keryx | (no subject)

(no subject)

On one of the lists I belong to, there's been some really interesting discussion about people's stances on body modification. I find most surgical body modification problematic. I wouldn't insist that others not get surgery to change the way their appearance, but it feels to me that plastic (even reconstructive) surgery, weightloss surgery and sex-reassignment are all ways in which we force the body to conform to cultural norms (duality of gender, fat is evil, there's only one kind of beautiful).

That doesn't mean I condemn individuals for making these choices. I just think the choices can (like all individual choices) add up to reinforcing those norms. But if the decision is to do that, or to live in a world that sends messages about your failure to fit 24/7... I can't fault someone for not being a Warrior of the New Culture or whatever, you know? It's hard just to be sorta fat, just to be a woman, just to be queer - it has to be much harder for your body to be seen by the culture (of which you are part) as a symbol of your Fundamental Wrongness.

I usually just shut up about this, because we're talking about choices that don't feel remotely optional to the people who make them. That's not them failing - it's a culture failing them; it's all of us believing that sex=gender or fat=agony. This is obvious to most of us when we talk about SRS or reconstructive surgery after cancer or something, but we're much more likely to criticise individuals for wanting "younger looking skin" or something else we consider shallow. The culture's not where it needs to go yet, and individuals are in different places along the way. So I can only criticise the culture, not the people wading through it.

I'm feeling optimistic today. This weekend I was watching television and realized that I found Tom Cruise oddly hot. I have a long history of being completely turned off by the buffly athletic hero body type. I like curvy and soft and wiry and gaunt, you know? [Not all together, silly!] But I've come to find buffness attractive as my partner has become more and more buff.

And I'm thinking the culture changes like that, too. The more each of us come to know a wider range of bodies, the more acceptable those bodies will be. It's started already, all over. That's why there's so much furor over "real beauty" and the Obesity Crisis, Egads! - because that change will slowly and fundamentally alter the nature of the way things and ideas get sold.

Yeah. I'm feeling optimistic.

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I getcha then. I see obviously fake breasts a fair amount (and make many assumptions about why a person has them), so my question was coming from that perspective. I see how it wouldn't apply if you get the back story and the realization of the fake breasts simultaneously.

Another hypothetical question (hope you don't mind!), how would you feel about a woman who had very divergently sized breasts and augemented to make them the same size?

I am naive, and default to the assumption that all breasts are real until I am told otherwise. ;)

As to the question, depending on how comofortable I was with the person, I'd probably ask them why they weren't getting them reduced to make them the same size. And then hopefully have a deep and meaningful discussion about women's bodies as symbols and battlegrounds. Whee!

New question! Why would a breast reduction be better than a breast augementation in this situation, since the final outcome of matching breasts is the same? I mean, breast symmetry is part of the beauty standards as much as having large breasts, so if you are already getting your body modified to fit these ideals how does it make a difference which boob sets the standard?

I guess my basic question is, how does one decide when it is acceptable to do something that supports these beauty ideals and when it is over the line? Do you have a general guideline you work with when thinking about these issues?

I didn't mean it like, breast reduction would be superior, just why choose augmentation instead of reduction. To me it makes a difference because big boobs are usually seen as superior. At least, so thinks every flat chested teenaged I've ever met... to me it seems the societal pressure is to have more boob. So I'd basically be fishing for that answer, and hope it started a discussion.

Honestly, I can't tell anyone what to do. My judgements usually are sort of made in the vacuum of my brain. I would never say "you're not a feminist if you get X done!" but I would certainly want to talk about how someone came to the decision, and I might disagree with them.

See the question I posed to

tartedelune re the augmentation/reduction thing; it was for both of you. ;)

I have a more general question for you, though - why are you silent about others' so-called choices? I hear you say, not infrequently, that you don't usually speak up about feministy stuff. I'm not saying that's always true (given how outspoken' you tend to be on LJ, for instance), but I'm curious why you're quiet [or believe you are].

