cosmetic surgery

UGH UGH UGH "fat grafting into the breast" - this just grosses me out so much. Am I going to have to read this every day now? Just makes me want to cross my arms over my chest and squirm. It sounds so icky

Wow, what is this? Is it the holy grail of removing body fat and putting it into boobies?

I don't understand why they don't leave women with built-in liposuctmachines to immediately scoop away any fat on their ass and immediately deposit it into the boob area. Like tubes and wires and channels. In fact, why don't we just rewire all womens brains into cosmetically perfect robot bodies? In fact, sod keeping the brains at all.

This is the most sick and insane industry I work in. Who comes UP with these things?

I need to get out of here before this crazy Fight Club world I work in starts seeming normal to me.

We have just had a meeting about this. Yes. They liposuct fat OUT OF yr ass and thighs, and then inject it into your breasts to make them bigger.

Seems much better than injecting sillicone in breasts tbh.

That said, I'd never contemplate stuffing something in my breasts.

Kate where do you work...? For awhile my wife was doing medical malpractice insurance and a lot of her companies' clients were plastic surgeons so she was constantly researching botched jobs and whatnot. loads of gruesome photos, ridiculous before/after claims, etc.

also hilarious/disturbing to learn what kind of doctors get into this business (podiatrists wanting to get coverage for doing botox injections, for ex.)

But the whole putting fat in boobies isn't a new practice. I mean, that procedure has been around for a while, hasn't it?

According to the card of every ENT I've been to (about 5) they're all "facial plastic surgeons". I am guessing that's where the real money is.

Also what nathalie said is OTM. While I would never get any plastic surgery myself, I think this sorta thing is a hell of a lot better than putting a foreign object in the body from a health perspective.

After seeing that horrid Katie Price/Jordan sextape, I can't understand why men can be obsessed with pumped up breasts. Ek. to *prance* around, that seems... sort of okay, but sex with a woman who has gigantic sillicone breasts? I honestly find it a turn off.

as a hetero male I find fake tittays distinctly UNsexy, but then I think a lot of times there's a lot more convoluted reasoning going into getting implants that goes beyond "men thinks its sexy". all this weird, internalized body (and aging) hatred stuff

I doubt most men find GIGANTIC tits actually appealing. I mean past a certain point it's just grotesque but I can see why they would be fascinating. Implants in general are pretty crappy but I think maybe some guys like them because somehow they imply something about the womans midset or sexuality (ie. that they're hypersexual or must "want it" etc.). I'm not saying that this is or should be the case just that I think it's more the msg that implants send out (or the msg that some ppl think they send out) rather than the implants themselves which actually "do it" for a lot of people.

"Appealing" in that first sentence should have been "asthetically pleasing".

yeah that seems right to me. what that message is varies tho (from "I am rich and vain" to "I am so insecure I mangled myself surgically in a misguided attempt to sexually appeal to emotionally stunted males")

Oh yeah it definitely varies.

But I think that in a lot of situations the end result is the same.

= fake tits

the weirdest thing to me is hearing the women on various plastic surgery TV shows always talking about how they're getting the procedure done for THEM, not for some man, but to boost their self-esteem because they've always hated their bodies or whatever... as if its too complicated for them to investigate why actually getting implants would make them feel better about themselves, and what they're basing their self-esteem on.

To be completely honest, the only plastic surgery I've ever even contemplated for a split second was a boob job but that was mainly because I got it in my head years ago that I needed slighly bigger boos to balance out my hips etc. and would never actually do it becasue a) fake boobs suck and b) "elective" and "surgery" are not two words I generally think belong together.

I also have to admit that unless you're mangled or had reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy or were born horribly disfigured or MAYBE (but this one is stretching it for other reasons) you got fake tits for strategic money earning/empowerment purposes - if you're a lady and I meet you and find out you have fake boobs then yes, I will think less of you for doing so. I sorta hate that I feel that way but I do.

x-post One of the weirdest things I've ever seen on TV was when the receptionist at some Bev Hills plastic surgery office had her labia reconstructed for free by her boss who then inspected his work by lifting up her skirt and proclaiming her lips "perfect". It was so unbelievably creepy.

I know various women who have had breast reduction surgery and always thought that was kinda ironic given our culture but it made total sense from the POV of their personal health and comfort. but yeah if you have fake tits/botox/tattooed eyeliner I'm gonna kinda think you're an idiot on some level.

Women who get breast reductions usually do so because of serious back problems. At least the ones I know have.

Many insurance companies will cover implants for "psychological" reasons but will not cover reductions even when serious back problems are experienced. So fucked. I have a friend who has been waiting for years to have one but hasn't been able to afford it and no insurance she's ever carried will cover it.

I think it's easy to say "don't you get it??? your self-esteem problems are due to all kinds of social factors and it if you really objectively analyze the situation, it's absurd that you'd let yourself down like that." but there are really few people who are psychologically capable of being comfortable w/ every single aspect of their body. I don't think this is just due to 20th century media / surgical possibilities, either. plenty of girls wished there was a way they could have bigger breasts before plastic surgery existed. I don't think it's inconceivable that for a lot of people this is like, a psychological burden that, realistically, they wouldn't be able to resolve through reasoning, reading the right books, therapy, whatever.

I've always thought it hilariously ironic that the creator of the Barbie doll purposefully made Barbie er "well-endowed" in order to make young girls MORE comfortable with their breasts (because she herself had developed early and was very self-conscious about it)... oh lolz the unintended consequences...

x-post Yeah Iatee it's obviously a complicated issue and not as straightforward as I might have made it sound upthread.

