AIBU to think there's an awful attitude on MN to cosmetic procedures?

[PeachSundae]

Morning all.
trying not to make this a taat. There is a current thread running about a woman who had 0.5 lip filler, and her husband isn't happy about it. The comments are filled with bitchy, nasty women tearing her down.
multiple women on here say that anyone with cosmetic procedures looks 'fake, like a blow up doll, like a prostitute, like a duck, trout pout' and the list goes on. The comments are abhorrent. Yes, there are some very bad / botched jobs out there. But so many posters say 'filler never looks good, you can always tell' etc etc. you wouldn't notice good filler, that's the point. You will evidently notice bad filler.

cosmetic prosecutes can be invaluable to people. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer at 23, gruelling chemotherapy sapped every single bit of life out of my face. I aged overnight. I've had cosmetic work done to my face to try and get a bit of normality back, it's been a godsend for me. No amount of therapy or counselling would've done that. And some people don't want therapy or counselling! Some people aren't doing it to be vein, some are like me and doing it for my reasons. Also, so what if people are doing it for vanity! It's so nice to read the assumption that I look like a blow up doll, and that I look fake. Without even seeing my face and without knowing what I've been through.

AIBU to think this whole 'trout pout, every woman with filler looks like XYZ' is just horrible? The comments on the other thread are nothing short of bullying.

if you're one that judges so badly on what other people do, why? Why do you care? If you do judge, you are not on some sort of morale high ground because you're 'au natural.'

Op has had cancer, appropriate very hard core treatment to save her life, it’s taken its toll in her face and you STILL want to be judgemental about “shit” fillers? Honestly, good luck to you with THAT attitude. I would honestly rather have a face full of lead and poison than be such a nasty, judgemental, awful person.

I think it's ok to recognise that things we do don't exist in a vacuum. Whilst I don't really see anything wrong with a tweak there are wider questions about pressure on people particularly young people to look a certain way & how healthy that is plus the financial implications. Having reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy is different to just having implants imo.

Because women don’t make choices in a vacuum.
No one is necessarily blaming individual women for navigating a culture that punishes ageing, weight gain, and any deviation from the beauty-industrial ideal. But to be blunt: injecting your face with expensive chemicals to resemble a filtered photo isn’t feminist rebellion — it’s submission dressed up as empowerment.

Lip fillers and Botox aren’t just “personal choices” when they’re marketed relentlessly by industries that profit from our insecurities. The more women participate, the more the collective standard shifts. What was once an individual tweak becomes a collective expectation — a price of admission to visibility, employability, even love.

This isn’t about bashing women — it’s about questioning why “looking good” always seems to mean looking younger, smoother, smaller. Why a billion-dollar industry is built on convincing us we’re broken — then selling us the fix.

Yes, do what you want with your body. But don’t expect feminism to rubber-stamp every consumer choice under the banner of “freedom.” Real feminism asks: who benefits, who suffers, who pays, and why do so many women believe they need to be repaired in the first place?

Great post @CakeBlanchett
Especially Why do so many women believe they need to be repaired?

I agree you can't always tell re filler etc in photos, people have asked if I have lip filler. I don't have much of a cupid bow and my lips are similarly sized. However I do think in real life an animated face with stuff in can look off particularly as we age but I still might try botox.

Perfectly said.

YANBU. I don’t get why people feel so enraged about what another person chooses to do with their body.

it’s quite simple really if you dislike things like filler/botox don’t have any? No need to call those who do all sorts of names.

FWIW I recently got 0.5ml lip filler and it is very subtle. 0.5 isn’t really loads anyway.

Eh?
I don't feel pressure to mutilate myself, but others clearly do.
You're very defensive.

I don’t need to be “repaired” for anyone. I did and do something for me. No one else. Me. And as a fully functioning, adult, well educated, financially independent female, that is my choice. And I am perfectly capable of making it. Why that is so difficult for others to understand frankly confuses me. It is my money, my body, my choice. Perhaps they make their decisions based on other people and can’t understand that some of us don’t?

Genuine question. So how did it come about that you ended up having done whatever you did?

Huh?

you class a cancer patient who has had gruelling surgery in her 20s, getting cosmetic tweaks done to get herself back to her usual self, as me mutilating myself?

id much rather be a good, kind person than a bitter, judgemental miserable woman like you. That's engrained in you. What an awful character flaw.

My answer to this would be because I want a face that looks like the one I used to have. Whenever people speak of women who have aged 'beautifully and naturally', the example is invariably of a woman with amazing bone structure who has merely acquired a smattering a lines and who's volume loss has often given her sharper cheekbones and bigger eyes. Unfortunately age is not an equalities ravager and we are not all treated the same. Some of us age in ways that make us look alien to ourselves. Miserable from droopy mouths, when we are naturally happy. Frowny from our forehead lines, when we're naturally friendly. Sagging that changes the shape of our faces so we don't look like the person we recognise. It's not about 'repairs' to fit with societal ideals, its refurbishment to look like someone we recognise as ourselves.

There’s no doubt you’re pretty and I can totally understand why you would want to do what you did after such a gruelling time.

However, my honest opinion of the latest picture of you, to me, is smooth, tight but very, very much a ‘type’. You look like so many others who have had work done and in my opinion, it takes away ‘character’ and individuality in people’s faces. Obviously you look like you but a you that’s sadly a lot like too many others.

