Transgender female Eva Tiamat Baphomet Medusa (formerly Richard Hernandez) has gotten tattoos, eye dye, and body mods to transform herself into a “dragon.” This includes surgery to remove both auricles and drastically reconstruct the nose so it doesn’t look like a nose anymore. Google her at your own risk. The articles quote her web site; I could not find her site, but there is no shortage of articles with photos.
The ear and nose surgeries must have been done by doctors, although I could find any facts identifying the doctors. What kind of a doctor would ethically perform cosmetic surgery to remove healthy ears, or to reconstruct a nose so it doesn’t even look like a nose anymore?
Unethical ones. There are plenty of unethical doctors out there. Less likely to find them among the board certified plastic surgeons, but doctors don’t have to be board certified to do plastic surgery. In my experience, tiny single doctor practices without hospital affiliations are to be given a wide berth. And those are the ones doing these kinds of surgeries.
Why is it unethical? Cosmetic surgery is unnecessary by definition. Outer ears are relatively useless appendages that people regularly poke holes in, and nose jobs are abundant to change the shape of the nose.
Another example of the sort of thing described in the OP is the case of Jocelyn Wildenstein, who had plastic surgery intended to make her appearance more “catlike.”
Tricky… Some cosmetic surgery is reconstructive, such as repairing birth defects. It’s still “cosmetic” but it restores a normal appearance to someone with deformities. Same for restorative surgery for someone who has had a disfiguring accident.
Even an ordinary facelift is hard to call “unethical.” What harm?
Making someone look extremely odd or unusual… There, at least, I can see arguments both ways. But making someone look more “normal” seems supportable.
I know someone who had an enormous wine-mark all across her cheek; modern laser surgery can remove this. How is that unethical?
Its unethical to do harm. The significant scarring caused by such blatantly radical surgery can cause harm…
A possible way to regulate this would be to require all such elective surgery to be insured to cover future medical bills and living costs that result… eg because why do people get breast implant removal on the free list or on general medical insurance ,when it was their elective, cosmetic, surgery that introduces the bulk of risk…
Octomum is asking for handouts, but why isn’t her extra costs coming from the insurance cover from her doctor, because it was purely elective and unnecessary to take the chance of implanting so many fetus’ when she already had children anyway ? How does it work that the doctor can waiver away any comeback on such a result ?
its not me playing god (Is there some “ethic” that making babies can’t ever be illegal… ? it was protected as a “gift of god” from common law ?) He played god when he implanted an unnatural number…in the circumstance that she had children anyway.
Nope, doesn’t have to be a doctor. There are a number of “body modification artists” who will “sculpt” or even remove ears. A quick google brought up a couple of articles saying the nose surgery was also by a body mod artist. Which means the procedures were done without anesthesia. Which means this is someone really, really, serious about body modification.
The nose changes, especially, would be practicing surgery/medicine without a license if that is in fact the case.
The same argument could be made for equestrians, skydivers, and athletes - all of whom are at self-induced risk of potentially expensive injuries. For that matter, couch potatoes and junk-food aficionados are at self-induced risk of coronary disease. Perhaps all of these people, who are engaged in activities that would appear on a (hypothetical) government-produced “risky activity” list, should be required to carry extra insurance to cover the greater likelihood of needing expensive medical care at a later date. The only people who would escape the need for extra insurance would be those who drive only when necessary (driving to movies, public parks, and other fun places would be deemed unnecessarily risky), and get all their exercise indoors on treadmills and elliptical trainers (too easy to trip on uneven sidewalks out in the real world, plus skin cancer risk from sun exposure).
The (real) rebuttal to your proposal is that pre-existing conditions - which includes expensive diseases like MS, and really dangerous hobbies like horseback riding - have been officially/legally excluded from consideration as a factor in determining whether (and for how much) to insure someone for health care.
Note that the same is not true for life insurance. If you try to buy a policy with you as the insured person, expect a significant health exam and a lengthy questionnaire about what sorts of activities you engage in, like SCUBA diving, skydiving, or motorcycle racing.
Was going to say this. There are a number of “self trained” body modification artists, who are not doctors but do these kind of things. And it doesn’t mean no anethesia, there are quite a number of local numbing agents or orally taken painkillers that they could have got their hands on by semi-legal methods.
no, the pinna are acoustic horns and greatly improve our ability to hear. they’re far from “useless.”
They are relatively useless. You don’t go deaf from removing that tissue, numerous people live without due to physical damage, and plenty more mutilate that tissue for cosmetic purposes.
If a cleft lip is modified solely for the sake of appearance it’s no different from what this wack job has done.
My presumption is that someone who is obsessed with this degree of modification may have mental issues. I had some vague idea that a doctor wouldn’t remove healthy body parts if there is no health benefit. For example, I can see why Angelina Jolie was able to get her breasts removed due to a genetic risk of breast cancer.
When does body mod work cross over to “practicing medicine without a license”?
They (pinnae) are quite critical for sound localization. The structure causes the frequency response of your ear to vary depending on the direction the sound is coming from. Without pinnae it would be much more difficult to determine if a sound is coming from in front of you or behind you. I don’t think this can be classified as “relative useless”.