Was thinking about it on the way home because I remembered an argument I had with some friends and RS last year where he said I was being hypocritical by thinking negatively of ppl who get implants because I dye my hair for similar reasons. I had recently admitted that I feel more attractive with lighter hair partly because I get significantly more attention (yes, predominantly male attention) when my hair is lighter. I was saying that it's normal to feel more attractive when others are noticeably more attracted to you and he was arguing that maybe other women get breast implants for similar reasons. Somehow the whole surgical factor and permanence of implants make them seem more extreme and therefore entirely different or maybe it's the fact that they're so overtly sexual. I don't know though. Maybe he's right and it's not that different at all.

well they're certainly different in terms of cost, permanence, and risks to your health. which are some pretty major factors. even if the motivation is the similar.

also hair doesn't have anything to do with mommy issues/breastfeeding and is not a gender-specific trait.

i have breast implants and i can say that i did not get them because men give me more attention and actually, a woman with small breasts that shows off her cleavage will get more attention from men than i would, only because im not showing them off with low cut shirts.

and for the record i got them cuz i haaaaated how i looked for many many years. Buy ya i know some of those "i am right and vain" ho-hos

right = rich

idk how that happened.

and why do you think you hated how you looked

well because of the media silly.

okay who's the sock puppet

"i am right and vain" ho-hos

by ho-hos do you mean people or boobs? I really can't tell in this context.

silence collier

i mean people

lollllllll.

hondurian pls tell us a little more about yr experience with breast implants. I am fairly certain that your input would be invaluable.

my experience as in the surgical procedure or living-with-boobs experience?

The latter.

well i got them because i had a breast deformality. Having to deal with that growing up pretty much sucked. buying bras was a joke, and getting undressed in front of anyone was probably the second most embarrassing thing right after explaining why they looked that way.

so having them now just feels really great. its sincerely the best feeling when you can actually say you feel sexy in your own skin, and mean it. There are women that get them and i believe dont really need them though, just to feel younger or please a guy i guess.

well my reputation as a jerk is secure, I guess

I said that having some sort of deformity makes the whole thing different altogether.

But I think that in a lot of situations the end result is the same.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Thursday, September 17, 2009 4:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

= fake tits

― existential eggs (Abbott), Thursday, September 17, 2009 4:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol

right down to "existential eggs"

good spot :D

any guys my dad's a plastic/reconstructive surgeon, and i grew up with boxes of fake boobs littering the back of my dad's truck (like pushing them aside when i got in the back seat), so maybe i'm a little biased, but: pretty much everyone's right, when it comes to boob jobs. i've met (as an adult) image-conscious wealthy women and seen, in clinic, teenaged car-crash survivors. imo opinions on cosmetic surgery are almost entirely rooted in having a problem with the kind of person that gets that sort of plastic surgery, you know?

like the first three posts of this thread are inscrutable to me, and i have never heard of this cutting edge boob procedure that heads the revive, but it seems that if you are in the practice of taking fat from places anyway, that it might be practical to just put it someplace else, if that other place was lacking. or if someone thought it was lacking. and if that someone was also the kind of person that was highly likely to desire both surgeries, even without the knowledge of this particular, new, cutting-edge procedure. there are enough rational people that could be patients, that it might be worthwhile to do a clinical trial, etc.

elective surgeries are, in a basic way, just procedures that aren't necessary to forestall imminent death or disability. how you want to breakdown "imminent" or "necessary" or "disability" is up to you. what they represent as an area of knowledge is valuable for loads of people for reasons aside from crude vanity ("i injured my face in a car accident"), but at the extreme they're weird and ugly. like, if a dude can be allowed to put bumps under his skin, and fork his tongue, and get tiger stripes, etc, then why can't i make my butt look a little more "normal?"

cf abortion, euthanasia, DNR, and every other medical right we might wish to retain

Well said, E.

yes but elective isn't the same as cosmetic

reconstructing the face of someone with a wound may not ~actually be necessary: if their jaw isn't fucked up---they can eat and speak---and they're not at risk of infection (healed up ok!), then, yeah, repairing it is as much elective as it is purely cosmetic. you're making a repair because of the way it looks, and because of how you, and maybe (maybe!), other people think of it.

you're making it look better, not work better.

right I get that, but throwing abortion and euthanasia in there seems a bit disingenuous

i dont think you are actually understanding his point then

"A Pound Of Flesh: an intertextual reading of elective surgical practice, insurance schedules, and the range of physical habitus deemed normative by the prevailing cultural milieu"

If only I still had access to pubmed.

even though I agree w/ gbx overall, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Shakey's not arguing for *taking away the medical right* for people to do this, he just thinks it's a bad practice for reasons XYZ. so to compare it w/ taking away other medical rights seems...off.

E made a comment upthread about labia reconstruction and I'm suprised that went by with nary a comment from anyone. *That* surgery is the most mindblowingly baffling of all to me. How fucked up insecure must a woman be to think her vagina is so ugly, surgery will make it all better? Its not like people go around going "hey, nice lips have you had some work done?"

Yes - that is a topic deserving of its own thread. Vaginal reconstruction for cosmetic purposes is pretty fucking mind blowing. Was going to elaborate on that but figured we had enough going on with the boobs. ;-)

what the hell shakey, jesus, think it out like even a little bit

throwing in abortion and euthanasia might seem inflammatory, but it's hardly disingenuous: choosing to puff yr lips up or repair yr horrific scar is as voluntary an act---medically---as aborting a fetus or merc'ing yourself. if you are willing to grant someone the right to the latter two, then you ought to feel likewise about the first. and, if you don't want to be a dick, you would probably see how your idea of "cosmetic" surgery lines up pretty neatly with other peoples' ideas of babby genocide (<-- saw these ppl the other day o_P).

ok that was double inflammatory. mainly, crucially: stigma is a terrible thing. i know it's a slippery slope argument, but: moralizing the act of cosmetic surgery edges uncomfortably towards doing the same for other "unnecessary" procedures. i am not concern trolling, i honestly think that if you think that a person is so horribly insecure as to do whatever the hell they want with their own body, then what you actually have a problem with is people with horrible insecurity.

Its definitely one area where I'm confident in saying "I blame porn".

xpost

I was trying to find a clip from that show but the only ones I can find from it are of an episode where a porn start got her anus bleached. omg.

Sry to interrupt serious discussion here but I just . . . anal bleaching. Who are these people that are watching porn and choose to focus on the color of the actresses butthole? Never mind, I don't actually want to know who those people are.

oops - actress's

Its about sanitisation I guess. Neat and tidy visual sex. None of this messy normal human body rubbish!

i must say that unwiped butthole porn has completely passed me by

Haha. But if you think about it, I'm guessing the idea is related to that - some people have ... err... darker buttholes. I'm guessing its an attempt to make it look less... poopy?

