Oh, thank God…

Last year, some friends of mine decided to start a WordPress newsblog called The Patch. I volunteered to write articles as a stand-in from time to time, though I only ended up writing one article. It was on a topic which makes me very VERY angry, and that is the escalating prevalence of plastic surgery in our culture. (Yeah, I know that sounds like a really boring thesis paper, but I promise it’s a good read.) It was thoroughly researched as I had, at the time, about three hours worth of work to pack into an eight hour day.

Granted, my article could use a re-write, but it exemplifies some of the more insane directions plastic surgery mania has taken over the last handful of years. It used to be bored rich ladies getting their faces lifted; now it’s middle-class eighteen year olds getting their bellybuttons “fixed.”

I generally keep the plastic surgery issue gently simmering on a waaaayyy back burner in my mind, but I’ve just read something that has brought it right to the forefront and turned up the heat. I was article-surfing on msnbc.com and found this article. It’s really great because it showcases some of the more ridiculous fast-growing surgery trends, like freaking TOE-LENGTHENING SURGERY, warns of the common complications, like YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO WALK, and suggests simple alternatives, like PAINT YOUR DAMN TOENAILS INSTEAD.

Okay, yes, so what’s the big deal. So a couple of ditzy rich chicks had their toes lengthened. A lot of people can say, “Hey, if they want to blow their money on something so stupid, that’s their choice,” but I just can’t even begin to blow it off like that. I am bothered by toe lengthening surgery (and its companions like labia sculpting and shoulder lipo) on so many levels:

Level 1) To even think that enough people are staring at – or even noticing – your toes in quiet horror and disgust shows an enormous amount of conceit (genuinely freakish toes notwithstanding). Listen to me honey: your dream date is not grimacing at those toes thinking, “God, if those little buggers were just a quarter of an inch longer, I would shag you to within an inch of your life!”
Level 2) Even if you’ve got the conceit to think the world revolves around your toes, you have to be one deeply scarred individual to feel the unshakable need to change them. If you’re so worried about one of the most insignificant details on your body, I don’t even want to know about the battle you’re waging on your nose or your midsection. As one doctor says in the MSNBC article, you don’t need a surgeon; you need a psychiatrist.
Level 3) Surgery is not a magic button that’s going to change your life and leave you strolling out of the in-patient’s ward in Jimmy Choo’s to double takes and cat-calls. Surgery is SURGERY. It’s men in scrubs taking a very very sharp knife and slicing you the way you slice pizza. You’re going to leave crippled and in pain. You’re going to be out thousands of dollars. No one is even going to notice the difference. Though everyone will notice your super-sexy crutches, ask you what happened to your feet, and think you’re a shallow idiot when you tell them what you paid someone to do to you.

So! Now that I’ve alienated my entire audience, I would like to point out that I can TOTALLY related to body image problems, and fat-pinching, and disappointment with self, and the whole shebang. I’ve wanted to vacuum the fat out of my butt and take a pill that would make me grow some discernible cheek bones over night, but to actually go so far as to pay a lump sum to get some plastic shoved up inside my boobs, plastic that’s going to go rock hard in five years and need to be replaced? That, to me, sounds like a case of more money than brains.

I just hate it all. I hate attention-seekeing, I hate excessive and unnecessary expenditure (Louis Vuitton luggage sets chap my ass too), I hate conceit, and I hate stupid. Elective cosmetic surgery – surgery to fix something that was never broke in the first place – is the most glaring and overwhelmingly popular form of all four rolled into one.

Excuse me while I go set fire to a Barbie doll.