If so, what would you change about yourself, and why? If not, why not?
(Can we tell I was bored and channel-surfing, and happened upon Extreme Makeovers?)
Disclosure: I can’t imagine doing it myself, unless it were for reconstructive reasons. Sure, there are things about my appearance that I wouldn’t mind if they were different, but no way enough to go under the knife. I won’t even tweeze my eyebrows, much to my sister’s eternal consternation. And I’ve had enough non-cosmetic surgery that the idea of recreational surgery really doesn’t excite me.
P.S. I’m talking about purely recreational elective surgery with no medical or reconstructive purposes whatsoever. So this leaves aside issues of nose jobs to improve breathing, or surgery to minimize scars, or post-masectomy implants, or that sort of thing.
Nothing too radical-- I have a couple of facial scars that I’d get erased in a second if it were practical. They’re hardly disfiguring, so I don’t think they would fall under the rubric of “reconstruction.” I have a very faint scar on my left cheek that more than one girlfriend has referred to as my “dueling scar.” :rolleyes: I tell them I don’t remember how I got it, because I’m too embarassed to tell them it’s from a cat-scratch I received when I was three. A coupla other scratches and scars I’d like smoothed over, especially one under my eye where a mole used to live.
More ambitiously, I’d like to fix my toes. I have my father’s toes. My brother had them too. Specifically, I mean the big toes. (And they are big toes, god knows. Big and bulbous.)
The one downside to Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy is that now I know it won’t just be the nerdy girls making comments about my “Hobbit feet.” No, it’s not cute, damnit, I hate them. (Not to mention that they hurt if I wear anything less than clown shoes.)
Back around '93, I remember reading a newsitem about some woman in Texas who drank the better part of a bottle of bourbon and (purposely) shot one of her toes off with a shotgun. I think about her a lot. Sympathetically.
So yeah, if some sawbones could sculpt those puppies into toes that don’t look like they were borrowed from a Walt Disney giant, I’d be right behind that plan.
Funny you should ask. Just tonight I was dwelling on this.
I was in the gym. I do four sets of 15 “V” situps and four sets of 15 ab crunches and four sets of oblique “bicycle” twists, in addition to a general tone-up and burn-some-calories routine. Been at it for over a year on this routine (less useful routines prior to that) and the Disgusting Bloated Tummy of yesteryear is now decently close to rock-hard.
Problem is, it’s still an ugly protruberant tummy. Down low, between my hipbones, no problem, but between belt line and bottom of the sternum it looks like I ingested a sofa cushion or something. Feels like there’s a layer of fat under the muscle and it just doesn’t want to go away.
I hate it, I really hate it. I was always super-skinny as a kid and teen and on into my 20s, and I like my body otherwise and I even like aging otherwise, but I do not like this midsection. I’d like to ditch about 6 inches of circumference.
And I’m wondering if I could do the liposuction thing. I don’t think I have “bad dietary habits” or would be likely to put it back on. I remember from a few years back reading a popularized-science magazine article claiming that middle aged guys’ midsections just do this on schedule as per genetic coding or something, and they gave as illustration/evidence a man who had been burned in a fire and had skin grafts from his stomach area transferred to his burned legs in his early 30s. About 10 years later, the grafted areas pooched out along with his belly.
I want my body to be skinnier down below my ribcage than up where the ribs are. And I’m ready to consider a knife if necessaryh.
Sure. I don’t plan to have any work done, but if the opportunity arose I’d get my nose reshaped, plus maybe a few scars removed. That is, if I wouldn’t have to face the embarassment of explaining to everyone what I had done.
I don’t have any objections to cosmetic surgery. I mean, I get my hair cut out of vanity; I go to the gym out of vanity; I watch what I eat out of vanity; and I chose my clothes out of vanity–if surgery would make me feel better about myself, than I’d do it too.
A few years ago, I would have said yes to liposuction to remove the spare tyre around my waist. Then I happened across a liposuction operation on TV… while eating dinner.
I’ll never be able to think of that word again without feeling a little nauseous.
Other than that… if they could come up with a general youthening to restore my body to its ideal state when I was 25–and fix my teeth and eyesight–that wouldn’t be bad. I’m used to my general appearance; it’s not movie-star quality, but it does the job.
I am interested in that Extreme Makeover type stuff just out of curiosity though; I’m pretty clueless when it comes to style, and I’d be interested to see what could be made of me, even if it wasn’t sustainable. Queer Eye and the apartment makeover. THAT would be a challenge.
Hmmm…I’m findong the gender imbalance in replies so far rather interesting. I didn’t expect such a high proportion of guys, and certainly not of guys willing to go under the knife. Wonder if that means anything?
I’m with Eva on this one. I used to think I might consider something like a tummy tuck, but after having a couple of non-elective surgeries, I’d much rather live with my imperfections than go through a surgical procedure I didn’t absolutely need.
As for the toes, Larry, I have to tell you that I had bunion surgery on one foot, and after that experience, I’d have to be in screaming pain for weeks before consenting to have any kind of surgery done on any bone in my foot again. I now have a bunion on my left foot, which hurts periodically, and a nice straight right foot…which also hurts periodically because of the arthritis in it that was quite possibly precipitated by the surgery.
I’ve been exercising regularly and watching my diet for one year this week, and I’m now at what may be my optimal weight and fitness level. I still have some saggy skin, though, and every now and then I wonder if its appearance will ever improve without surgery. I’m not going to find out, though. I’ll take a little sagging over a lot of pain and giant surgical scars any day of the week.
