I Have a Problem

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To everyone saying plastic surgery isn't natural. Well, it's not. But neither are haircuts and shoes. Nor tooth paste. Nor soap. Nor Tylenol. I don't think we're going to have a discussion about how socks and other forms of footwear are bad... I know, but of a stretch, but it's really the same thing.

For the sake of argument let's follow your line of reasoning. We can say, "footwear is valid because the primary motivation is to prevent harm to the feet, not social pressure to wear it due to the appearance of the feet." "Toothpaste is valid because the primary motivation is to preserve oral hygene, not to prevent bad breath." Soap would be better reposed as bathing, that's a finer question because I imagine the motivation to be clean and smell good is at least as strong as the hygenic motivation in most people's minds. Ultimately though the hygenic considerations stand on their own merit, so I think we're still safely on the sane side there

Haircuts are very closely related, however an argument can be made that while they're extremely subject to social pressure they require no permanent modification, present no health risks and are practical.

Tastes that demand discomfort, pain or medical risk are right exactly in the same category as plastic surgery though. Things like corsets and other uncomfortable and damaging fashion, skin bleaching, and forms of self mutilation that are backed by cultural imperatives are equally questionable to me but our culture has mostly disposed of them. In all areas involving body modification I put the line of sanity cleanly between "I chose to do this on my own for my own personal reasons" and "I'm doing this because if I don't I won't feel accepted."

Pharmaceuticals, while related, fall under a different line of question entirely: "Does the relief of the symptom outweigh the damage done by the drug." So I would exclude it from discussion.

Not doing anything might make you feel a bit better in a 'global' context but you're not really doing anything so you may as well just go with it. (I know 'just go with it' is the worker bee outlook, but it's better than 'I want to change the world but I don't want to try hard' now isn't it?)

Spreading awareness and encouraging discussion are IMO the exact way to correct this kind of social issue. Thought and discussion about it is what broke me of the same cultural conditioning and when it was gone I saw the world and people entirely differently. So in a sense just sitting here talking about it is doing something. Celebrities who are troubled by the example they're potentially setting do the responsible thing by openly discussing their own reasons and encouraging others to make their own decisions. They have more visibility, therefore they have more responsibility. Hope you get where I'm going with that.

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I guess the general opinion is that the social pressure to do this is wrong but the act of body modification is not, anyone care to challenge that?

 

[arcthemonkey]

Considering the fact that most men don't like women with "enormous breasts", I think a wire has been crossed somewhere.

Most men have an ideal size, and that size varies wildly, but it swings mostly in the middle.

Girls who think society puts pressure on them to have enormous breasts are out of touch with reality in that sense. Milla Jovovich, anyone?

 

[Roman Candle]

Arg, I hate it when people act as if a hundred years ago, everyone was ugly but they 'put up with it' or something. Standerds of beauty were different. For instance, if you look at show-girls from the turn of the centurary and shortly afterwards, they all tended to have shorter, more developed legs. Nowadays, we favour long, thin legs. In fact, you might notice that the 'ideal' body today is essentially an ectomorph, (ie Kate Moss, Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria), but with large breasts. That's really pretty atypical. As time has gone on, our tastes, (in general), have tended towards body types which are more and more unusual. That doesn't mean 'better'.

I'm not saying that plastic surgery is a crime, or morally wrong. I'm not attacking people who have surgery - but I do think it's a symptom of a genuine problem, and also exacerbates that problem.

@arc:
Win. I'm not saying that if a woman has small breasts, and she doesn't like them, that she shouldn't have implants. I am saying that she shouldn't get a pair of ten-kilo sacks of silicon. I mean, overcompensation? Nah. Seriously, obesitity isn't the solution to anorexia :p

 

[Neopilos]

I agree with Cruelty To say that people who get surgury to look like an animal is fine but then to take the hypocritical angle and say people with plastic surgury are crumbling under the pressures of society doesn't make any sense 90% of the time if someone gets a tatto it's so they can show other people to become accepted by a target group. This is hardly due to the pressures of modern society (what a load of shit) it's natural for most animals to go out of their way to search for acceptance, if it means getting plastic surgury for humans whatever.