Plastic surgery

[Atreides]

Ok, everyone knows that plastic surgery's huge in South Korea and now the guys are getting into it too.

 

Impacts on society? Future of mankind? What would the _____ apes think?

 

Link http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060416/ap_on_...GZoBHNlYwM3NTE-

Edited April 16, 2006 by Atreides

[WITHTEETH]

page requested was not found

[Atreides]

Hm, that's really weird. Anyway the guys are getting onto it too (about 1/3 of total patients). Some think it helps them get hired and even old guys are onto it after SK's prez went under the knife himself.

 

In other hip cities, the stylish "metrosexual" look is being overtaken by the "ubersexual," a more macho breed whose straight sexual orientation is unambiguous. But in Seoul, the trend veers the other way, toward the "cross-sexual"

[Fenghuang]

I once read about guys getting breast implants so they'd look more muscular.

 

I laffed.

[Walsingham]

I know some guys who have flabby pecs no matter how much they work out. Frankly I think they should go for some firming surgery. Then they could quit complaining, be happy and so forth.

 

I wouldn't go for surgery because I'm old-fashioned enough to feel embarassed, but If some maniac abducted me and fixed my broken nose and the bags under my eyes I'd forgive him.

[Fenghuang]

I'm confident enough in myself not to feel embarassed.

 

This is because I am pure awesome.

[metadigital]

What's the question? Is it okay for men to sculpt themselves, like women do?

 

I don't see any imperative for men to do so, after all "sexy" is defined differently for males and females. Females need to be look in peak health in the early stages of their child-bearing years, so the emphasis has (unnaturally) moved to an extreme, whereby women seem to be chasing some phantom of a baby-face and barbie proportions. (as an aside, the "heroin chic" look is a result of gay men in the fashion industry masculinizing the female form into an adrogenous middle-sex: certainly tall and slim is a better clothes-horse.) Men, on the other hand, are defined by their achievements: their power in society (quite often money is equated as short-hand).

 

So men having cosmetic surgery would only be for vanity's sake. Except that their is also a worrying trend of ageism in the workplace: people over fifty seem to be discriminated against and the discrimination is not politically incorrect yet.

 

Apart from the above, the only other reason for plastic surgery is for those who suffer from body-dysmorphic disorder (a mental disorder where they exaggerate their flaws and cannot live with them).

[Atreides]

The Korean dudes think looking better will help them get jobs. And it's the entry-level stage for young guys, not people trying to keep looking young. That struck me as weird as I thought only ladies might have issues with pre-gender equality.

[Tigranes]

Ok. Some things from a Korean (me):

 

1/ Our president looks like a serial killer. You know, the one from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with the mask made of human flesh. Maybe he got his surgery done in Zambia.

 

 

2/ Plastic surgery *is* big, but studies from as early as the early 90's (conducted in US / Europe) have shown that good-looking people, male or female, of all ages in most white-collar professions get jobs easier. It's not just the females, and it's not just Korea. In fact, Korea/Japan would have a higher cultural revulsion of 'pretty guys' than Western countries at the moment.

 

3/ Most people that DO do it seem to do minor things. Like that eyelash thing, I forget what it's called in English and Babelfish translation gives me "Pair it is big the grass". The inner eyelash or something. Most girls do that.

 

All in all, I live in new zealand so I haven't seen it as much, but it's partly because urban South Korea is such a highly populated and competitive place. The youth / fashion culture is about as vibrant as the biggest of the western metropolises.

[LadyCrimson]

I disagree that there's no imperative for men to at least feel like they would fare better with better looks. It's not just an actor thing, although actors, of course, have to deal with as an obvious surface thing.

 

There are studies/theories about how people/infants react more positively to what is considered 'beautfiul' just in general...(Jean Ritter is one of the more widely mentioned ones I think)...of course, they are just theories based on limited studies at the moment, which I'm sure will go wildly up and down in popularity over the years, but such things are probably what they're basing the 'it might help me with getting a job' bit on.

 

One of the most interesting findings supporting the author's hypothesis is that children respond more positively to attractive faces. A baby's preference for attractive people is established within the first three to six months of life, as demonstrated in a study conducted by Langlois, Ritter, Roggman, and Vaughn (1991). The infants look longer at attractive than at unattractive faces. At about one year, they take a more active approach in that they show more positive response to attractive than to unattractive people. The built-in human predisposition to attractiveness is an interesting topic with important ramifications for the way people react to one another, and is worthy of further investigation.

[Tigranes]

That's very interesting. I assume that the definition of "attractive" was based on a general standard agreed upon by most of the populace? (e.g. we know people with more symmetrical / balanced facial features are often considered attractive) A built-in predisposition does support the theory that 'attractivity' as a personality trait is not primarily an environmental product.

[LadyCrimson]

I've tried to find a good article based on that particular study but all I found on quick googling was a PDF file of the report You can look at it in html but the link for it is monstrous, I'm not sure it'd work in a forum.

 

I believe, however, that they had an adult panel judge which 'faces' were attractive etc. and used those...I do not know the exact nature of how they had the adults 'judge'. I seem to remember Time magazine doing a big article on it back then tho...I think it was 'in the news' a while.

 

The link to the html report is here. If it doesn't work, sorry.

 

Edit: The report has some info on it's 2nd page but not being a scientist I don't really understand their rating system references.

 

The slides of the women's faces had been used

in a previous study of infant preferences for attractive faces (Langlois et

al., 1987). The slides were selected from a pool of 275 women's and 165

men's faces that were rated for attractiveness by at least 40 undergradu-

ate men and women using a 5-point Likert-type scale (range of mean

attractiveness for women = 1.05 to 4.02, M= 2.26,

SD = 0.68; range for men = 1.11 to 4.06, M = 2.42, SD = 0.56).

The reliabilities of these ratings were .97 for the women's faces and .95 for the men's faces, as assessed by coefficient alphas

Edited April 16, 2006 by LadyCrimson

[Atreides]

Ok. Some things from a Korean (me):

Dude, did BOA go under the knife?

[LadyCrimson]

Ok, here's Langlois page where they describe what they mean by 'mathematically attractive face'.

Edited April 16, 2006 by LadyCrimson

[DarthVala]

The only person who is mathematically attractive is Cortana.....

[Diogo Ribeiro]

In other hip cities, the stylish "metrosexual" look is being overtaken by the "ubersexual," a more macho breed whose straight sexual orientation is unambiguous. But in Seoul, the trend veers the other way, toward the "cross-sexual"

[Llyranor]

Haha, society is sad.

[metadigital]

In other hip cities, the stylish "metrosexual" look is being overtaken by the "ubersexual," a more macho breed whose straight sexual orientation is unambiguous. But in Seoul, the trend veers the other way, toward the "cross-sexual"

[Judge Hades]

I rather have plastic surgery than plastique surgery.

[Laozi]

As someone born tragedically beautiful I am somewhat offended that you "norms" feel that through a few surgeries you can make youself presentable. Most of us can spot some "work" such as the ever common nose job a mile away and shun those accordingly, but I can tell you that everyone of us deep down fears that one of you have somehow infiltrated our ranks and is living among us. I fear that the only way we can be sure is to have some sort of registry done at birth, and we can closely moniter your development through the pubescent years to make sure nothing like this can happen. Even then I would wonder if we would be doing enough.

Edited April 16, 2006 by Laozi

[WinterSun]

You say that, but anything that reduces the amount of ugly people in the world has to be good.

[Fenghuang]

But when you're already stunningly handsome what can you do?

 

 

Ladies, I'm single.