Hell no, but then again I’m already closer to the ‘ideal’ body type than many women will ever get (Thanks Mom!). I’m pretty happy with how I look, and would rather exercise to fix what I don’t like than go through surgery, risky or not.
I think this is a very important point. Of the women who I’ve seen pics of in this thread who say they wouldn’t do it…well, if I had any of YOUR bodies, I wouldn’t do it, either!
Would your answers be any different if you had this body instead of yours? That’s a lot closer to my body, which may explain my answer more clearly than words can.
I wouldn’t do it. I’m not slim by any stretch of the imagination, and I certainly am no where near “ideal” as fashion deems it. But you know what, the body I have right now is mine, its attractive in its own right, and whilst I might not be a size 0, and I could do with losing some weight, I’m not about to change my body through plastic surgery.
That’s closer to me too, and I still think I would stay myself. I think I would still loathe myself if I were thin (although the clothes options would be nice!) because it’s not just about weight.
Ah. See, I loved my body (and myself) when I was a healthy weight. Oh, I played that silly teenage girl game of “OMG! I’m so FAT!!!” while pinching the skin on my flat tummy, but honestly, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. I loved how I could *move *- dancing and running and climbing and bending…
I still love myself - I’m smart and funny and goshdarnit, people *like *me! But I now loathe my body. I feel like it’s literally a cage that the real me can’t get out of. I intellectually understand the hypothesis that if we’re fat we must hate ourselves, but don’t feel it’s accurate for me personally. I accept that that’s the case for some overweight people (since I believe you) but it’s not the case for me.
Count me in the “no” group. I’m overweight and out of shape–although not as big as WhyNot’s picture–my self-image issues are not particularly weight dependent, but really, eating right and exercising is the way that I want to improve my body.
No.
Not a chance. Not even if it were free. Hell, not even if the risk of serious complication were vastly lower.
I’m both overweight and a little out of shape. Although nowhere near WhyNot’s picture, I’m definitely closer to that than Gisele’s body shape - but, to be blunt, I was closer to that than Gisele when I was 16, swam a mile a day, and had 9% body fat. I’m in reasonably good health and I’ve learned to adjust to the fact that I’m never going to be a supermodel. I don’t even want to be a supermodel. Even if I had Gisele’s body, I still wouldn’t be a supermodel - I’m just not that hot. I got over my “I’ll never be beautiful” angst when I was 15, thanks. I’m a lot of things - clever, funny, a wonderful friend and sister and wife, educated, interesting, healthy mentally and physically: wanting to be beautiful too is just being greedy.
I don’t particularly loathe my body - I’m sort of exasperated by it, really. A good part of the reason it’s not slender and in great shape is because it actively conspires against being slender and in great shape. (Juvenile-onset RA for starters, combined with the sort of metabolism that makes me purely miserable on the occasions I’ve dieted - even when I’ve done so strictly in accordance with a plan set forth by a professional.*) I wouldn’t mind loosing some weight (and, actually, I’m currently attempting to do so - in the hopes it’ll increase my chances of getting pregnant), but I’m also not crying in my beer because I’m overweight and a little out of shape.
Frankly, it sort of bothers me that so many judgments of one’s value as a person come down to “Well, how hot are you?” This OP included. Hell, the premise itself sort of assumes that a key factor of a woman’s value as a person is their hotness. I really don’t have the words to explain how much I deplore this attitude, even though I share it. I think we all do. That doesn’t make it right, though.
*And when I say “miserable” I do not mean just hungry or craving certain food types and therefore whiny because I cannot have my cheesecake. I mean constantly light-headed, exhausted no matter how much sleep I’m getting, achy, sore, with a constant low-blood-sugar-type headache, and with continual low-grade nausea. Other than the absence of fever, it feels almost exactly like having the flu. For weeks or months - it doesn’t go away, it doesn’t diminish, and there’s not even a payoff, because I’ll feel like parboiled ass for months and have lost less than 15 pounds.
My faith in the future of American Womanhood is being restored as I read all these responses! Thanks, girls!
Bibby
I feel like I’m not saying this very well - I’ve edited and rewritten and tried to put a lot of thought into this. Here goes.
I’ve seen you, and I think you’re very attractive. I can’t know, but I don’t think I’d do it if I had your body either.
That’s the sort of thing that’s very hard to say, WhyNot. For a very long time, I’ve hated this body I have, have thought I was fat and obscenely short, and got mad when I finally started losing weight and the first thing to go were the boobs! (All the women who wanted smaller boobs and went on weight loss programs swore to me the boobs went last.)
