Men are getting plastic surgery in greater numbers today than ever before. Today I received a press email from a PR firm working for a local cosmetic surgeon named Dr. Yan Trokel; although all of the images of beautiful people on his website are of women, the name alone, Image Is Power, certainly denotes a sort of masculine-friendly vibe. The press release, on the other hand, was entirely man-centric:
All is fair in love and looks, and men are leveling the beauty playing field. The male grooming market is now a multi-billion dollar business. Pressured to look youthful and appear dynamic, men are turning towards the private domain of women – cosmetic procedures.
A recent report by the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) states that non surgical cosmetic procedures for men have increased 722% since 1997. The most coveted cosmetic correction among men? Botox. And the most performed surgery on men? Liposuction.
Used to be that, per vanity’s sake, the best advantage men had over women was that we aged more gracefully. Sure, they outlived us, but after thirty years of age we just grew more handsome and developed character in our appearance. And women held graspingly to their fading former glory with increasingly fumbling fingers.
The old rules no longer apply quite as much, and reversals are abundant. Yes, of course, women still want to look youthful, but as the prolific amount of MILF porn will attest, modern mature women are being valued as much for the beauty that can come with feminine aging, as they are for the obvious kink factor. The feminist movement has granted women the option to embrace natural aging as they so desire, and do so without shame or modesty but rather in celebration and pride. The idea is that it is a beautiful thing for women to age with clear evidence of a life lived.
Reflexively, the vanity of men has perhaps never been in such full-force, and we are now fighting the advance of the clock every bit as much as women ever did. We pluck and groom and sculpt and diet ourselves into a frenzy. Men’s attention to his youthful appearance has reached a level of obsession. We dye away our grey hair, we purchase wrinkle creams marketed specifically to our gender. We are forsaking our birthright to become distinguished old men.
Perhaps this is evident nowhere so much as on the plastic surgeon’s table. The most extreme way to cheat time and preserve vanity, plastic surgery is a booming industry in the United States and abroad. The increase in numbers of male patients with this practice has achieved a point of being utterly commonplace. In 2006 nearly one million men underwent a cosmetic procedure Women still lead in the percentages of cosmetic surgery, but men are clearly catching up, though we are definitely catching less judgment for it by this now-permissive society.
Would you ever consider going under the knife to change something about your appearance? If so, what would you “fix”?
(image from American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery)
if i end up looking like my uncle, i’m going to get that area under my chin done. i’m also going to go grey in about two years, judging by my family history, but i’m actually excited about that.
unless you had something horribly wrong with my dude (cleft palate, boils, morbid obesity, a third head) i’d think he were supergay if he had plastic surgery. i’ll take lovehandles over knowing my man is girly vain.
I am of two minds: life is short, and the body mutable. If getting surgery makes you happier, then go for it. It’s no more strange than bodybuilding, albeit less laudable.
On the other mind, there are so many more important things in life than your physical image. If you fixate on your features so much that you feel they must be surgically altered, you are probably worrying about yourself more than is necessary.
I’ll be game for body altering when it’s as easy, cheap, and painless as a trip to the salon. Until then…
My take on this is you might as well do what makes you feel good or at least better about yourself, and at some point plastic surgery may be your only reasonable option. Having said that, if all you need to do is lose a few pounds then just get out you running shoes, there’s a little too much instant gratification that motivates people to go under the knife.
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