I’d have a boob-lift (but not an augmentation). After breastfeeding four kids, my tits are a bit on the saggy-side. And I tend to lose weight easily during high-stress times, so like Mercury, the first place it disappears from is my upper chest (and then my bum unfortunately…why can’t it go from my tummy where I DON’T need any extra fat eh?), and leaves my boobs looking like empty shopping bags with wrinkly loose skin.
That’s the only thing though. I’m used to my nose now, and I have grown quite fond of my crow’s feet and other assorted wrinkles.
Some years ago I considered breast reduction and even went to a free consultation with an eminent plastic surgeon. His bedside manner left a lot to be desired. (“First we’d slice off your nipples and put them on ice . . . might be able to use them . . . if we can get off 1% of your body weight your insurance will cover it, how much do you weigh?”) This exchange sent me straight to the gym (and I don’t even care if my insurance would have covered it) on a vigorous exercise regime, which did me good, overall, but didn’t trim the area I was having problems with, just the rest of my body so it was even more, ah, noticeable. And so much for that little excursion into plastic surgery. I now have a collection of bras worth maybe $1000 (replacement value) and would hate to waste that investment.
But . . .
In an ideal world I would get an entirely new head. It would have perfect teeth, eyes with 20/20 vision, Nicole Kidman’s lips, and Cecil’s brain. (I guess that means I am satisfied with my ears.)
But here in the real world I worked for a hospital for several years and came away with one rule: No elective surgery. In fact, I’m not consenting to any surgery at all. If I’m unconscious I guess it would be a different story.
what does “automatically parse links in text” mean?
If I ever had a few thousand and nothing to spend it on, I would at least consider getting a tummy tuck and such. I lost 85 pounds, and there are places where my skin seems to have missed the memo that it needed to be smaller now. Mostly my stomach, a little on my chest. I just hate that I worked that hard to lost that weight, and I still look shitty. Wrinkly skin is for when I’m over the hill!
I too would advise against messing with the feet for cosmetic reasons. My mom had bunion surgery and then has had a whole slew of really weird shit that happened, which among other things led to KNEE surgery because she was limping on a knee she’d injured when she was fourteen but had been dealing with since.
I don’t think breast reduction counts as purely cosmetic, but I’ve had that done. (And Cicada2003, I’d not have let that guy work on me either. Even if he WOULD have had to go so far as to remove your nipples, he could have phrased it better!) My surgeon did a really good job, and while my shoulders and back appreciate the lesser load, I must admit I like so much better how they LOOK aside from anything else…
I can’t imagine anything else I’d want to get done. That might change down the road.
I waver on this issue; I’ve waited eagerly my whole life to grow some boobies, and now at 33 I’m still trying to get used to the idea that they’re never going to come. And as I “mature”, I struggle with the idea of cutting into my perfectly normal healthy body just because I think it could be prettier. It’s also the kind of thing that has to be tuned up every 10 years or so. (And believe me, if I went under the knife, I wouldn’t go up one lousy cup size. I’d get boobs that would require a wheelbarrow to carry around.) Every time I think about this, I come to the conclusion that the money would be better spent on getting some psychological help with my body issues.
About five years ago, I had a breast reduction. Was it medically necessary? Yep, but back and neck hurt all the time, I had horrible grooves on my shoulders, and pains which shot down the inside of my arms from the underwire in my bras (I could only wear underwire bras). Was it also cosmetic? You betcha–those puppies were ugly as sin. There was nothing romantic or attractive in the least about bags attached to my chest that hung down to my waist and nipples that were so big I could have attached clothes lines to them. Surgery for me was a breeze. The worst part was the embarassment of my plastic surgeon marking my breast with a Sharpie prior to surgery. However, I woke up and had nice new perkies. Healing took about four weeks total (before I could sleep on my stomach again), and although I have faint scars on the underside of my breasts (the ones around my nipples and down to the bottom of my breasts have faded so they aren’t even noticeable), I have a scar on my knee from falling on a rock when I was a kid which is more obvious to me than those. Nipple sensitivity is amazing and although they aren’t as perky as they were five years ago, they’re still in the general area. My only wish is that I wish I would have gone a cup size smaller. (I started out sqeezing into a 38 DD–which was too small, but I refused to go into a bra size bigger–and ended up being a 36 C.)
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Would I do another plastic surgery? You betcha–if I could afford it (insurance paid for the reduction).
A skin peel counts as cosmetic surgery doesn’t it? Ok, you’re not going under the knife, but it’s still cosmetic. I’m very tempted to get a skin peel to get rid of old acne scars. It’s comparitively cheap too.
If it could be done easily and safely, I’d like to get my back fixed. My scoliosis became apparent at about the same time as my back stopped growing and wasn’t TOO bad, so it wasn’t worth it to do anything about it then. But now I always lean to the left, and it’s annoying.
I’d never ACTUALLY do anything about it, though, since back surgery doesn’t tend to be particularly easy, and I’m sure that leaning to the left is a lot less annoying than crippling pain.
As for more frivolous things… uh… there are a couple of moles I’d like to get sliced off, I guess.
If I had the vacation time and ten grand to throw around? Yes, I would trade in my Margaret Hamilton nose for a Kay Kendall model. A bit silly at my time of life, though; that’s something you have done in your 20s or 30s.