OK, this is so not something I even want to contemplate on a friday afternoon :|

LASER VAGINAL REJUVENATION INSTITUTE

I understand what you're saying but I still say if yr watching porn and that's what yr fixating on then YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

i think we have all learned a lot today about buttholes

I can definitely understand why someone would want their labia to be "remodeled" but honestly I would never EVER contemplate it since I have read what can go wrong. Didn't Jenna Jameson have hers redone and it was a botched job? (No, it didn't turn out vertical.)

I'm pretty cool with whatever you wanna do to your body. If you feel crap about it, why not get it done? If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it already. Me? I'm pretty comfortable with my tits, ass and rest of my body. I'm pretty insecure about my *brane* but my body is just there to walk around in. heh.

maybe someone who grew up with a GOTHIC ANUS would feel the need to bleach.

or MAYBE (but this one is stretching it for other reasons) you got fake tits for strategic money earning/empowerment purposes

O_o tbh

Before anyone gets all high and mighty, I would just like to remind people of the difference between "Plastic Surgery" and "Cosmetic Surgery" - the words are used interchangeably, but they are not the same. The former is the "fix the bodies of people who have been mangled or deformed" the latter is the purely cosmetic sense.

I can't even get into how much this industry disgusts me because I'll just start screaming and walk out of my job.

I have to deal with the marketing department every day, the people who really run this place. The amount of money this place spends to make women feel insecure about their looks in order to push them into unnecessary surgery makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

It is TOTALLY marketed as "having a boob job/nose job/botox" will MAKE YOU MORE CONFIDENT. I mean, that's practically our strapline word for word. It's just such a horrible message, and yet such an apparently effective one.

But maybe I'm full of The Beauty Myth and see this whole thing as a systematic process...

I don't know why this particular (liposuction -> breast aug) procedure has particularly wound me up when we do lots of gross unncesseary surgery. Maybe because of the Fight Club reference. Maybe because it's the first one that's been introduced while I've been here, and therefore the first one I've had to sit through meetings where it's described in bloody graphic detail. But it really bothers me.

The whole idea of empowerment by augmentation hinges on whether or not it's possible to pole-dance your way to equality, and I do not think it is. People who fall for that canard are basically chumps and Rule One is that advertising is not designed to fool smart people, but to attract those who think conformity makes them smart.

I've got no issues with reconstructive surgery AT ALL - I know people who were given psych or med-referred augmentation on the NHS. However it is all kinds of bullshit that American women who are overendowed can't get reductions to help out the inevitable back problems that go with massive boobage (since, conversely, it is done ALL THE TIME on our wonderful and free NHS).

Gbx, I am not sure how wise it is for a man to even lightly draw a comparison between elective surgeries and abortion provision; a woman with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy (and who has probably tried to use some form of protection) isn't going to feel that her situation is an elective one.

^ this all makes sense to me ^

re: cosmetic surgery being geared more towards women, i think that's simply because that's where the most potential/demand is. cosmetic surgery isn't something a man 'should' ever be considering (going by male social mores/norms) and i think there's much more of a stigma associated with men getting purely cosmetic surgery than women. not sure most men are any happier with their physical appearance than most women are, although tbf it's probably true that we're judged less on it.

(posting as a male who has an older brother that had his jaw broken in two places last week to have his chin reduced by 5mm.)

Well, except for the extremes (i.e. six-pack, biceps, etc) that you don't ge by 'tweaking' via CosSurg.

i dunno, we've all got a six pack in there somewhere, haven't we?

FWIW, we actually have a quite large and growing segment of male customers.

However, it's the breast thing and the labia thing that really bother me, because they are so utterly one-sided - there is no male equivalent. (Penis Enlargement? We stopped doing that because "the results were purely cosmetic" - as if labioplasties aren't "purely cosmetic"?!?!?)

Men are always provided with other ways of "proving themselves" or establishing worth. As a woman, the point is driven home again and again, it does not matter how good you are at what you do - you will ALWAYS be judged on your appearance first and foremost.

Although men can get ahead by being attractive, it does not seem that they are ever penalised on their loss of looks - or more specifcally loss of *youth* in the way that women are. It's nothing like the same.

And I don't think that the answer is to subject men to the same appearance scrutiny, FWIW. I think the answer is to take the pressure off women. But that will not happen while there are multi-million dollar industries like THE ONE I WORK IN making vast amounts of money off this process.

However, it's the breast thing and the labia thing that really bother me, because they are so utterly one-sided - there is no male equivalent. (Penis Enlargement? We stopped doing that because "the results were purely cosmetic" - as if labioplasties aren't "purely cosmetic"?!?!?)

missing the point? women (can i assume?) are only looking for cosmetic results, males aren't.

truer to say that there is no female equivalent to an enlargement that i can think of, not least because they don't work.

As a woman, the point is driven home again and again, it does not matter how good you are at what you do - you will ALWAYS be judged on your appearance first and foremost.

i don't agree that there's as huge a gulf between genders here as you're suggesting

Look, Darraghmac, the reason that men aren't looking for cosmetic "bettering" of their appearance is that right now there is not a multimillion pound industry with the SPECIFIC AIM of making them feel insecure about their appearance in order to sell them crap.

It's in everything, it's been engrained so deeply into our society that it's almost inescapable, even if you avoid television and magazines and advertising. I was reading a book the other day - Affluenza - which was talking about cosmetic surgery as a symptom of "Affluenza" and even as it was giving with one hand, it was taking away with the other. There was a whole chapter aimed mostly at women (5 suggestions for women at the end - 2 for men) about "attractiveness" which was exhorting women not to pay so much attention.

And YET, throughout this ENTIRE BOOK, every time he introduced a female case study, the FIRST THING he mentioned about her was her appearance, what she looked like, how she was dressed, her figure, her hair colour. He never did the same for men - he mentioned what they did, what industry they worked in, but would rarely even mention what colour hair they had. Yet womens appearances were described in detail - while at the same time decrying women for being shallow and superficial for paying attention to their attractiveness?

