At a recent gathering of female friends, we admired the looks of a mature woman in our group. Her thick, richly colored auburn hair was stunning, and it contrasted with her wise but flawless facial skin. The recipient of our compliments was bemused, uncomfortable as she was being the focus of attention.
The conversation shifted to the subject of plastic surgery, which most of the women strongly opposed. They disagreed with artificial, surgical procedures designed to make them look younger – or more attractive – than they would be otherwise. Everyone seemed to have a horror story: botched facelifts, over-accentuated female body parts, and swollen, bulbous lips.
I felt ambivalent during the discussion. I believe that in a perfect world, everyone would love and accept their faces and bodies as they are. The toll of gravity, sun exposure, passage of time, and genetics should be embraced just as much as we adore a decades-old leather handbag, which grows softer and more lustrous with time. And yet, we live in a society that reveres beauty and glorifies those who age so subtly that the almost-imperceptible lines on their faces evidence only the richness of their time on earth, not the calculation of it.
I thought about the judgment that we harbor. We unequivocally support those who yearn to blend into society when they have disfigurements that subject them to ridicule or bullying. Everyone agrees that someone mutilated in a fire or maimed in an assault is entitled to surgical intervention to help him or her integrate back into their community. But what if the person who was burned is an arsonist? What about artificial limbs that are for esthetics only, not function? What about gastric bypasses for those who are unable to lose weight any other way? Would we ever condemn someone who wants braces to straighten their teeth to improve their smile even if their misaligned teeth are fully functional?
The universe of beauty enhancements has expanded. Virtually no one criticizes someone who wears makeup and dyes their hair. The popularity of non-surgical interventions, such as Botox, chemical peels, micro needling, dermal fillers, ultrasound therapies, and laser skin resurfacing has skyrocketed, and with it, the acceptance of those practices. But the battlelines seem to be drawn around surgical procedures that lift and tighten facial skin.
The question is how, as women, we can embrace and love what we see in the mirror and still support those who take steps to change that image. It is disingenuous to swoon over how young someone looks but then fault them for achieving it artificially. Even adjusting for lifestyle such as exercise, diet, and sunlight avoidance, some will, by virtue of genetics, age more gracefully than others. Should we compliment them for their appearance when they have done nothing to achieve it, any more so than applauding someone with birth-given facial beauty, body symmetry, or height?
I believe that we cannot have it both ways: we should not admire a person’s looks but criticize them for how they achieved them. If people are naturally beautiful, or if their faces are untouched by the passage of time, then you are rewarding them for congenital traits that do not call for approval.
I considered my own boundaries of what is acceptable body enhancement and modification. I generally agree with Dolly Parton’s proclamation that anyone who wants plastic surgery should have it if they have the desire, the money, and guts required to do so. But my non-judgmental attitude is tested by the fringe body modifiers who remove middle fingers, implant horns, split their tongues, and reform ears. I support cultural and personal self-expression, but I still wonder, with concern, whether they will wake up one morning with regret.
Perhaps we are viewing people who are drawn to artificial interventions, including cosmetic surgery and even body modification, the wrong way. Maybe they are not trying to conform to social expectation of beauty standards or, in the case of body modifiers, demonstrate their rejection of them. What if, Instead, they are seeking to comport with an image of how they see themselves. People have a right to revise their physical attributes so that their external appearance aligns with their internal self-image.
If so, I am going to think seriously about what I can do to become that 5’ 8”, svelte, 20-something lurking inside me.