Our Faces, Our Bodies

I am against aesthetic plastic surgery. I don't like it.

What got me going this morning was an ad I saw in a community coupon magazine. The ad showed a young lady in a white string bikini. She looks young and attractive, with small breasts, like a brunette swimsuit model. I assumed the ad was for laser hair removal, but there are coupons to the right of the picture for Breast Augmentation $3,299, Liposuction $899 each area, Tummy Tuck $1,000 off, Refer A Friend get $250 off any procedure, and Brazilian Buttock Lift $2,000 off. Eeeeew! Is there a law against false advertising? Shouldn't these companies be forced to use women in the pictures who have actually HAD these procedures??? Show the impossibly large breasts, fish lips and other mutilation that they are actually proposing to do?

As a mother of a daughter who has to live in our society, I take pride in the fact that she does not plan to alter her body any time soon with surgery. And she is an unapologetic brunette. It took many years of heart-to-heart talking to convince her that brunettes are pretty too. I was SO happy when Disney came out with Beauty and the Beast. My daughter was young and had complained about her brown hair prior to this. I showed her the movie and made sure to point out to her how the character Belle was beautiful with brown hair and hazel eyes. I worried that if she did not learn to see her unique beauty, she might fall prey to the stereotypes in our society that say you have to have a small, pert nose, and large breasts in order to be considered beautiful and sexy. It is simply not true. But young ladies still buy into that, getting breast augmentation and platinum blond hair, trying desperately to look like a Barbie doll.

Even so-called minor procedures such as "lipo" is not minor. I personally knew a woman 10 years ago who warned me never to do it. She said that she had it done around her middle. It turned out she scarred up inside the fat layer where the procedure was done. The scars tightened up, and she was left with a sensation of tightness around her midsection, as if she is always wearing a tight belt. She said it was unpleasant, and since it is not a pain sensation, painkillers couldn't even relieve her of it. She is stuck with it for the rest of her life.

There is a celebrity named Tara Reid who had some procedures done and has regretted it. See picture above. Here is what TMZ said about her in 2006.

Nearly two years after a red carpet wardrobe malfunction earned her the nickname "Franken-nipple," Tara Reid stopped by the "Today" show to discuss the pain and agony of her plastic surgery nightmare. "It looked like I got completely butchered up," the actress told Natalie Morales. "The areolas ... they looked like goose-shaped eggs."
Reid also described the excruciating pain caused by her liposuction. "I got these bumps ... like little golf balls all over my stomach, and it hurt."
Tara went on to explain how she had a hard time finding work over the last two years, citing fears of revealing her tarnished body in a bikini. Now, after undergoing corrective surgery, Reid says she's both working and happy with her figure.

I was frustrated recently by a conversation among the recent 40-something mothers on a website I chat on. A bunch of ladies were complaining about the sagging/deflation that occurs after childbirth. They planned on getting a breast lift. I was horrified. I mean, do they understand what that procedure really entails? That the chest is peeled like an orange and the nipples are relocated and everything is sewn back together? That most of the milk ducts are severed, so that the woman will never again be able to breastfeed a child? I told them that while my body is a little care-worn, I expect my husband to be grateful for the children and to forgive the affects of aging/childbirth. I mean, aren't we all aging every day? Why is that something to be ashamed of?