And this is in a book supposed to be "against" that kind of culture?

there is not a multimillion pound industry with the SPECIFIC AIM of making them feel insecure about their appearance in order to sell them crap

i just think that's a chicken/egg debate. if there was a male equivalent of 'heat' magazine, it wouldn't get to a third issue.

we've got loaded, nuts etc to cater to what we were looking for to begin with, so i think it's like blaming the glamour magazine industry for creating the demand for guys to look at skimpily clad nubiles, when really that's just focusing on the marketing side of an industry that would exist anyway.

Lads magazines waaayyy post-date the cosmetic surgery industry boom, though they (and internet porn) have entered into a weird synergistic relationship with it.

The number one finger I would point, though, if talking about the media, is womens magazines - and their weird incestuous relationship with the cosmetics industry and the cosmetic surgery industry. It's not a chicken/egg situation - it's something which has been deliberately created with the aim of parting women from their self esteem and ultimately their money.

If you're interested in this, I'd reccomend you read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.

i wasn't linking lads mags and cosmetic surgery really, just trying to draw a parallel about how these things really don't ever create their own demand, imo.

womens' magazines relationship with their readers is deeply fucked.

i'm not interested in anything enough to read naomi wolf again, tbh.

Well, then, if you're not actually interested enough to do any real exploration on the subject, why are you so interested in making ill-founded gender role theorisations about things you don't entirely understand?

I really do find this industry revolting, and it is doing my head, sitting here all day doing research and analysis on this kind of thing. I don't think arguing on the internet makes it any better, it just helps blow off steam.

Apologies for sounding patronising, but this place REALLY is doing my head in and making me angry.

why are you so interested in making ill-founded gender role theorisations about things you don't entirely understand?

in the interests of balance. good day to you.

if there was a male equivalent of 'heat' magazine, it wouldn't get to a third issue.

Heat wasn't always that: It started as an 'alternative' TV guide, and was often useful for finding things on TV that I might have missed, via a feature on "today's picks" etc.

Now, it's 'discovered' that Celebs and body issues keep them coming back for more...

I found one of the early issues while sorting out stuff in the garage, and was amazed at how 'alright' it was. But no-one's going to make a fortune selling to "me"...

Does anybody here know enough about plastic or reconstructive surgery to tell me the name of the procedure that was done on this guy's mouth? I mean, I don't even know enough to tell you that it is plastic surgery, but it doesn't look natural. Reminds me very much of Nicholson's The Joker.

It's here, then click on "Watch the Gala tribute video for Tony Evnin" and fast-forward to 1:28.

woah poor guy. :D

Gbx, I am not sure how wise it is for a man to even lightly draw a comparison between elective surgeries and abortion provision; a woman with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy (and who has probably tried to use some form of protection) isn't going to feel that her situation is an elective one.

Suzy, you mean that the abortion is not an elective one, in that she doesn't feel she has a choice? (Sorry, I'm a bit slow at understanding sometimes.) If so, I strongly disagree. You do have a choice: you can always put the baby up for adoption if you do not want a child. I know it's not that simple, but it isn't radical as you suggest. There are different options with the same outcome (no child).

Kate, I'm the VERY last person to disagree with (most of) your dislikes/points .But to bluntly say that men do have any pressure in the looks department is wrong. Because looks are the first thing you can (and do) judge, this goes for men and women. But of course the degree and continuance is different.

Although men can get ahead by being attractive, it does not seem that they are ever penalised on their loss of looks - or more specifcally loss of *youth* in the way that women are. It's nothing like the same.

Penalised by whom? Work? Potential rut buddies? I think I follow you but I'm unclear how the actualy penalties work. For actresses, certainly, there's no doubt: the work disappears.

Penalised on every level - but the work / opportunities is the specific one that I'm angry about here.

We actually market our services as being all "don't let younger, prettier women sneak up behind you and steal your jobs!" - I wish I'd saved the press release about that one.

xxpost well, yes, i do agree. thing is: it's so hard to point out (for women but also men).

I mean, this was one of the things that The Beauty Myth was so eye-opening about. The first chapter just got into the (legally upheld) penalties for women (in a lot more professions than acting) who do not conform to very specific beauty standards that men are just not held to.

And it's not just a question of dress and presentation (which both genders are held to) but actually body standards and visible signs of aging and the like.

What sort of penalities are we talking here? 15 yards and 4th down? Higher pay for higher boobs?

Sacked and/or replaced if you don't conform to unreal standards of youth and beauty.

That's certainly the fear that this organisation was trying to play on.

e.g. didn't actually pick an ugly girl to play "Ugly Betty", just got a fairly normal actress and 'uglified' her.

you know I think its supposed to be up to the surgeon to weed out those people that are vanity obsessed. When i went in i had to have an actual "interview" before i was even approved for the procedure. During this interview i was asked questions about my personality & addictions.

maybe thats up to the practice itself. im not quite sure where you work Masonic BOOM but it sounds very .. shadey?

btw i work in marketing and that is probably the most disgusting stragetic plan EVER

so those of you that are so offended by cosmetic surgery - by logical extension, you should feel the same about cosmetic dentistry right?

i'd always see dentistry as more of a medical issue, but it's hard to explain why. maybe it's easier to define what a 'perfect' set of teeth should look like.

teeth that crush food and do not hurt.

nah, that's a 'working' set.

Dentistry is generally not surgical or invasive. Ergo it does not come under the remit of cosmetic surgery now, does it?

Uh actually there are plenty of surgical means for fixing teeth, and anyone who thinks these procedures aren't potentially invasive obv hasn't met anyone with hardcore brace and bridge work.

any dental work that significantly changes appearance is usually gonna be both

Look, what is the point of this question, anyway?

Because saying that I'm "offended" by cosmetic surgery is really reducing an incredibly complex set of issues down to one very black and white (and quite dismissive) term.

What do I *think* about cosmetic dentistry? I wouldn't do it, I don't see the point of it. (I was forced as a child to undergo it, which I am actually quite annoyed about, as an adult. I would not have made that choice in retrospect, but we had just moved to America and my mother was bullied into it by dentists who held American ideals about dental perfection, and was told that I needed it if I were ever to fit in, in American schools.)

