Why is there such a stigma against changing your body through plastic surgery?

I heard there was a belief by many in the mid 20th century that with the rise of new and advanced medicines and technologies, people would soon be able to design their own babies as well as aspects of themselves (eye colour, skin colour, “youthfulness”) but it seems that over a few decades things like eugenics and body improvement are incredibly stigmatized. It’s not illegal of course but condemned greatly. The general arguments that I’ve seen from people online and in real life are:

Sign of Mental Illness - There is a belief that wanting to change your body is a sign of body dysmorphia. That seems to be thrown around a lot regardless of how true that is.

Against Nature - You should “love” your body (really never got this argument, maybe someone could elaborate) because you were “meant” to be whatever you were. (This is seems to be argued by religious and non religious people)

It’s Cheating - Going back to the previous argument, this one seems to rely on the fact that your negative characteristics were given to you as a challenge in life.

It’s a Waste of Money - Spending thousands or tens of thousands on surgery is completely wasteful.

I wonder if there is an evolutionary explanation as to why society would condemn changing your self. The first thing that springs to mind would be that it hides bad genetics that natural good looks indicate thus defeating the purpose of valuing attractive people or perhaps an excessive use of resources on something which society sees as not important. I’m not sure, I’d like to hear your thoughts

I don’t know that there is that much stigma, except at the extremes. Getting a nose job, or a boob job, or a face lift, or liposuction - it’s your money and your body. OTOH there’s Michael Jackson and the amazing disappearing nose. Or women who wind up looking like Barbie dolls.

That plastic-looking Hollywood starlet fake-boobs-capped-teeth-anorexia look - not to my taste. But nobody asked me.

Regards,
Shodan

For myself, it’s because as the person ages they look disturbingly freakish. Even current tv stars who get surgery over the hiatus and return next season looking ‘fresher’. I can’t watch those show any more. Because I can’t focus on the plot, the entire time I’m looking at that face, my mind is cycling through, ‘What exactly is off here? Is it the eyes? The nose? Something seems amiss, I can’t quite tell what!’

I think how it looks as they age is shocking and quite scary, to be honest. I’d rather see humans who are old and wrinkly and look like actual human beings. I never think the results look natural. Well, that’s not true, I do but my mind is never fooled and won’t stop searching for what’s ‘off’, or unnatural with this face. It’s like a ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ puzzle to my mind apparently.

I assume most people aren’t this way as they can easily look past it and not fixate on it. Like seeing a flaw in a painting, I kinda can’t ‘not’ see it, once my mind has noticed.

I think it’s the element of self-delusion. More often than not, middle-age people undergo plastic surgery because they think it’ll make them look younger, but instead, all it does is make them look like people who have had plastic surgery. And that’s fine, if it weren’t for the fact that they tend to think they actually do look younger, which makes it kind of sad and pathetic.

Of course, plastic surgery is a lot like treason. It never looks good, because if it does, none dare call it plastic surgery.

My mom’s eyebrows were starting to thin out on the outer halves, so she got some tattoos on her brow ridge to add some extra thickness to the eyebrows.

Except…the lines are in the standard tattoo ink blue.

My mom’s hair (as one might guess) is not blue.

And so you look at her and you say, “Why did you tattoo on half eyebrows that do not match your hair color, including the other half of your eyebrows that still have hair?”

And her response to this is that I must hate makeup and trying to look pretty and so on and so forth.

But, no, the reason that I comment is because she has objectively failed to accomplish what she set out to do and it just looks stupid to have half-blue eyebrows that don’t match the other half.

Plastic surgery, makeup, or whatever else are all perfectly fine up to the point where they fail to achieve their purpose and just make you look stupid. If you have a little bit of makeup that accentuates the “better” parts of your face and deaccentuates the “lesser” parts of your face, then great. If, on the other hand, you look like a clown, then that’s stupid. If you wear cutesy shoes with ribbons that accentuate your feet, then great. If, on the other hand, you wear stilettos that hobble you, then that’s just stupid and I know to not ask you out.

Stupidity is not attractive. Plastic surgery, done right, is all well and fine if you can afford it. But if you’re stupid or if the surgeon messes up, then you’re just going to end up looking stupid and probably you’re not going to be able to undo the work without worsening the situation. If your desires are reasonable and can be safely and consistently achieved by a surgeon, then go for it. But double-check with someone that is willing to give you the straight deal before choosing to trust that you are wise enough to make that decision.

As they said, for myself it’s also a big so-what except when it’s done past the point that something seems visibly “off”.

Insofar as other points in the OP…

“I heard there was a belief in the mid-20th century”… Jeebus, way to make everyone feel old.

Ideas to that effect ran most of the century, actually, and by the 80s and the coming of genome mapping the notion of “designer babies” was a popular media cause-for-handwringing.

Two different things. Eugenics has become condemned, because of the undertone of that certain kinds or forms of human should not be and how quickly the slippery slope was too clearly illustrated. The “nice” societies limited themselves to mass involuntary sterilization of the “feebleminded”. The not-nice…

That remains a concern with genomic engineering and “designer babies” – many people would be OK with correcting defects but pause to wonder, where is the cutoff for “defective”. Also, how we must be careful with alterations in the genomic diversity, we do not want a whole population of Cavendish bananas, liable to be wiped out by a single virus.

