As I write this, I am contributing to the growing plastic surgery phenomenon. No, I’m not getting a tummy tuck. I’m just bleaching my teeth. But bleaching contributes to the ever popular “age of the look-alikes.”
If humans continue to be attracted to thin Halle Berrys and muscular Ricky Martins, everyone who can afford to will look like everyone else. We’ve created a society where the attractive get the dates, the mates, the jobs and the crowns.
When I went to Los Angeles, I couldn’t help but feel out of place. I wasn’t a straight-out-of-the-bottle blonde with straight-from-the-surgeon breasts. These robotic Los Angeles natives remind me of Austin Power’s Fembots.
Maybe the Fembots were terrorists just waiting for the right moment to gun the tourists down. On second thought, machine gun breasts may draw attention from law enforcement.
We say we want diversity, but we unnaturally inject steroids, Botox and implants into our bodies. We manipulate our hair with peroxide, dye, straightening irons and relaxers. We fake-and-bake, sunbathe or paint our otherwise healthy skin cells with color. We liposuction, starve, puke and diet our way to thinness.
The trends in cosmetic manipulation continue to become more bizarre. How about umbilicoplasty (belly button enhancement) and nipple enlargement? These procedures were added to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery’s (ASAPS) survey in 2002.
Surgeons can fill your butt, breasts and calves with silicone. They can cut and relocate these parts to a higher location in a procedure known as a lift.
Don’t like your fat thighs? Just transfer the fat to smooth out the wrinkles in your face. If you’re not satisfied, the fat can also be implanted into your chin or cheeks.
People also are feeling the need for plastic at a younger age. According to The Observer, a United Kingdom publication, ASAPS reports that the number of liposuctions or breast augmentations in teens more than doubled since 1992.
With their moms’ permission, girls are getting a new rack at 16. Most of us know a high school peer who has had rhinoplasty (nose job) or otoplasty (pin ears back). In the United States, breast reduction surgery on teenage boys is now the third most popular teenage cosmetic operation, according to familiesonline.co.uk.
In the “age of the look-alikes,” beware of the “synthetic mutants.” These are the victims of plastic surgery gone wrong. Deformities and injury happen. Some of the effects, as cited by The Observer, are infections, embolisms, nerve injury, thick visible scarring, skin loss and death.
This report from The Observer emphasizes my likening of plastic surgery patients to robots. It reads, “Only last month, casting directors announced that they were finding it impossible to cast actresses for anything but the most cookie-cutter blockbusters, because everyone in Hollywood has had so much surgery, or is pumped so full of Botox, they can’t express any emotion with their faces.”
I judge you at first glance. You judge me. What is wrong with small breasts? What is wrong with a distinguished nose? What is wrong with the way you are?
Oh, it’s been 30 minutes. Time for me to take these whitening strips off.