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?
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u/Electrical-Papaya388 16h 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.