At A Glance Author Acarpous Contact [email protected] IAM Acarpous When N/A Looking through BME/HARD for the first time a few months ago, it occurred to me that there were no references to the Western world's favourite kind of body modification - cosmetic surgery. No pictures of breast enlargements, liposuction results, nose jobs - I had hardly expected there to be however, and I wondered why that was. Most other people I mentioned this to thought that it was correct that there wasn't, but couldn't really give a reason why. Cosmetic surgery just seemed to be viewed as 'not really' body modification or what BME was about. But at the excellent Disinformation site, a snippet on body modification places links to BME, cosmetic surgery, trepanation and extreme bodybuilding all on one page. The Transhuman Page does the same.
'Body modification' is of course a phrase that covers a huge category - the manipulation of the flesh to achieve a visualized aesthetic ideal. But put 'body modification' into Google and there will be ten times as many cosmetic surgery sites as places dealing with that which most of us immediately call to mind when we hear that phrase. So why there is hardly any representation of this largest of all body modification practises amongst the pages of BME? In an interview with lexxicon.com, Shannon said: "People into plastic surgery are also trying to make themselves happy... they simply have a different idea of what they want to look like. It's all the same thing, it just fits into the social scheme differently".
Cosmetic surgery is a strange duplicity - a modification for the majority of cases intended be to be kept secret, a pretence that you have always looked like this. Even overtly, an operation to flatten a plump bottom or remove crow's-feet are well within the limits of acceptability because the modification is performed to help one fit in with the prevalent standards of attractiveness, wheresoever that notion of normality came from. According to Elizabeth Haiken in 'Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery', social problems are embodied in plastic surgery, which cements standards of normality, as well as beauty, in Western minds.
The need to always strive to be more 'beautiful' is consistently impressed upon us, but it has a very narrow definition. The trouble with following that definition is that you will always be chasing it - your worth as a 'beautiful' person will change with prevalent fashions. It's only when the modifications help to create a person different to the understood human blueprint away from these pre-defined states, one that sets their own rules on appearance, that such practices are considered deviant. The difference between labial trimming and designer vaginoplasty, for example, is only money, and attitude.
Kinsey, talking about sexual behaviour, says: "It is a characteristic of the human mind that it tries to dichotomise in its classification of phenomena. Things either are so, or they are not so. Sexual behaviour is either normal or abnormal, acceptable or unacceptable, heterosexual or homosexual; and many persons do not want to believe that there are gradations in these matters from one to the other extreme", but this applies also to ways of appearing. Now that plastic surgeons are more and more willing to perform unusual surgery such as elective ear reshaping for clients, and cosmetic surgery is explored as art, the line defining the two spheres of modification is becoming increasingly blurred.
I do think things like cosmetic surgery and bodybuilding have a place on BME. Even if you personally believe the reasons behind the execution of cosmetic surgery are disingenuous and that this kind of surgery is symptomatic of a sick Western society that demands it, it is still about having the ultimate freedom to choose and try to achieve your ideal aesthetic vision of yourself. There are, after all, those who get tattooed and pierced for extremely dubious reasons, and cosmetic surgery as a procedure should not be condemed because it is often performed on wrong-thinking clients and more than tattooing or piercing should.
I don't think we will ever see much of it on BME, though. BME functions, in it's essence, as a place to come and learn about and gather support for, the hard decision to go through life different. A person striving for the perfect nose, although falling under the same modification remit, has such vast support from a society which praises beauty and rewards cohesiveness that they are unlikely to need such a resource. Which is a shame, as there is a lot that could be learnt from having access to such first-hand information - enough perhaps, to be able to make a start on reconciling these two halves of the same coin.
Further reading
An interesting article concerning the philosophy behind body modification from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts:
The Thin Red Line: Social Power & The Open Body.The sociology of the body - a review of 'Body Modification' by Mike Featherstone from Culture Machine.
No Pain Like This Body
Disclaimer: The experience above was submitted by a BME reader and has not
been edited. We can not guarantee that the experience is accurate, truthful,
or contains valid or even safe advice. We strongly urge you to use BME and
other resources to educate yourself so you can make safe informed decisions.