Monday, October 28, 2013

Plastic Surgery

Part of me understands it's not my body; a person's personal decision to change their body has no effect on me.  

But another part of me argues that all bodies are beautiful and something as invasive and synthetic as surgery shouldn't be needed to see that.  I'm not saying that people who get plastic surgery are necessarily vain or vapid, but I do wonder why a person would do something so drastic to change their appearances.

And I admit a strong personal bias.  When I was 10-14 all I wanted was rhinoplasty, I thought it would solve all my problems: my peers would stop bullying me ("you're too ugly to rape" "you're so ugly you should kill yourself"), my teachers would stop telling me that I was failing as a future housewife, the family taking care of me would let me out of their basement, my mother would stop blaming me for how much she hated her job, etc.  I actively compared myself to models in magazines and celebrities and my popular peers, just like all the women I knew did.  And I figured that if I couldn't afford rhinoplasty by the time I'd turn 16 or if it wouldn't work - if my ugliness couldn't be fixed - I'd just kill myself.  Replacing these toxic people with friends and family who genuinely loved and supported me, and finding positive messages to replace the hate, saved me.

Of course I can't know whether each person getting plastic surgery is led to it for this reasoning...but nobody should have to go through that and no amount of surgery can fix toxic relationships and self-loathing.

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