As for body improvement/modification that has actually IMO gotten more accepted, oddly in the form that does not involve professional medical procedures (piercings/plugs, tattoos)

This one is the one that I see as a more common basic argument against purely cosmetic surgery: that it’s a frivolity arising from vanity, an unfair advantage to those with more money, or at the best, that it is an accommodation to a society’s arbitrary standards. But OTOH, if someone’s quality of life and pursuit of happiness may be enhanced by a change in looks, why reject it just because it’s expensive and permanent? Their body, their money.

“Changing your body through plastic surgery” includes two different things: plastic surgery done for purely aesthetic reasons and plastic surgery done to fix a medical problem. Examples of the second one include reconstructive surgery, fixing harelip, breast reduction. The first one is a matter of vanity and as mentioned tends to draw lightning when the results simply do not look better than the original (in other words, no so much “plastic surgery” as “plastic fail”); the only people I’ve heard speak against the second one are guys with a really bad breasts fixation (there may be some lesbians out there who suffer from the same, but I haven’t run into one).

I think it’s viewed as being somewhat akin to athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. It’s viewed as a shortcut to beauty, and an artificial form of beauty, which draws disdain, because people want and like what’s natural.

Given the amount of fake tits there are out there, I’m not sure this is premise is all that valid.

Yeah, I’m going to challenge that as well. Cosmetics have been dated back to the fourth or fifth millennium BCE if I remember right. Various body mods have always been with us. I’m not sure that “what’s natural” has ever entered into anything when it comes to human beauty standards.

Sure, but there is always a strong chorus of “Natural beauty is best” and then plenty of men who will chime in that they prefer natural female beauty over makeup-caked beauty (to which the women will usually retort that they aren’t wearing the makeup for the sake of men, but the point still stands; many people like au natural.)

But if you asked everyone in a survey, “Would you prefer to have great tits that are natural, or great tits that are artificial” (or, would you prefer your partner/mate’s tits to be natural or fake,) the poll results would probably be overwhelmingly in favor of natural.

Generally, I don’t have issues with people choosing to have plastic surgery. Their bodies, their choices.

I do think that it’s sad and unfortunate that many actresses (and some actors) feel that they have to have repeated surgeries in order to maintain a youthful appearance (and keep working). When one looks at people like Mary Tyler Moore, Joan Rivers, Renee Zellweger, or Mickey Rourke, they become entirely unrecognizable when compared to their younger selves, due to (IMO) extensive (and simply bad) plastic surgeries.

And, in extreme cases, like Michael Jackson, there’s very likely some body dysmorphia going on there, as well.

For me it’s because of the risks. Boob jobs get botched, in fact there was a whole show about people getting their jacked up breasts unjacked. People expect they’re going to come out looking a certain way and then they’re not happy when the reality doesn’t meet expectations, leading to either prolonged unhappiness or more surgeries, or both. Complications happen, infections, nerve damage, etc.

I’m not opposed to surgeries in cases of disfigurement or extreme issues, but I think given the risks, it’s better just to learn to love what you have.

I don’t think anyone is against medical plastic surgery. Given the size of the industry, I can’t see much of a stigma against cosmetic plastic surgery.
Yet it does encourage “lookism” - bias based on how one looks. I can see the need for plastic surgery for those whose employment prospects will diminish as they age, like actresses.
One thing that strikes me when watching British crime series is that the women in them look a lot more natural than women in American series. Is plastic surgery for actresses as big a thing over there?
By natural I mean more like the average woman, not the average woman found in a casting director’s waiting room.

I think there is more of a stigma against noticeable plastic surgery. After all, if it’s done well, we don’t notice it, yah?

In the abstract, I believe there is a slight stigma against it as it appears to some to fall into the category of shallow, narcissistic, etc., which are not desirable traits.

But, that said, I had my teeth straightened by braces, so who am I to talk?

What? No one has brought up Jocelyn Wildenstein yet?

shudder

I feel that, generally, people engage in cosmetic surgery as a consequence of a pathological dissatisfaction with normal looking bodies, and/or obsession with “youth” (as well as access to the privilege of being able to afford elective surgery). This dissatisfaction may be because of specific traumatic experiences, or just the general cultural trauma we put people (mostly women) through with regards to their bodies.

So, when someone gets cosmetic surgery, I say, “hey, great, you do you!” And I may or may not find the person more attractive afterwards. However, I am against (in a loose sense of the word) cosmetic surgery because while it may make the recipient feel better, it ultimately adds to societal pressure for women to feel bad about their bodies.

I think it can be fairly comprehensively covered by:

  1. People are nosy prudes.

  2. In the case of good results, people are jealous of the success / attention enjoyed by the recipients and try to talk them down to feel better about themselves.

  3. In the case of bad results, people get to feel schadenfreude and superior to the recipients, and enjoy talking about it to feel better about themselves.