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A plastic society
**helen**
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Be a confident, upstanding person, be the best you can, ignore all putdowns by other people.
That's all well and good, but you're not going to be confident unless you have the ability to change what you are not confident about within yourself. Whether it mental or physical.
For me, I had a tooth which was set back 3mm from the rest. I have recently had this repaired via cosmetic dentistry (yesterday). And although I only have the temporary veneer on (until 2 weeks time), I already feel a confidence in my smile which I personally haven't had in 10 years. (even if people have said they hadn't noticed it - I HAD)
So for me, MY own complex got to me, not peer pressure to look good / be vain.
I don't believe people should want to look good for other people, but for THEMSELVES.
My 2 blog posts on it (useless, I know)
http://inureface.blogspot.com/2008/08/inure-mouth.html
http://inureface.blogspot.com/2008/08/inure-in-my-mirror.html
The fact is, when we see someone (and I'm thinking usually women here, because sadly we are usually our own worst enemy) who looks anything less than perfect, our first reaction isn't to say or think, "wow, she looks really beautiful in her own unique way" or to appreciate the good things about her appearance, we usually think or say, "yuck, look at her rolls of fat/saggy boobs/funny nose/sweat patches/what she is wearing". You only have to look in any womens' magazine or listen to coversations in nightclubs to see examples of this. And men can be just as bad in their attitudes to women, the way some of them rate every single woman that walks past out of ten, or express genuine disgust towards any women who is bigger than a size 14, who has small boobs, or some other ultimately insignifcant feature.
For some women cosmetic surgery is the only option, it is the only chance they ever have of looking in the mirror and not disliking what they see, or not feeling as though they have bitchy women making comments about them and desperate men judging them. Think just how much you must want to change yourself to spend all that money and put yourself under the knife, in some cases risking death, just to change one aspect of your appearance; this isn't just the "oh I wish this bit of my body looked a little different" thing that a lot of us have, I'm sure the individual in question has, in most instances, really strong reasons for wanting surgery.
Personally I think it is more important for us to examine our own attitudes towards appearance, to listen to ourselves when we're talking about others, and to really think about why we act in the ways we do, as opposed to condeming those who have plastic surgery as "vain". And having watched a lot of the programmes the ranter talks about, we can see what a massive difference it often makes to the person in question in terms of their confidence, their feelings about themselves and often their relationships with partners, etc.
Then your case isn't one of those she rants about.
My personal view is that if you have a mental problem (and thinking that a perfectly normal body part isn't, is certainly a mental problem) you need a psychologist, not a surgeon.
A tooth behind the others is a true physical problem, something that formed badly. Small breasts aren't (except in some rare cases).
As for the rest, if the problem is that people "pass comment" then you should also change the way you act when people "pass comment" on you for (for example) not telling your kid not to talk when on a plane. If you think they have no right to tell you that and that you should ignore the comments at that instance, you should also ignore them about the physical things, which you didn't even have a choice on.
That's a very different thing, but I've not really set my opinion on it since I don't know how "normal" each of these situations is. My issue is with things that are perfectly normal (from a medical perspective -keep in mind that "medical" might be the wrong word for what I mean) being changed. If the above are normal, it's society that's in the wrong: some people think being gay is a crime, and that's society in the wrong.
I think its a shame when people correct things that already look perfectly fine, and i think its a shame when people think they can get surgery to fix anything - you see Jordan turning into the next Michael Jackson. Thats really not good, but its still only them they are hurting so nobody elses business.
I DONT like the fact that people see surgically sculpted people and think its what they should look like - and that is whats happening, I think its been abused a bit.
Would it be a deformity in the second instance?
Nothing to disagree with here
I agree that with everything written here. My own personal concern is that people are going to take cosmetic surgery too far and everyone will look like androids. What can be a flaw for one person can be an endearing quirk to another. Someone's gap in their front tooth can be seen as sexy (take Vanessa Paradis)..Those 'love handles' could be the sexiest part of a person's body to their partner. This links on to my own special thought of the day. I wish people would stop being so fucking critical of other people's appearance :grump: Something I've seen a lot of today..
sorry for the length... didn't mean to get side tracked. My final thought- each to their own.
Much as I am a bit wary about cosmetic surgery, it's not really my place to make decisions about someone else's appearance, is it? If they reallywant to do that sort of thing and they can pay for it, let them.