Unrelated conversations overheard in a community-college cafe: at one nearby a young man telling someone he thought another lip ring would “help;” at another table an older woman telling a friend that getting breast implants made her feel like she “had herself back” after her children grew up.
Boy, it’s really up to each of us how we choose to modify our bodies. Tattoos, piercings, braces, haircuts and shaving, dieting, working out, tanning, hair plugs for men, and so on are all ok, I guess. And if we can stick things in our ears, noses, bellybuttons, scalps (hair plugs again) and lips then I guess you can stick things in your chest too.
Which is a long way of saying yeah, if you want to modify your body then go for it. Just don’t do it because you feel inadequate, or unattractive, or “if only I had…” because, you know, it doesn’t “improve” other people. So why should it “improve you?” On the other hand, just like a tattoo or a tan or all the other things we do to ourselves it will decorate you. And if you’re into self-decorating, and not “improving” then, again, that’s completely up to you.
Which gets to my main point: I don’t think you’d let someone browbeat you into getting a tattoo because they wanted you to have one. And I don’t think many people would buy someone else saying “if you’d just dye your hair blue could find a partner.” And so, thinking about implants as decoration you can sort of immunize yourself from what you think anyone else would like, in favor of what you’d actually like.
Anyway, keeping in mind that some things, like tans and haircuts can grow out while tattoos and implants… not so much, the real question being not just so much what you do as what’s the long-term impact on your health. A boob job is a much bigger risk than body piercing. (Take it from me: recovering from general anesthesia is not the same as the day after Quaaludes and tequila. And recovery from surgery hurts! Complications from surgery can hurt too.)
On the other hand in the long run it may have less health impact than, say, chronic tanning. Which we tend not to think of as “body modification” at all.
Good points – I do believe
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Tue, 2009-11-03 13:18.Good points – I do believe that people do more drastic modifications to overcome their own insecurities about some part of their body they very much dislike. Personally – I’m likely not one to notice such things on others….Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy beauty as much as the next man or woman, but to me beauty is far more that what is seen as obvious. – Mike
Yup. A good way to put it is
Submitted by figleaf on Tue, 2009-11-03 14:07.Yup. A good way to put it is that beauty and beauty standards are loosely linked in the sense that they can affect how we see ourselves and others see us. But conforming to beauty standards is also only loosely linked to being beautiful. And really not linked at all to whether you see yourself that way. —fl
People spend a great deal of
Submitted by Punzel (not verified) on Tue, 2009-11-03 13:48.People spend a great deal of money to fit into narrow cultural standards of beauty. While I admire the distinction you are trying to make, I don’t think most consumers of appearance-altering products and services are coming to it from that place, and indeed I think it’s difficult to make the distinction between individual taste and cultural influence on what creates our concepts of beauty and desirable body decoration.
Check out Wendy Chapkis’ “Beauty secrets: women and the politics of appearance“
I certainly agree most people
Submitted by figleaf on Tue, 2009-11-03 14:22.I certainly agree most people don’t approach appearance alteration as self-decoration. I also really agree it’s hard to separate personal taste from cultural influence, but in a way I think that’s sort of a red herring. Like when beards are in men without a lot of facial hair can end up stressed about it — and then just a few years later when beards are out again men with heavy “five-o’clock shadows” get their opportunity to stress. What I’m advocating, though, is consistently looking at it as decorating ourselves no matter what. You might still have to conform (try shaving if you’re Amish or wearing a Speedo to the office) but if you make the distinction then it doesn’t have to wear you down as much. Even better, I think it makes it easier to know when you’ve done enough.
Thanks, Punzel
fl
Two distinctions I think are
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Tue, 2009-11-03 20:58.Two distinctions I think are important: a tattoo is always a tattoo of something. To a lesser extent, the location of and jewelry in a piercing can change its meaning considerably. The message of breast implants is much less explicit and often (rightly or not) assumed to be “Hel-lo sailor.”
And secondly, breast implants are often intended to pass for real, while no one tries to imply they naturally grew a tattoo. Breast implants are often phrased as “correction” of small (or surgically removed, but that’s a different can of worms) breasts, rather than as deliberately artificial augmentation.
I don’t think either of these things make breast implants wrong, but they do make them different.
I agree there are two broad
Submitted by figleaf on Tue, 2009-11-03 21:58.I agree there are two broad classes of body modification, with tattoos well over on one side with their selected meaning and reconstructive breast implants way over on the other. And yeah, it’s a permeable barrier: people sometimes get reconstructive or “cosmetic” tattoos and breast implants can be statements.
Anyway, while I agree I also think breast implants aren’t the only modifications in the second “different” category. There are also hair implants for men, braces for children, etc.
And I’d argue that past a certain point things like ear piercing and shaving are so culturally ingrained in some places that doing it amounts to making yourself look “normal” even though elsewhere they could be considered exotic.
Thanks, Holly. —fl