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Underground > Laboratory >

Cosmetic modification: where should it end?

Ganesh

09:32 / 26.09.01

We touched on this briefly in the posts discussing Morrison's 'X-Men Annual', but I thought it deserved a thread of its own. Morrison used the concept of the U-Men (individuals who feel 'wrong' in their bodies and believe they 'should' have been born mutated) to explore some of the politics of gender dysphoria and the associated surgery of 'reassignment'.

Transsexualism is merely the commonest variant: there are many, many people out there who feel they've been born into the wrong body, that they should've been someone or something else. At one end of the scale, a notch or two along from 'everyday' nose or boob jobs, we have the likes of Pamela Anderson, who's had ribs removed, stomach flattened and 'etched' so she looks like a Rob Liefeld heroine. At the other, there are those 'freaks' who reckon they ought to be a lion or a tiger or whatever, and have facial tattoos, radical dentistry, bone grafts, artificial 'fur' and 'whisker' implants. Then there're those people who believe they've been born with too many limbs; believe it to the extent that they fabricate reasons to have one, two, three or all four surgically amputated, or try to do the job themselves...

In an age where the word 'natural' seems hopelessly outdated, where does one draw the line? Should all such body modification be permitted? If so, who should pay: the individual or the state?

Jamieon

09:41 / 26.09.01

I suppose it's all a question of desperation.

If an individual is so unhappy with their body that they simply can't function without some sort of cosmetic alteration, then I would hazard that the state should pay (barring any kind of surgery that might actually seriously harm the individual in question).

But, then again, there are those guys and gals who're desperate for one of their limbs to be ampuatated (someone remind me what they're called again).....

This is a tricky one.

Let's thrash this'n out a bit more: my brains gone to sleep.

09:41 / 26.09.01

I don't think there's much body modification that the state should pay for. I'd say for people whose physical appearance is so way outside the bell curve that they really find it difficult to function in society, fair enough, but for people who are already within the "norm", unless their appearance is actually physically hampering them (unlikely), no.

The effect of a person's appearance on them is to do with their self-image and other people's behaviour towards them based on that appearance - and their reaction to that - rather than the actual nature of what they look like. If they're obsessed with removing a leg I don't see that the solution to their problems is to remove that leg. I can see that if it's impossible to stop them from doing it themselves it may be safer for a surgeon to do it, but that would only be as a last resort when everything else has failed.

On another note, if someone is body dysmorphic (I think that's the term) then they will not be happy with their appearance no matter what, and if anything they need psychiatric treatment to deal with that. You don't treat anorexics by putting them on weight-loss diets.

The classic example of that would have been Lolo Ferrari who was encouraged in her disorder by those around her to have vast quantities of plastic surgery, became worse and worse and eventually killed herself.

As for people who just look a bit ugly, or so they think, well, I don't consider that a medical necessity. Get your wonky teeth or sticking-out ears fixed on your own time. There are aspects of life that you have to deal with on your own.

deletia

10:26 / 26.09.01

I'm interested by the phrase "permitted", here, and also what exactly constitutes "cosmetic" modification. Because, to my reckoning, amputating limbs is a far more than cosmetic process. At present. So, we can say pretty confidently that that is not a "permissable" cosmetic modification, if only because not cosmetic.

But what if it was? What if limbs could be easily detached and reattached, or the loss of a limb would not severely impair function (why would Jean Grey even bother having arms?).

Turning into a lion, or a woman, or having your skin died green, is for me a more interesting question for just this reason - although notionally "cosmetic", they are aspiring to something not accepted as "cosmos" in general. They could be seen as opening processes of Harawayan (Harawavy?)inhumanism, where the form in which defined characteristics inhere becomes mutable, thus destabilising the discourses which identify the characteristic. If the person you are talking to has green skin, tusks, no nose, breasts and a penis, what is their relation to concepts of "white", "non-white", "male" or "female", "human" and "animal"? And why should blurring of those lines not be permitted? Is it a question of deciding that after a certain point the desire to alter physical appearance becomes pathological, and if so why?