Do I think it's "morally wrong"? (in the way that I do actually think that the cosmetic surgery *Industry* is actually quite morally indefensible on many levels?) I don't know enough about it or the industry to tell you.

I would have to look at the coercive or manipulative nature of the marketing of it. I would have to look at whether it was unfairly and disproportionately influenced by social attitudes towards gender or race.

Until I've done that research, I don't feel qualified to comment on it on an ethical level.

how often are people described by their teeth? could you recognize someone just by a vague outline of their teeth, as one could do by, say, bob hope's nose? equating dentistry to cosmetic plastic surgery is silly.

Well, on a general level...

How many 'alternative' comics come to England and do the "lol english teeth" joke?

ans: Most of them...

The idea of good/bad/perfect teeth is pretty much gender-neutral isn't it? Imagining going "those are girls' teeth" is pretty ridiculous.

could you recognize someone just by a vague outline of their teeth

Funny, I saw a 'comparitively recent' pic of my dad, and although he looks different thesedays, I'd recognise him in an instant thanks to his teeth.

Usually the only time I really notice people's teeth is if they have had veneers put in, because sometimes the teeth are freakishly long or too white.

The question "ooh, what about cosmetic dentistry...?" just kind of assumes that the only objection someone could possibly raise to cosmetic surgery is "oh noes, vanity is BAD!" rather than the host of questions raised by the other issues surrounding it.

Also, the kind of levels of engagment... The layers of

"I would/would not do that myself"
vs
"I do/do not think that others should be able to do that"
vs
"I would/would not be willing to work in/actively promote this"

You're talking kind of layer 1 and layer 2 on this thread, where I'm wrestling with issues of layer 3, so my level of engagement is going to be quite different.

I mean, obviously I'm not exactly bursting through into our patients waiting room screaming "don't do it! don't waste your money, don't mutilate yourself, you're fine just the way you are!" but how am I living with myself on a daily basis, working in an industry I believe to be ethically indefensible? Different question.

there is not a multimillion pound industry with the SPECIFIC AIM of making them feel insecure about their appearance in order to sell them crap

Umm, read one 'Mens Health' magazine? This argument falls flat because there are multimillion pound industries in existence for anything you can make people, both men and women, feel insecure about; and they're all about making you care what other people think of you.

I also don't think the 'women an "punsished" for loss/lack of beauty' holds the universal truth that seems to be suggested here. Some industries, maybe, but there are certainly plenty of places I've worked where looks haven't been a boundary for anyone reaching senior positions.

Also I'd say my gym is about 70% dudes, so someone out there must be making us feel shit about ourselves and cashing in...

kate you are not actually talking about cosmetic surgery in this thread

Sorry, what exactly *am* I talking about if I'm not talking about cosmetic surgery?

Did I fall asleep and wake up in a different job overnight?

i think it's actually a thread where we sit, coo sympathetically and agree with whatever you last posted or else get bitten for our stupidity or moving off topic, right?

i mean, i know it says 'cosmetic surgery' at the top and everything, but i'm just assuming at this stage that that's a misprint.

obv the issues that surround cosmetic surgery are important and merit discussion, and i share your disgust for the image industry and cynically capitalizing on human insecurity. however, patients---even those electing to undergo the least necessary cosmetic surgeries---are rational actors, and if they want to do something with their body, then not only will i grant them the freedom to do so, i will also hope that they receive the best advice throughout the course of treatment. the problem i have (and you, too, i'm guessing) is that some surgeons run their practice like an autobody shop, and will do anything to anyone, no questions asked. fifteen year old wants a boob job? cool. dude wants calf implants? uh, whatever, but sure, we'll do it.

is that gross? yeah. is it unethical? no. what about that kind of casual augmentative practice coupled with aggressive marketing directed at sensitive and easily influenced populations? ok, yeah, that seems unethical. but that last bit comprises a pretty small slice of the patient population (I'm guessing, no sources here), though (also guessing) a pretty large chunk of $$$. moreover, i'm very resistant to somehow reducing each and every man and woman who undergoes plastic surgery to a brainless femme/homme-bot that got bullied into a set of fake tits/hair-plugs (or whatever) by steeple-fingered surgeons and marketing apparatchiks.

xp

Gbx, I am not sure how wise it is for a man to even lightly draw a comparison between elective surgeries and abortion provision

whatever. i think i made myself pretty clear.

OK, GBX I totally respect that argument.

x-post OBV not the elective surgery vs. abortion one, which I'm not even going to get into

But these are exactly the issues that I'm coming up against every day.

I research exactly things like, why do people go through with these things vs. why do they change their minds or even get rejected? It's heartbreaking to read nurses notes to the effects of "this is a 15 y.o. girl who has lied about her age - she clearly has body dysmorphia issues, she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, and wants liposuction, unsuitable for procedure." But it makes you wonder, how do they know if a 30 y.o. woman (with the obvious visible fat deposits appropriate for a 30 y.o. woman with 2 kids) is NOT suffering from those same body dysmorphia issues?

I try to rationalise the argument with "these people are gonna do it anyway, we should make sure they get adequate care and support"

But at the same time, as we talk about "no pressure" and "informed consent" and all that - I also know that every nurse in this place has quotas and targets and if they drop below a certain enrollment ratio, they lose *their* jobs? Ditto for the phone consult/bookers who are on targets to get as many people in for consultations as possible.

So how much "no pressure" is that really?

It all makes me very uncomfortable.

I think its weird that you conflate thinking people are idiots for doing something with outlawing said idiotic behavior. Dragging non-cosmetic surgery procedures into the discussion is sorta uncalled for.

(er x-posts but I hope its obvious that was directed at gbx)

like you're right people are perfectly within their rights to mangle themselves, its their money, their bodies, whatever. I'm still entitled to think they're stupid for doing so. Dragging abortion and euthanasia - which are legally very contentious topics (unlike plastic surgery) - just seems like a bad faith argument, its beside the point.

Shakey Mo, that's right. x-posts

I'm not saying "I think it should be banned" (though deep down, I might *think* that in a darker moment, I'm certainly not going to advocate it - I'd rather work to eliminate the perceived "need" for it)

I'm saying "Do I really want to spend every day of my life, my effort and my time *promoting* something that makes me so ethically uncomfortable?"

also, can we please STOP conflating Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery.

