There’s an old mantra that goes, “Once you cross a line, you’ll keep crossing it.”
It can apply to anything from sex, to drugs, to Kenny G and be as all consuming as an overzealous case of crabs on Bigfoot’s junk. It’s essentially, a description of the first stages of addiction, from the stance of a warning.
But then you’ve got it’s counter: Try everything once.
And there lies the problem. If to truly live a full life, you have to experience everything, then can you really go around worrying about how often you’ll keep crossing that line?
Which brings me to plastic surgery. Or more broadly, body modification. You’ll notice that most people that have one tattoo, have multiple. Just like most people that have one piercing also have many. But the interesting topic for me is altering the shape and composition of your face and body. It just seems like SUCH a slippery slope.
There are songs and poems and memes, and entire television series based around accepting yourself for who and what you are (I’m looking at you RU PAUL’S DRAG RACE.) And growing up in a society that is generally shitty to one another about everything from income disparity to the size and shape of their mammaries, accepting your body and being either OK with where you’re at, or making healthy changes to change it, is very important.
But then enters science. An entire industry formed around the thought, “But what if you could change it without making any internal changes?” Hate your nose? Get a new one? Too fat? We’ll freeze it out. Don’t like your toes? We’ll break’em, remove’em, and replace’em.
And thus the slide down to monstrosity. If you change your noes, but still hate your ankles. What’s stopping you from changing them too? If you don’t like your ears, and you’ve already tattooed on your eyebrows, why not get them shaved down to a shape you like? And while you’re at it, let’s take some fat from your slightly too large ass, and put it in your slightly too small lips. Presto Chango!
Look, I’m a guy, and don’t understand the struggle women have every day to meet some standard of appearance that has been laid out just to hang out of reach. But I wonder, is there really a healthy level of cosmetic surgery that one can stop at and be fine with? Can you really just have your nose bone shaved down and be done with it?
I mean, hell, even the poison in Botox, wears off eventually allowing your stupid eyebrows to move again wreaking wrinkle havoc on your brow! You literally have to go back forever after just one injection.
I gotta know what you think. Is it a fine industry where doctors help people live their best life? Or is it a charlatans game, playing on the insecurities of people for profit and Frankensteinian experimentation?
Should I get a tummy tuck before I start talking shit?
You tell me.