I guess I walk a line between when I think my input is wanted and when it's not. I tend to take LJ as a bit of an invitation to criticism and commentary, however, I don't take that too far because I know it's not, really, strictly that. I'm not one of these "you put your stuff out on the internet so you had better expect to get harassed" people.

In face to face interpersonal relationships, though, I am often not willing to harsh on someone's groove when there is no indication that my input is wanted. When we are talking about personal choice, I often fear confrontation, and worry that the way I put things will sound like a personal judgement or insult rather than discussing the implications of someone's actions. Also, I want people to like me. Really badly. In fact, I am having a ridiculous panic that no one will come to my New Year's party because they have finally decided I am a) not a responsible enough activist or b) that raging bitch who is always criticising eevryone's actions.

Often enough, I feel like people already know what I'm going to say before I say it. Conversations will happen like this:

Friend: "Oh, I know how Kim feels about this, but ohmigod did you see that movie?"
Kim: "..."

In that case I figure, they don't want me to tell them how vile I think whatever cultural thinger is they are about to talk about is.

I almost always speak up about feministy stuff if I specifically think that someone hasn't thought about the implications of what they are saying/doing. But most people I know kind of have. I have a friend who has said on numerous occasions she wants to get a boob job. This is a person who created a community mocking feminism. I don't need to explain to them my thoughts on the issue; they've already thought about it and rejected the criticisms. There's nothing to say there.

ahh, I misunderstood your comment. Stupid online communication with its lack of tone and facial expression.

I agree that there is a lot of pressure to have large breasts. My question was mainly coming from the perspective that there is also a lot of pressure to have matching breasts, and that if one was getting them "fixed" it wouldn't (in my mind) make much of a moral difference if they were downsized or enlarged. My thinking was kind of along the line of what you were talking about re: post-cancer breast augementation; if you already have one large breast it seems different to me than if you were enlarging both.

Honestly, I have no idea if this comment makes sense anymore. I am much better at these kinds of conversations in person.

Me too, on the in person thing. Anytime you like!

that would be awesome! since you work in Annapolis, maybe we could meet for tea or sometime...

Grr. I'm jealous - I don't live close enough to just casually meet up with most of you (though definitely close enough for weekend things... hint, hint).

I have another question for both of you: how do you feel about breast reduction? There's an implication in this discussion that reduction isn't bad because it doesn't adhere to the "big breasts" ideal, but there's the symmetry thing, and there's the being defined by sexual characteristics thing. So, how is having your breasts smallified any less anti-feminist than having them enlarged?

Does your answer change if the woman believes (as many WLS patients do) that the breast reduction is reducing a strain of some sort that couldn't be addressed via strength-building or something?

I contend that all of these so-called choices are suspect, because all of them are influenced by cultural pressures about what a woman is/should be, but I'm not going to say one is better than the other. But I'm interested in what y'all have to say, too!

I never made that implication!! I was just saying I would want to provoke discussion. Assuming that the person who was evening out was evening out in the big direction, which implied that was superior. I am so not explaining myself well.

I think smallifying is possibly less antifeminist because my perception is that the patriarchal pressure is to have big boobs, not small ones.

I may also be inferring this "reduction isn't bad" thing, because I've had this discussion with a bunch of feminists in the past - they thought only getting implants was problematic, and I still don't really see why. I'd like to understand better, even if only to refute the argument. ;)

I generally feel like breast reduction shouldn't get carte blanche simply because it isn't part of the "big boobs are best" mentality. I think that the cosmentic surgery industry is endemic the cultural idea of "fixing" the body. I don't know how I feel about the issue of strain. It's hard to separate the health propaganda from actual information.

I think the bottom line for me is, cosmetic surgery is always part of a larger context of beauty standards but that doesn't mean that I believe it is always an anti-feminist choice. I can't think of how cosmetic surgery would ever be a feminist choice, but I can think of many times that I don't see surgery and feminism as antithetical. For me it basically comes down to the individual's motivation and situation.

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