Cosmetic Surgery

Cosmetic surgery is a modern variation of a practice as old as humankind. Every culture has some customs that prescribe deliberately changing a body's natural appearance (Brain 1979). The methods, however, are diverse and particular to a culture at a specific period of time. Paints, for example, are used to decorate bodies in many cultures, but the pigments, patterns, permanency, and purpose of each culture's body customs vary widely. Only a nineteenth-century Bedouin woman could appreciate the eroticisof painting the whites of a man's eyes blue.

While she would have regarded her own culture's customs as highly “civilized,” she probably would have thought the full body designs of Aboriginal Australians, American Indians, and Africans savage. Like eighteenth-century European explorers, she might have considered the tattooing and tooth-blackening in the Pacific region bizarre, and found the deeply carved black spirals and curves on Maori faces frightening and repulsive. It is no more likely that she could have discerned the beauty intended by the African and South American tribes who create elaborate patterns of raised scars, insert large lip plates and ear and nose plugs, and file teeth to sharp points.

Nor is it likely that she could have appreciated the charm of Chinese women's bound ‘‘lotus” feet, Padaung women's elongated necks, or Western women's constricted waists during the Victorian era and augmented breasts in recent decades. Instead, in the implausible circumstance that a nineteenth-century Bedouin woman was exposed to such body customs, she probably would have regarded them as barbaric mutilations, much as contemporary Americans' view of female circumcision, which she might have considered normal.

The diversity of body customs has led anthropologists (e.g., Douglas 1970; Strathern 1996) to conclude that a body is both a physical and a symbolic artifact, forged by nature and by culture at a particular moment in history. Social institutions, ideology, values, beliefs, and technology transform a physical body into a social body. The resulting social body bears the imprint of the more powerful elements of its cultural context. Bodies, therefore, provide important clues to the mechanics of society.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the social nature of bodies and the feminine and masculine standards that have evolved in the context of rapid cultural and social change over the last two centuries and concludes with a definition of cosmetic surgery and some statistics on the incidence of this modern body custom.

Recommended sites:
Hangbags - Offers unique evening handbags and purses including Swarovski crystal evening bags, and beaded purses.
Healthcare Compliance - Provides HIPPA and healthcare corporate compliance training including courseware for patient safety goals, quality improvement, JCAHO and hospital accreditation.
Vasectomyandreversal - vasectomy reversal - Vasectomy reversal clinic offering guaranteed results with service areas including Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Florida, Atlanta, Chicago, and Fort Worth.