11:00 / 26.09.01

We already classify some attempts to alter the human body as pathological: bulimia and anorexia, for example.

deletia

11:03 / 26.09.01

True, but they are still *permitted*, in the sense that indulging in them is not legally prohibited.

11:05 / 26.09.01

Okay, how about anabolic steroid use for the purpose of body building?

deletia

11:13 / 26.09.01

Good question,which I think splits into several different areas. At present, the steroid itself is a proscribed substance, presumably because it is bad for you (anyone more up on this than I?). But its use in body building competition is (at least notionally) banned precisely because at that point it is not cosmetic - it has a specific function, that function being to improve the likelihood of victory over other people in a competitive event.

Why anabolic steroids are not allowable in this context, but, say, protein powders or concoctions increasing electrolyte uptake are, is another question - at what point does "assisting the body in the process of modification" become "unfairly modifying the human body"? But, if a person was not bodybuilding *competitively*, would there be an issue about his or her use of anabolic steroids?

Ganesh

11:20 / 26.09.01

I agree my terminology here is inadequate. I suppose by 'permitted' I meant those situations in which cooperation/collusion/assistance is required to reach the desired state ie. a surgeon, anaesthetist, etc. Outwith private medicine, UK doctors are employees of the state and, as such, must comply with certain ethics - hence 'permitted' applying equally to whoever's carrying out the operation. Psychiatrists have a smaller (but perhaps as important) role in proceedings, as we're typically referred individuals who desire cosmetic modification and are expected to determine whether they want it 'for the right reasons' - a tough call.

In terms of people needing modification to function within society, the psychiatric element is often used as justification for carrying out the surgery: the individual is so unhappy with their present appearance that there's a strong risk that they'll attempt suicide if left as they are. Body dysmorphic disorder (a nebulous phenomenon of which all the examples I've presented may be seen as variants) is pretty unresponsive to any 'treatments', psychological or otherwise - and a small minority actually do improve after surgery, thus clouding the issue.

It could certainly be argued (in those countries where suicide is not illegal, anyway) that one's body is one's own property, and should be altered as one sees fit - even if to do so would be directly life-threatening. Involving surgeons, however, necessitates the negotiation of another individual's personal and professional code of ethics, with possible implications for them also.

Where does 'self-modification' become 'self-mutilation'? When is it considered 'pathological'? Should this be an issue at all?

[ 26-09-2001: Message edited by: Ganesh ]

11:29 / 26.09.01

Malcolm gladwell on steroid use in competitve sport Drugstore Athlete

quote: We want the relation between talent and achievement to be transparent, and we worry about the way ability is now so aggressively managed and augmented... we like to distinguish between those advantages which are natural or earned and those which come out of a vial.

Even as we assert this distinction on the playing field, though, we defy it in our own lives. We have come to prefer a world where the distractable take Ritalin, the depressed take Prozac, and theunattractive get cosmetic surgery to a world ruled, arbitrarily, by those fortunate few who were born focussed, happy, and beautiful. Cosmetic surgery is not "earned" beauty, but then natural beauty isn't earned, either. One of the principal contributions of the late twentieth century was the moralderegulation of social competition--the insistence that advantages derived from artificial and extraordinary intervention are no less legitimate than the advantages of nature.

Even though the article is more about body modification to enhance performance in some way, the issues raised are similar to body modification to improve appearance. Is this just another "authenticity fetish" turned into a moral issue?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

13:05 / 26.09.01

Contrast 'cosmetic' and 'lifestyle'. Surgery which is merely 'cosmetic' implies 'skin deep', as it were. Something more radical performed for no physical medical reason, but to indulge or allow a lifestyle might be althogether different.

13:42 / 26.09.01

A little related and very strange -
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