Me? I had an awful experience. I was the victim of an awful crime. I will not share the details on here but safe to say the trauma showed on my face and I didn’t want it to. In conjunction with an amazing psychotherapist I reclaimed the “ me” I was before that was done to me. Influencers had literally fuck all to do with it.

It's not about 'repairs' to fit with societal ideals, its refurbishment to look like someone we recognise as ourselves.

But where does the idea come from that our face should stay the same. I look different every decade, isn't that normal?

Yes, it's normal to see changes in one's face. My point was that for some people the changes are more extreme and more negative than others. I mean, who wants to be constantly asked what the matter is when they're perfectly happy because their mouth had started to turn down in repose? To be thought of as miserable? Or irritable because their 11s look like a permanent frown?

I think a lot of changes are more evident to the person than others tbh. One of my friends hated her 11 lines & had botox in them, I'm an observant person & genuinely didn't notice them or think she had an attitude before I knew her.

Same here. I lived with acne most of my adult life, and now I've decided I don't want to live with the scars it left, because... I DON'T HAVE TO.

Its as simple as that. Not because I have low self-esteem, not because I feel insecure, or feel pressure to conform to impossible beauty standards. It's because if I don't want scars, and wrinkles, I can get someone to help me out with that.. so what's the problem? And since my NHS dermatologist didn't have a problem with it either (and even recommended a good dermatologist to do it for me) I don't feel I am being stupid or vain.

What really pisses me off on this thread is so many women saying that the problem in society is women being judged on their looks, which is forcing them to have cosmetic procedures. Then in the same breath they denigrate the looks of, and even mock, the women that do get them. That level of cognitive dissonance does belie the fact that they fundamentally fear any criticism of their looks.

@Tessiebear2023i completely agree with everything you've said, especially the last paragraph for sure!

I get what you're saying completely. And I appreciate you saying it in a way where you're not trying to tear me down.

the one thing I'll touch on though, is I really did it to blend in. To look normal. I looked so abnormally horrific at only 23 and choosing to tweak my face to look similar to the rest of the world was one thing that gave my confidence back. But I get your point for sure!

Plastic surgeons can help relieve pain and improve or return function. Not all work they do is for vanity and I don’t fault anyone who engages their services for those reasons.

However, I’m not going to be quiet while our society tries to normalize a completely artificial appearance. Previous generations forced ridiculous norms for clothing and cosmetics on women. Now this some are trying to convince women they need surgeries and injections. It’s disgusting and it’s sexist. Women are free to make their own choices, but those choices are heavily influenced by societal norms. They should consider what their participation in that subculture and its efforts to become dominant means for our society as a whole.

I totally understand that. It makes complete sense that you want to blend in given what you’ve been through.

And I’m definitely not wanting to tear you down. You are gorgeous! The features like the smooth skin etc are what lot of people aim for too.

I'm a simple soul.

Im not arguing with the whole society view normalising this but personally for me it was literally looking in the mirror and looking very sad, my mouth pointed way down and big lines from nose to chin.

I wasn't trying to look younger, I was happy inside and wanted to look how I felt.

I do think it's a little hypocritical though, some folk telling us that we shouldn't give a stuff about how we look and then taking the piss at how it looks.

I'm very happy, I'm in my 60s and my face looks happy, it's not complicated.

Waits for the posts telling me I should be aging gracefully🤣

Your situation is different, and I am very happy that you were able to feel like yourself after cancer.

However for many of us we have celeb culture as our reference to cosmetics and they tend to go so far to the point where it looks scary! Especially those that get addicted. But also, why alter your body if you do not need to. I am so so thankful for modern science and medicine and the things we can do to save our lives, but I know a few people who are gorgeous!! Have very low self esteem, do cosmetic surgery in their 20s and it’s just pointless. I’ve heard BBL stories gone wrong, a friends friends that did a nose job is struggling to now actually breath through her nose! Why destroy a perfect nose for Instagram?

I probably care because I have a daughter and I want her to live herself, and to take care of herself, and when she gets abit older she is welcome to wear make up and do what she needs to look and feel good - but I hate that younger people, aged 12/13 are being influenced by this cosmetics culture and feel that they have to start taking things and keeping their youth! Come on - at 16. I’m seeing 13 year olds doing beauty regimes on TikTok (via my daughter) and she does ask me if we can go to a store to find certain products - but this can be dangerous when unregulated.

Alot of the time society are oblivious to long term impact - some of us, especially those of us that see it’s impact on the younger generation and self esteem and mental health, we arnt judging - we are protecting.

But also OP, how sad a society we live in where we are made to feel like we should blend in and look the same.

It’s so sad and so the bigger issue is the societal pressure that reminds us we are not good enough until we do x

and even worse, the large cosmetics industry preying on our insecurities.

Have you ever come across the phrase “she’s ugly pretty” aka interesting to look at, clearly natural, strange looking but mesmerising but acceptable. I’ve seen it used to describe celebs and people that don’t fit the “mould” of typical Western beauty (aka slim, plump enough lips, big eyes, skinny nose, bling etc) it might be that they have a monobrow, goofy teeth or eye shape - but as women we are so judged by our appearance, it would be nice if personality actually did matter.