, with beautiful blond hair(alaways always loved blond hair) intersting people who express themselves. Guess what, never got tattoed never bleached my hair, never got a piercing even if i love them on others. Simply becsuse i am wise enough to know they would not suit me. So, live and let live , society is not redponsable for your decisions.

Here you go. Now you can't say you've never seen any that don't look ridiculous