Beauty - Let's Find a Balance
by Lois Stern
Step Right
It’s the year 2025. Please forego reality for a moment to enter this time and place where each person’s physical attributes are judged purely by perceived accomplishment, not by any of our current standards of beauty. How divine! Drooping eyelids are now a subject of admiration. Is it any wonder? The woman with eyes nearly hidden beneath mounds of extra flesh must have absorbed a vast assortment of lifetime images. All at once you envision her as an accomplished artist and her inner beauty nearly explodes in your mind. As you turn slightly clockwise, you are immediately drawn to the man with significant love handles. In your fantasies you envision him as a gourmand who has created and savored many of the world’s epicurean delights. His perceived talents are so seductive! You are suddenly distracted once again – this time by the sight of a woman standing aside with protruding abdomen and sagging breasts. Your heart skips a beat. How alluring she appears! After all, aren’t women placed on earth to procreate and suckle babies? This woman must have done more than her share.
Of course, these are only first impressions. You may change your mind
a bit as you get to know these people better. But in this world, these
three people will receive preferential treatment in many spheres of
life, based purely on this society’s perception of their life
experiences and accomplishments. One’s unique physical attributes
are seen as nothing more than an extension of who they are by way of
what they have accomplished.
An occasional societal member wanders astray, actually seeks ways to
modify her appearance, camouflage the very essence of who she is. This
pathology is treated with intense Behavior Modification Therapy as
well as anti-depressant medications.
Does this sound like science fiction? If this fantasy world is not
to your liking, please follow me into the next world of the twilight
zone.
Step Left
We are still in the year 2025. Please come right in. You are about
to enter a society highly focused on aesthetics. While still in your
teens, your mother will schedule your first appointment with your plastic
surgeon. At this time you will be given a comprehensive, three-dimensional
computerized body mapping in a devise similar in appearance to the
MRI equipment of today. A second machine will record the exact contours
of your face, the texture and tautness of your skin. Your surgeon will
modify the appearance of your eyes, your chin, your nose, your breasts
. . . , right on the computer screen, to show you how closely he can
surgically alter your features to conform to current standards of beauty.
He will use his artistry and experience to help guide you toward selections
suited to your face, your body type and your vision.
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Different sizes, shapes and contours of noses await your inspection
in the nose cabinet, whereas a full array of breasts of various sizes,
degrees of fullness and cleavage depths can be found behind the doors
of the breast cabinet. The final choice rests with you.
If you are among the chosen few of exceptional post-surgical beauty,
your doctor will invite you to participate in the regional beauty pageant
of the surgically enhanced. Winners of these regional competitions
move up to the statewide level and finally to that broadly televised,
eagerly awaited national competition. Victors of this final competition
become the socially elite. There is no more coveted prize to be earned
by a woman or her plastic surgeon.
Which of these two different worlds would you choose? Perhaps we could
settle for a balance.
Excerpted from Chapter 12 of Sex, Lies and Cosmetic Surgery
By Lois W. Stern
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About the Author: Lois W. Stern has written a number of nostalgia articles, including Grab a Pickle, Share a Memory, originally published in the New York Times. She has written feature articles for LI Beauty Guide, numerous articles on health and beauty posted at her website: www.sexliesandcosmeticsurgery.com/ and is the author of: SEX, LIES AND COSMETIC SURGERY. She is now on work on her second book. |
Lois
Stern
Thanks Lois for the delightful article... John Wolf
To me, beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder.
