Small Town Therapist On Beauty

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.                                                        Raymond Chandler

When I go to the beauty parlor, I always use the emergency entrance. Sometimes I just go for an estimate.                                                            Phyllis Diller

Sometimes I wonder, why it's so hard for gorgeous women to age? My immediate guess is when someone, man or a woman is very attractive, their temptation is to freeze in place. They want to keep forever those moments when all heads turn as they enter a room. Studies show that the truly beautiful get more positive attention than those of us who are more average in the looks department. It must becomes like a drug, craving the constant attention and admiration. Now with the additions of Botox, fillers and surgery it is possible to extend that period, and to literally freeze the face in place. Frankly I can spot most facial surgeries at ten paces, can you also?

Am I saying that I believe that all cosmetic surgery is silly? Yes and no. The year after I did my master's program I wanted nothing heavy to read for awhile and I took out a subscription to Vogue magazine. Then looking at all of  the photo shopped bodies, I was always grateful when I'd see, toward the back of the publication, a picture [thank you Smile Train], of some little kids from foreign countries who had disfiguring cleft palates and badly needs surgical reconstruction. Gives one pause and perspective.

 Quite recently the ages that women were considered attractive and desirable was fairly narrow [ages 15 to 40...], compared to men [ages birth to 80]. For women the window of attractiveness has been recently extended [thank you Helen Mirren and Annette Benning, Bette Midler etc.]. Years ago I got to appreciate Dianne Keaton in her blooming second career. She had an age breaking role in "Something's Got To Give" a delightful comedy. Yet the true irony is that her co-star, Jack Nicholson is nine years her senior. Supposedly it was daring casting by Hollywood to have an "older couple" fall in love. Happily, and this indeed was daring, they cast Keanu Reeves, seventeen years her junior, to fall in love with Dianne. This is never unusual for men but it is very unusual for women especially on the big screen.  Ah, a break through!

My earliest exposure to cosmetic surgery that made sense, was a neighborhood little girl who was my brother's friend. Little Louise had ears that only Dumbo's mother could love. Necessary and an easy procedure, it made a big difference to her even at an early age to have her enormous ears trimmed back. The next one, in my book not so great, was the college friend who had a very distinctive, slightly hooked nose. A couple of years after we graduated my husband and I went to a party and she'd had a 'nose job'. She no longer had a beautiful, exotic and interesting face. Instead it was a pleasant face and acceptable though bland and dull by comparison. However, she was  happy about the transformation,  so what can you say? My husband and I found this disconcerting but, hey, it's none of our business. By the way, she was a blonde.

There are other forms of surgery I have vigorously encouraged for my clients. These clients came to me for psychological screening prior to various surgeries. The most common ones were 'Lap Band' for the grossly obese; breast reduction for the very top heavy and surgery for intractable pain. I can report that 9 times out of 10 these surgeries were successful and made huge, life changing differences to each person. I also might add none of them flunked this test: wanting an entire new personality due to the surgery. A better life, yes, a completely different person, no.

I am befuddled by the surgeons that will operate, repetitively, on a person for cosmetic surgeries. Isn't that against their code of ethics? Besides the obvious--money, what other possible reason than a grotesqueness could motivate someone to agree to unnecessary surgeries? Voluntary pain seems crazy to me. Do people have the right? Yes. Is it healthy? No. They should read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, where the people in the novel cut off their limbs to emulate a man who was an unfortunate victim of a nasty birth defect.  I think her point was, "let's really examine this admiration of leaders and the craziness that can lead to insane behavior to emulate their leader." Ah, also think politics...

Think for a minute, in your own life, who are the most beautiful, attractive people you know? When I was analyzing this I came up with a good list. What all of them have in common is authenticity, genuine sense of self, a good sense of humor, intelligence, kindness and a certain air of generosity. I love the saying in the 12 Step groups "what works best is attraction rather than promotion." I believe that all the emphasis put on [especially] women and gay men to be beautiful is developing their promotion side when they should be working on the depth and width of  their character.

Living it up via boat on the Isle of Capri

This gentleman got frozen in time in the 1st Century in Pompeii

Now that said, I as a human being and a psychotherapist, am a big proponent of healthy living and a loud advocate of doing the best you can with what you have. Constant attention to defects of face or body can be annoying at best and soul destroying at worst. Face it people, we are all going to end up part of the earth or the atmosphere. So, while you're hanging around, enjoy what you have and love yourself.

susansmagicfeather  2023 Susan R. Grout