"people are perfectly within their rights to mangle themselves"

Isn't this a catch22 thing? Like we would let you do this if you were sane but no sane person would do this?

Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery.

yeah sorry my bad

lolz sanity definitions and the law - is there any subject more slippery

ok, apologies to kate, i skimmed this hastily, but:

"I would/would not do that myself"
vs
"I do/do not think that others should be able to do that"
vs
"I would/would not be willing to work in/actively promote this"

You're talking kind of layer 1 and layer 2 on this thread, where I'm wrestling with issues of layer 3, so my level of engagement is going to be quite different.

I mean, obviously I'm not exactly bursting through into our patients waiting room screaming "don't do it! don't waste your money, don't mutilate yourself, you're fine just the way you are!" but how am I living with myself on a daily basis, working in an industry I believe to be ethically indefensible? Different question.

this is v v valid, and v different from what i interpreted this thread to be 'about.' that said: the best way to make peace with this is maybe to understand how those you work with do it. the surgeons, OR techs, scrub nurses, etc., you work with are not horrible, venal people (at least not all of them). so how do they sleep at night knowing they put food on the table because someone underwent an invasive surgical procedure they didn't need?

ideally, they'd be sleeping soundly because they knew that, at the end of the day, the patient's choice was a voluntary one, and that pt could have pulled the plug any moment, and that maybe when they woke up they started to feel better (whatever that means) instead of cackling and smashing the mirror.

many xps, standby

I research exactly things like, why do people go through with these things vs. why do they change their minds or even get rejected? It's heartbreaking to read nurses notes to the effects of "this is a 15 y.o. girl who has lied about her age - she clearly has body dysmorphia issues, she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, and wants liposuction, unsuitable for procedure." But it makes you wonder, how do they know if a 30 y.o. woman (with the obvious visible fat deposits appropriate for a 30 y.o. woman with 2 kids) is NOT suffering from those same body dysmorphia issues?

I try to rationalise the argument with "these people are gonna do it anyway, we should make sure they get adequate care and support"

But at the same time, as we talk about "no pressure" and "informed consent" and all that - I also know that every nurse in this place has quotas and targets and if they drop below a certain enrollment ratio, they lose *their* jobs? Ditto for the phone consult/bookers who are on targets to get as many people in for consultations as possible.

So how much "no pressure" is that really?

It all makes me very uncomfortable.

agreed!

I think its weird that you conflate thinking people are idiots for doing something with outlawing said idiotic behavior. Dragging non-cosmetic surgery procedures into the discussion is sorta uncalled for.

― Hat Trick Swayze (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, September 18, 2009 11:51 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(er x-posts but I hope its obvious that was directed at gbx)

― Hat Trick Swayze (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, September 18, 2009 11:53 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

like you're right people are perfectly within their rights to mangle themselves, its their money, their bodies, whatever. I'm still entitled to think they're stupid for doing so. Dragging abortion and euthanasia - which are legally very contentious topics (unlike plastic surgery) - just seems like a bad faith argument, its beside the point.

― Hat Trick Swayze (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, September 18, 2009 11:54 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think it's weird that you're so willing to call these people 'idiots' who are 'mangling' themselves. like, seriously, you're trying to make me look like a dick for "dragging" abortion and euthanasia (which are as ethically contentious as cosmetic surgery, at least from a practitioner's pov), and yet you're very casually writing off people as vapid morons for undergoing cosmetic surgery.

hey its what I do

This is a v interesting discussion, thx all.

no joke

I research exactly things like, why do people go through with these things vs. why do they change their minds or even get rejected? It's heartbreaking to read nurses notes to the effects of "this is a 15 y.o. girl who has lied about her age - she clearly has body dysmorphia issues, she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, and wants liposuction, unsuitable for procedure." But it makes you wonder, how do they know if a 30 y.o. woman (with the obvious visible fat deposits appropriate for a 30 y.o. woman with 2 kids) is NOT suffering from those same body dysmorphia issues?

despicable idiots considering idiotic things

i mean, yeah, lol, shakey, it's what you do, but fuck you for trying to score easy points w/o actually engaging the discussion

Seriously what Abbott said. So much has happened since yesterday!

When I was a teenager I always had an 'open mind' about cosmetic surgery, I guess because I could see why people would want bigger boobs or w/ever but I think it was really rare for the average person on the street to actually go and get it. In recent years I have become totally disgusted by it, mainly for all the reasons Kate's mentioned. It's absolutely heartbreaking to see 15-year-old girls absolutely determined to do it, convinced that they NEED to just to be on a level par with other girls.

It's a different situation if you have one specific feature, maybe, that everyone would focus on when they met you (eg a massive nose) - I can see why you'd be sick to death of it, although again it's sad that you have to.

I'm not the kind of person who blames magazines for eating disorders etc but the whole beauty industry is genius/sick in terms of getting people to spend money on things that the industry has created a need for.

i think it is, too, abbott! i mean, i hope i'm not tarnishing the rep of my intended profession, but thinking about medical/ethical stuff is interesting and fun

xp E, yeah, i skimmed a bunch, the US/UK time lag can be a bit to overcome on a tight schedule

Before I came to work here, I *did* actually think that cosmetic surgery was the exclusive province of stupid bimbos who deserved exactly what shallow lives their biddable intellects brought them to. WHich is why I ultimately ended up rationalising taking the job.

Working here, listening in on the calls of the women (and occasional men) who ring up, it has revealed a very different story. And opened up a hell of a lot of much deeper issues.

^^^this. fwiw I'm not trying to "score easy points" (what does that even mean? is there some posting competition I don't know about?), I feel like my general POV is already well-represented without going into the specifics of how the industry operates or the psychological intricacies of the industry's customer base which, let's face it, will be discussed almost entirely in hypothetical terms here. As it is, Kate's got the most informed perspective here and I pretty much sympathize with her ethical quandary and identify with her feelings of disgust/disappointment in the people involved.

goddammit many x-posts (the "this" ref'ing to the Village People post)

Hey, let's get one thing straight here. I don't feel disgust/disappointment here at our patients. Or at least, I try not to. I try not to judge.

