The market for physical improvements seems to be growing all the time, as people find parts of their body deficient and seek ways of making them perfect.
Botox, fillers, cosmetic surgery, shapewear, hormones, steroids, workouts, you name it. So many people just aren't happy with the way they look, even if their friends say they're fine just as they are. They'll take all sorts of risks to change the offending item - even going abroad to dodgy clinics they've never heard of before.
I've never been bothered by my appearance, and not just because I'm a man and less critical of my body than a lot of women. Apparently men are getting just as self-critical and more and more of them want to improve some body part they're unhappy with.
I suppose one reason I'm quite okay with my body is that my favourite activity is abstract thinking and that tends to exclude any thoughts about my appearance. I'm more likely to disapprove of some politician's nonsensical utterance than the shape of my nose or the size of my bottom.
One exception though - I do dislike facial and body hair and prefer hairless bodies, even though getting rid of the stuff can be an expensive and tedious business that many women object to. I've never understood why so many men grow beards and moustaches under the impression that these masculine adornments are a huge turn-on for women. Well, they might be or they might not.
So I won't be chucking thousands of pounds at some greedy cosmetic surgeon any time soon.
facial and body hair is a trend that comes and goes. Sometimes a man will be blessed to be "on trend" and in a different decade he'll be out of style completely.
ReplyDeleteKylie: I'm not even sure what the current trend is. Are beards still "in" or are they now "out"?
DeleteI will never understand how people think the puffy face look that fillers/Botox create looks better than a few lines. It makes them look bloated and ill.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: The puffy lips look is really weird. From what I can gather, it's a porn take-off.
Deleteanonymous Fly.....having always been a plain Jane I've never been interested in messing about with my face or my body - a sheer waste of time and money.
ReplyDeleteFly: In general, a big waste of time and money indeed. But I do have a thing about body hair - not that I've ever removed my own.
DeleteMy husband has a beard and mustache because his sensitive skin made shaving painful. It took him until his late 20s to decide to stop shaving but he has never been sorry he did. He does keep his beard neatly trimmed.
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: Fair enough, giving up shaving because it's painful. I know the old saying is "no beauty without pain" but why inflict pain on yourself?
DeleteGoing to extremes like surgery is absurd, unless one has an actual deformity. I do wonder, though, how many people go to such extremes. It's true that many people, especially women, tend to fret over their looks, but I think it's only a (mostly wealthy) few that resort to things like steroids or botox.
ReplyDeleteInfidel: Hard to get an actual figure, but cosmetic surgeons seem to be doing excellent business. And I've read stories of the less-well-off using up their savings or getting into debt to fix some "imperfection" they're obsessed with.
DeleteI figure I'm on the correct side of my face to not be bothered.
ReplyDeleteJoanne: Not sure what that means. Is it some kind of idiom? Anyway, I can't see you wasting any time on pointless self-criticism.
DeleteI just read in the Irish Times about an Irish woman who died getting some cosmetic treatment in a cheaper country. Dear goddess. Like Joan Rivers the comedian and countless others who are not recorded anywhere. Porn has had a lot to do with this dissatisfaction, all starting in the fifties with Playboy and Hustler magazines. Seeing all those ads in my early teens I was anorexic, that starts the process, I see it in the grandchildren of friends and realize nothing has changed. It makes me weep. Never good enough.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
www: Everywhere young girls go, they're presented with images of the perfect woman and encouraged to be equally perfect. No wonder such aesthetic demands lead to gender dysphoria, anorexia, depression, suicidal feelings and all the other things that girls are succumbing to.
DeleteI have never been someone who was overly concerned with changing the way I look, aside from trying to lose weight.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: My weight has mysteriously dropped by half a stone!
DeleteMary says "With all the celebrities that have had cosmetic surgery and seeing how badly it came out, no thank you."
ReplyDeleteMary: My thoughts too. So many celebs either have artificially stiff and tightened faces, or they don't even look like the same person any more.
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