Again, 10 years ago, I’d have been all over this. Now, I wouldn’t. But I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted, at least briefly. I think most women have a “problem spot” or 17. I suspect there are very few PEOPLE who are completely happy with their physical looks. And I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with getting whatever kind of help you (generic you from here on out) want or need to help you feel more like you. But I suspect (I don’t know) that plastic surgery, especially extreme surgery such as this, wouldn’t actually fix the underlying issues. For one thing, maybe your trouble spots would be gone, but now you have Gisele’s trouble spots. Is that really going to make someone who already has underlying self-esteem issues feel better? This body they thought would be perfect really isn’t? Then they went though all of that trouble and risk and money for nothing! (Projecting a little, what I think my reaction would be.)
In the end, I suspect that the underlying issues need to be fixed first (this is for anyone, assuming there are underlying issues). Then the external, physical issues need to be fixed. If you’re really a supermodel trapped in a dumpy body, are you acting like it? I don’t mean the diva stuff we who don’t hang out with supermodels expect, but are you happy and confident in general? Do you treat the body you do have with respect and eat right and exercise and all that jazz? Are you generally happy with life, and making the most of what you do have, but feel it’s not you in the mirror? If so, maybe this surgery is just the thing. However, if you’re miserable in general, not treating yourself with respect, and blaming it all on the fact that your body is dumpy, and not the supermodel within, well, what’s to say this would really solve that?
This surgery wouldn’t have fixed my issues a decade ago. If I decide now, though, that my breast just aren’t quite right (damn diets!), I don’t think it would be right or fair to say that getting implants is because I hate myself. So that’s what I’m trying to get at. I don’t see this idea as inherently wrong, just that it’s filled with so many pitfalls - as is any cosmetic surgery.
There’s a particular surgery I’ve considered for about twenty years that’s a lot cheaper and safer than the one in the OP, and yet I keep not getting it. During the times when I felt closest to going ahead, I came to realize that I really have quite a lot of reservations about tailoring my bod to the beauty ideal that have nothing to do with expense or safety.
As time goes by, I’m learning more and more to accept my “problem”, and I think that will be better for me in the long run than “solving” it.
…could actually be considered “ugly”? Tell that to BF Tom Brady!
Let’s face it: good-looking people have an immense advantage over us ordinary folk-they have higher incomes, they get promoted faster, people bow and scrape for them…they even get lesser sentences (when they commit crimes).
It just hain’t fair! :o
I’m game to give it a try, but I don’t think my wife is going to go for it.
I do have issues with parts of my body, but a complete overhaul would be overdoing the issues I have with it, and I feel that 25% is too much risk.
and I have to say that since that 1960s perky breasts thread I have more of a mental handle on what really is normal/natural, vs. the ‘bobbleheaded stick with breasts’ thing in the magazines. True, you see normal people all day everyday, but you’re not really able to voyeuristically analyze the way people can/do once something’s in print.
No, it isn’t worth the risk of being crippled (or worse) to meet someone else’s standards of beauty.
25% is too high of a risk.
And the one my body has going for it is utility - it has always been reasonably to excellently healthy and it has done pretty much anything I’ve ever asked it to do. So, while it has utterly failed in aesthetic value, at least it has been reliable. I don’t think I want to give that up.
But if there was a virtually no-risk surgery that would give me that body? In a New York second.
I don’t love my body. I’m 5’2" and I weigh 230 lbs. But I wouldn’t have the surgery. I’ll just have to learn to love it as it is, or fix it in a healthy way. Because my mother-in-law was a lovely woman who had a small belly who didn’t want to look like the grandmother she was and died after having a tummy tuck. She had the bucks to get one of those high-class plastic surgeons, but that didn’t stop the blood clot that killed her.
As much as I’d love to liposuction my fat away, there’s no way I’d do it, not after watching my husband and his sister and their step-father pull the plug. She never got to meet her grandsons. I’d rather be fat than leave my kids that way.
I read your posts. I know you’re trying to eat better and take care of yourself. and I think that’s great. Keep it up. I like you too.
Um, that’s “women”. 
Naw, I’ve had a lot of years to get used to being dumpy. I wouldn’t know what to do with all the attention. Besides, I doubt it would come with the metabolism you need for relatively easy maintanence, and I wouldn’t want my husband to develop blood pressure problems.
Oh heck no.
I’m not all that happy with my body, but I came by the stretch marks and laugh lines honestly. There’s nothing wrong with it that a better diet and more exercise won’t fix, and I’m working on that.
I hope that someday I can wake up in the kind of body I can be proud of, but I want that to be the result of hard work and dedication, not a $10 000 cheque and surgical intervention (or any size cheque, for that matter). It probably won’t look much like Gisele’s and it’ll still have stretch marks, but that’s fine by me.