What I DO feel vast amounts of disgust and disappointment with is the people who RUN this place - multi-millionaire who owns this company, who pressures us to make MORE MORE MORE and bring in MORE MORE MORE insecure, unhappy women in order to pay for MORE MORE MORE of his luxury riverside penthouses and luxury ocean going yachts in Australia etc. etc. even if it means MAKING lots of perfectly healthy women more insecure and more unhappy in order to do it.

That is what ultimately disgusts me WAAAAYYYY more than any of our customers.

I *know* that the vast majority of our staff are NOT venal or evil people. The heart-rendingly ironic thing is, on many levels, it's a really LOVELY place to work, because my colleagues, the nurses, etc. are such overwhelmingly *nice* pleasant people. It's just difficult recconciling this lovely family atmosphere of the office with the horror of when I read "adverse incident" reports of the blood and guts of what this industry actually involves.

women without implants are repulsive monsters imo

As it is, Kate's got the most informed perspective here and I pretty much sympathize with her ethical quandary and identify with her feelings of disgust/disappointment in the people involved.

ya those ppl with crippling insecurities disgust me too!!!!!! they're so... so weak *spit*

^^^ interesting! glad to hear yr perspective on this, kate xp oh hai cank

fwiw, i was raised under the impression that most plastic surgery was reconstructive, and that cosmetic stuff paid the bills. i will very happily grant that this may have been an illusion constructed by a guilty and protective parent. that being said, i'm still not sure how you can disentangle cosmetic work from reconstructive. procedurally, they are practically identical: augmenting the breasts of a teenage burn victim is basically the same as doing the same to a perfectly healthy 23 year old. but that's just an academic point, really, right?

so why is it that nice, sane, pleasant people get into the business of mangling perfectly healthy people? honest, open question, here, genuinely interested

$$

ya those ppl with crippling insecurities disgust me too!!!!!! they're so... so weak *spit*

way to not be able to read

barring complications, how is it ethically different from piercing and tattoo parlours?
has any procedure gotten as routine and safe to that point yet (safe as piercing or tattoos)?

"people involved" does not refer exclusively to customers

In my case, I was unemployed for over a year and desperate for work.

And to be quite honest, I think - ironically - it was a great plus in my favour, that in a company where it was so overwhelmingly female on an organisational level, to have a female in the IT department. (Though my boss has denied this is so, I still have that twinge.)

I find it weird - the predominance of females in this company makes it a lovely place to work on the whole. But at the same time, it makes me wonder how deeply the Beauty Myth goes that they all manage to work in this industry without a peep of a qualm. (And genuine enthusiasm in some case - they genuinely believe that they are *helping* our patients.)

people that are unhappy and insecure generally depress me, is that some kind of monstrous response. sadness is depressing shockah

x-post

has any procedure gotten as routine and safe to that point yet (safe as piercing or tattoos)?

Quite frankly, unless you can provide me on stats regarding "adverse incidents" (from reactions to aneasthesia to MRSA infections to, erm, death) I don't think so.

Anyway, I gotta leave this place.

I now feel awful, like any of this stuff is trackable, it will be perfectly obvious exactly who I am and what organisation I work for. ARGH.

(And genuine enthusiasm in some case - they genuinely believe that they are *helping* our patients.)

i'd bet sometimes you are! you can feel good about that!

Yeah, I was just going to say that.

Sorry, I'm old fashioned and still think that there are *better* and more lasting ways to make people feel confident than surgery. You know?

I like to think that most plastic surgery is reconstructive or to modify some sort of defect (cleft palate and the like), but to balance it out, I occasionally just pretend that Nip/Tuck tv show was a documentary. The truth is obviously in-between, but really, it's a field where you're giving people the tools to do what they think they want, which is always a slippery slope.

whatever drove them to your door might be perverse, but once they're in, you actually ~do~ have to be 100% enthusiastic about making sure everything about the experience is pleasant and therapeutic. i'd even be willing to bet that pt outcomes are better in private, elective surgical practices simply because they've got the $$$ to ob/retain awesome staff and the best working/therapeutic environments. this, to me, is more of a vexing issue than the practice of cosmetic surgery itself, because wait why should someone getting a nose job get the nicest staff, the coolest toys, and the smartest docs (<--- hollow generalization built on USMLE Step 1 scores)

what about pediatric burn victims, diabetics losing feet, vets coming home with 0.5 faces, etc.

Sorry, I'm old fashioned and still think that there are *better* and more lasting ways to make people feel confident than surgery. You know?

― girls just wanna have mixtapes (Masonic Boom), Friday, September 18, 2009 1:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what's the better more lasting way to make some cleftie abomination feel decent about itself

imo you are the real monster kate... ur the real monster. ::sober expression of undeniable truthfulness::

http://i43.tinypic.com/dggkra.jpg

Quite frankly, unless you can provide me on stats regarding "adverse incidents" (from reactions to aneasthesia to MRSA infections to, erm, death) I don't think so.

oh man if i didn't have actual work to do (lol waht is an ekg), i'd be interested in looking into this. because, like, tattoos and piercings are in this weird area of practice that seems pretty tight with yr more simple surgical practices. debriding/suturing simple wounds isn't a whole lot more complex than intense salon bodywork, and i bet the risk/complication profiles are pretty similar.

but i need seven years of training to get a license to do the latter, and ??? training to get a license for the first two

do you need a license to surgically remove cankles ^_^

x-post Yeah one of my friends is a piercer and he uses surgical instruments to do some piercings. I have one in my ear that he did using the same tool as you would to do a biopsy on someone. I bet you're right about the risk/complications being similar.

USMLE = united states moderator licensing examination

lol

erica, my dad pierced my sister's ears, and those of like all of her friends! he had these little one-shot plastic jobs

Oh when I got my ears pierced as a kid it was def done in my prediatricians office. That's really weird to think about now. I wonder if they still do that.

uhhh pediatrician's

imo you are the real monster kate...

