Read this piece then take the poll at the end to add your voice to the dialog about cosmetic surgery.
Last week, when my husband was ill and I decided, in the spirit of camaraderie, to indulge my lazy side and watch a movie on a Tuesday night instead of going to the gym, I sat stunned and I shuddered when we caught a glimpse of some flashy celebrity news show.
Heidi Montag, whom I’d never heard of before, was talking about having her jaw shaved, bones and tissue removed from her waist to make it thinner and having triple D or E breast implants. I voiced outrage to my husband, fearing some women watching would believe surgery was the way to a happy life and I thought of the women I’ve talked to who’ve complained about backaches because of their breast size. I also remembered the strip club headliner everyone laughed at because of her bowling ball size breasts (the club asked her to leave before her week-long headlining gig was up because she looked so freakish).
There was a time in my life when the thought of going under the knife didn’t bother me. In my forthcoming book, From Sex Appeal to Self Appeal, I write about my own painful breast surgery. The trauma I caused my body with stinging Botox injections and surgical procedures, then, as an exotic dancer, merely matched the trauma in my head from my own self denial and disconnection. What I felt internally didn’t matter as long as I looked good externally. I lived not for self acceptance and approval but to be admired and lusted after by others. This superficial way of being in the world didn’t bring me lasting happiness though, and I moved past this self abuse and worked really hard to see myself as a whole person and not merely a collection of parts; a montage of flesh, bone, muscle, skin and hair. Today I embrace my stomach, accept my butt, honor the less than toned flesh on my thighs and am at peace with the wrinkles on my face. It’s not so easy to do in a world where women take pills to stop their periods, as if their bodies don’t work right, alter their vaginal lips so they look like porn stars, and plastic surgery for high school graduation gifts has become commonplace. I have to continue an on-going dialog about how my body is perfect, just as it is, and supports me as long as I treat it with respect and love through eating nutritious food, exercising regularly, laughing wholeheartedly, and getting plenty of rest. Today the thought of having an invasive surgery of any kind, even a tooth extraction, bothers me. My body has indeed become an integral part of the whole me.
Once I got past my shock, I realized I feel sorry for Heidi Montag and see her as a younger version of two other celebrities that offered themselves for public approval. Though not uttering drunken phrases at music award shows, she is asking, “Like my body?” with the same desperate hope that Anna Nicole Smith had and perhaps asks the same question Michael Jackson wanted to but never could. We don’t know what the ramifications of the procedures will be as she ages, twenty-four and beyond, but she’ll have a hard time if she’s only interested in looking at herself as a collection of body parts and pieces.
“She was already beautiful,” I said to my husband when they showed pictures of Heidi before the surgery.. “Now she’s closer to a Barbie Doll and experts say Barbie wouldn’t be able to stand, with her proportions, if she were a real breathing human.”