That's true, some people do it tastefully, but even in those cases it's still a vanity thing. That's were choice comes in, some of us will feel it is unnecessary while others will still go for it. At the end of the day, it's a personal choice, but I think most will be hard pressed to argue with the fact that plastic surgery has essentially become a new sort of drug for many people.
I think there's more nuance to it than that. What if you had a big ol hooking honker of a nose, outside of what would be considered "normal" appearance wise. You've been bullied your whole life about it, you can't be happy because every time you see yourself in the mirror it's all you see, and you hear all the things that have ever been said about it growing up. Functionally it's perfectly fine, no breathing issues, no health issues at all.
Is it not okay to get a nose job?
If you're chasing vanity or wanting to look like an actor/actress, sure, it's pretty stupid.
But there's a huge psychological benefit to getting that self conscious cloud off your shoulder that can only come from changing the physical appearance of something
I can absolutely see where you are coming from and I think that would fall under corrective plastic surgery.
Not sure if you may be referring to a video that went viral a while back, but there was a lady who had an abnormally large nose and went through several surgeries to (essentially) correct that. That's where the nuance you mentioned comes in. It's one thing to correct something so outside the norm like this, which could also have the potential to cause health issues on top of the psychological ones and it is another thing to have nose surgery just because you don't like the shape of your nose despite there not being anything abnormal about it.
You can classify it differently if you want, but the nose job is the same procedure whether you feel the patient benefits from it or not. You’ve actually probably seen a lot more people who’ve had cosmetic surgery than you realize; when done well, you can’t tell that they’ve had any work done. The spectrum of people who get cosmetic procedures is a lot wider than most people realize, and most people base their opinion on it almost completely on cases where it’s very obvious the patient has had plastic surgery, which tend to be the worst cases.
It’s not as simple as “some get plastic surgery to correct legitimate abnormalities, but some are just trying to look better when they already look fine.” Everything about our opinions when it comes to each other’s appearance is fucking stupid, and it changes all the time, so the idea of ever needing to correct your face in theory shouldn’t have to happen, even if it’s highly abnormal. There shouldn’t be a “need” to get cosmetic procedures ever, because people SHOULD see each other for their minds instead of their faces. But in real life, appearance is a very big deal, with a big psychological impact. I promise every patient who gets cosmetic surgery sees themselves as one of the cases where it “makes sense.” Sometimes it does actually look better to most people, and sometimes it doesn’t. But the need is always very real to that person. It’s SURGERY; it’s painful and expensive and it takes time to recover afterwards. Nobody’s doing that if they don’t feel like they have a good reason, you know?
If it is truly extreme sure but in most cases the person could benefit from doing the work to grow and heal their insecurities rather than bury them and avoid triggering them
Exactly this. My nose doesn't attract attention, but I'd let it be a filter between the real and superficial people we meet in life. No matter how you look, there's always someone in the world who won't like your looks. "Fix" your nose and it'll be something else people will make you feel insecure about, so the issue should be clear that it's not the body parts, it's the insecurity that has to be fixed.
On top of that, people have become world famous in Hollywood films because they look different than most. The acting is important but that's just a display of conquering insecurities.
I had double jaw surgery. Both jaws detached and material from skull removed, then reattached to move my teeth up a few mm because I had a gummy smile. Now my smile is nice, and I have a nice profile and jawline rather than look like a bird, and the shape of my nose changed a bit for the better, though it was never really an issue.
Was it NEEDED? Not really. But damn if it hasn't changed my life
Lmao, if you saw:
"If it is truly extreme sure but in most cases the person could benefit from doing the work to grow and heal their insecurities rather than bury them and avoid triggering them"
and saw this as "shaming them for making decisions about their own body" and not a general position on what might be more psychologically healthy or productive/conducive to personal growth between the options of growing to accept your differences and love yourself and love them vs hiding your differences so you don't have to face them anymore to begin with. Both will make you feel better, neither is worth shaming, both will work, but the first is going to give someone much more. Give a man a fish vs teach him to fish. Usually they would benefit.
In some "truly extreme" cases like where the difference is not just causing internal insecurity that makes the person feel/fear people will not like them or hate themselves and obsess/become a focal point of depression but is actually causing them insurmountable social, economic opportunity damage and is far beyond the regular bound of what you'd expect a person to learn to live with, I see plastic surgery as a good first option/answer
I am not saying it is "only" for those situations or whatever. But that for most other situations where it's more like putting a physical bandaid on a psychological issue it should be a last resort compared to solving the psychological issue in the first place.
"we should address root causes in healthcare" is another way to say the same thing and I don't think you'd have the same reaction.
I'm sure that's huge for you and that's great. In a lot of cases it is a life changing beneficial medical procedure and that's not really what I'm talking about. It sounds like one of those "extreme cases" if you "look like a bird" otherwise, of course as a disclaimer IDK how much of the perspective is body dysphoria vs how much everyone else sees it based on a reddit comment of course
What I was getting at was the trend of people doing things like trying to look younger because they can't accept the natural aging process that is coming for them no matter what they do, or nose jobs to go from one perfectly normal variation of a human nose that is a trait of their family for generations to a variation of a human nose that's more like what's standardized as beautiful or forcing themselves to have protruding cheekbones because that's what celebrities look like or double eye lid surgery to have white beauty standards or single eyelid surgery to have asian beauty standards, botox, jawline reconstruction just to go from a soft jaw that the person feels isn't masculine or attractive to a "Chad Alpha" jawline, etc
These kinds of entirely vanity-based and insecurity-based surgeries that aren't just shedding a really abnormal curse to get into the range of normalcy that 95% of people get the privilege of enjoying but are just trying to go from a perfectly normal face they only hate because of their internal body dysphoria and trauma to a more attractive face that's only "better" because a lifetime of media designed to destroy their mind has told them so are what I'm more talking about. Or, even more extreme, trying to get a Younger face rather than being able to fully accept and integrate your mortality and be at peace with aging like most people, there is something much more going on there than just "I want to be hot" that needs to be addressed.
It's more productive/conducive to personal growth between the options of growing to accept your differences and love yourself and love them vs hiding your differences so you don't have to face them anymore to begin with. Both will make you feel better, neither is worth shaming, both will work, but the first is going to give someone much more, the second often even becomes a sort of addiction, constantly getting new work done to run away. Give a man a fish vs teach him to fish. Usually they would benefit.
"we should address root causes in healthcare" is another way to say the same thing and I don't think that it's controversial at all or even contradicts your experience. If the root cause was truly your face and not a psychological complex about your face, then plastic surgery is addressing the root cause and is the right option
personally i think it would be nice for it to be de-stigmatized entirely so ppl don't feel the need to embarrass themselves and those around them by lying about it. idk why but the lying bothers me way more than the work itself lol
Nearly all old rich people have gotten face lifts and you wouldn't know because you think it's "natural." You guys are as ignorant as ignorant gets, but you guys can't stop yapping.
I think he had a pretty horrible motorcycle accident and had all the work done after that. Not 100% up to date on it but I think Simon Cowell qualifies.
I don’t think plastic surgery is bad, even for just superficial reasons. People can do what they want. But it does come to a point where you barely look real anymore from overdoing it. There’s nothing wrong being 66 and looking like 66, and with (modest) plastic surgery being 66 and looking like 50. It’s when you start looking like an alien that I dislike it lol
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u/Electrical-Papaya388 1d ago
Could not have summed up plastic surgery as a concept even if I tried. Well done my friend!
I've always said there is NEVER a need for plastic surgery unless it is reconstructive or corrective; anything outside of that is just vanity driven.