I keep imaging you dressed up as a Teletubby and with the voice of Daffy Duck.

erica, my dad pierced my sister's ears, and those of like all of her friends! he had these little one-shot plastic jobs

I had it done in a shop. We run a jewellery shop and we do have one of those "guns". Do I use it? Fuck no. I don't want to scar someone. And how do you really practice? You can't byt on a real person. So fuck that. Tons of people just walk in and ask for it. No questions asked. It baffles me.

(btw Evan - I just met this dude http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/howard-koh/ and he was completely awesome)

cool!

i need to meet some more epi/PH faculty here.

He's not at HSPH anymore though. He's now the Assistant Secretary for Health under Obama.

jim kim just became the pres of my alma mater, so that's pretty dope imo

is he related to harold koh?

x-post Oh really? I didn't know that. That is pretty cool.

oh ha i guess it's his brother

I was just going to say that they're brothers, yeah. Some family!!

thought you guys were talking about koh and kim being bros and i was gonna scold you for yr despicable racialism

e - JK bein pres actually makes me think that D might shake its rep as the least, uh, 'socially engaged' ivy and start pumping out smart ppl that want to do stuff other than investment banking

Investment banking and skiing. I hear they like to do that too. ;p

http://i43.tinypic.com/dggkra.jpg

lol. What? I like to ski too. It's all good.

joeks

so, anal bleaching, huh

yep

What about cosmetic dental surgery? There are a whole lot more people with bad teeth than bad breasts or saggy butts, I imagine, just because the natural inclination of teeth from birth onward seems to be decay. Is correcting your bite, whitening, capping, etc., any more or less ethically complicated than work done to your skin/body?

uhhhhhhhhhhh

already come up

OK I didn't read the whole thread either but I think they covered this one earlier today.

Must of missed it because I was distracted by the blinding glare of my teeth off the computer screen.

Slippery slope on dentistry, I'd say correcting bite is key after watching someone later in his life with tmj issues. Tooth spacing? Not a clue how I'd put it.

I think part of my distaste about cosmetic surgery, particularly facial, comes from it being still really crude in a lot of ways. It feels like it's at the Crimean War sawbones stage of things, not the keyhole heart surgery level. I mean, if you could just inject a load of bone-shaping nanobots or the like that would wend their way to someone's jaw and "fix" it for them, my objections begin to disappear.

I used to work in a retouching dept for a magazine, and we'd talk a lot about the ethics and impact of the work we were doing, and also would play with faces in Photoshop just to see the differences you can make. It's amazing what really subtle changes can do -- nudge an eye one way or the other, or make someone's face slightly more or less symmetrical and you can make a considerable change to the first-glance impression they make. I remember flipping the eyes of one of the guys who worked with us and suddenly he looked scarily evil. Flip the other eye over and he suddenly looked warm and cuddly.

The medical technology isn't nearly there yet, but if you could make these sorts of minor changes relatively painlessly and easily, what's the objection to improving the hands people have been dealt? It's like tucking in their shirts or straightening their ties.

Shaving armpits: C or D?

"I think part of my distaste about cosmetic surgery, particularly facial, comes from it being still really crude in a lot of ways. It feels like it's at the Crimean War sawbones stage of things, not the keyhole heart surgery level."

this is not really accurate at all

also holy crap you guys, we had an activity fair today and the plastics interest group had some brochures that were o_P

this is not really accurate at all
I know it's not really like this -- i mean, we're doing face transplants now, ffs. It's just that the face transplants that have been done so far are like the talking dog -- they're amazing in one sense, but still a bit shit when it comes to "here's a new face".

I guess I mean that compared to the things we'll able to do easily in 50 years time, the sort of surgery that happens now is going to seem primitive.

ok sure, obv, but the reason I'm guessing facial surgery seems less advanced is because you can SEE it. cuttig edge lol techniques that have been developed in other disciplines are def brought to bear in plastics, it's just that a crude bit of cobbling things together is a lot less obvious when it's under your skin, you know?

the real scum are dermatologists fyi

ps gbx i made a thread for u on ilc

it's just that a crude bit of cobbling things together is a lot less obvious when it's under your skin, you know?
Yeh totally. It's just that whereas the cutting edge stuff in some mature areas of surgery is almost icing on the cake, in cosmetic surgery it's actually a vital building block because we're only just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible, and to get really visible amazing results is going to take techniques that are still beyond us.

An actor can even lose a role if a director suspects surgery, whether it was performed or not. John Papsidera, a casting director for the “Batman” movies, said he and a director (he declined to say which one) recently debated whether to hire an actress in her early 20s to play a teenager falling in love. The actress was talented and naturally pretty. But what stopped the director was his suspicion that, at such a young age, she already had breast implants.

“We looked at film where she was topless and it was like, ‘Maybe,’ ” Mr. Papsidera said. It wasn’t a period film, so authenticity was not an issue. Instead, the possibility of implants became “a point of reference,” he said. “It was more of, ‘Where is that person coming from as an actor?’ ” She did not get the part.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/fashion/25natural.html?ref=fashion

This is what happens when there are many more than 1000 qualified applicants for a job. The employer starts applying arbitrary criteria, mainly to mask the fact that they are making a purely random decision. (Which would obv imply that their "expert" judgement could have been replicated by a chimpanzee throwing darts.)

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/year-old-ambah-young-has-cosmetic-surgery-to-feel-young-again/story-e6freuzr-1225877500076

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/mike_strobel/2011/02/02/17130531.html#/entertainment/celebrities/2010/10/28/pf-15867831.html

http://news.makemeheal.com/images/suzanne-somers-plastic-surgery.JPGhttp://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/celebrities/2010/10/28/somers.jpg

agh a few clicks on from that is a picture of a person called Carrot Top. he is one peculiar-looking fellow and I'm glad he's not famous over here.

hahaha you never forget your first sighting of Carrot Top

I thought that was Courtney Love til I clicked the link.

I'm surprised how many people are demonizing women for wanting bigger bazookas. I mean if you want to go from D to HHH I can understand how that's a little off the deep end, but what if they're 21 and still have the A's?

It is some straight frog bs to think there's something wrong about having A's.

My perceptions were a little distorted by a trip to Vegas in which there was a serious discussion of the "expected value" of a cup size.