Cosmetic surgery seems to be the latest “big thing.” Everyone wants to have a little taken off here, or a little accentuated there. And everyone knows that all surgery carries risk. A bit lumpy? Liposuction will help, but the risks include formation of fat clots or blood clots and damage to skin or nerves. Looking for twin peaks? Risks of breast implants include changes in nipple/breast sensation, necrosis, tissue atrophy, and unexpected milk production.
Throughout history, women and men used various methods to alter their bodies, and, like the present day, they have employed, often, dangerous techniques to change or accentuate libidinous areas such as the lips, eyes, breasts, or genitals.
“Vanity is the Quicksand of Reason”
Medieval women swallowed arsenic – a toxin, which can cause nausea, vomiting, sore throat, and death – to freshen their complexions. They also applied lemon juice (the proto-facial acid peel?), and less pleasant substances such as bats’ blood and young boys’ urine, again, to freshen their complexions. I don’t know about bats’ blood, but we all know what urine does to a baby’s bottom.
During the Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth I applied a lead paste over her face, neck, and breasts to cover her smallpox scars and to appear fair-skinned. Clearly she didn’t know that lead poisoning can contribute to high blood pressure, damage the reproductive organs, and cause listlessness, incoordination, and bizarre behavior – even death. She also used vermilion (a poisonous red crystalline mercuric sulfide) to redden her cheeks and lips and applied harsh abrasive powders to whiten her teeth and freshen her breath.
Other women in Elizabeth’s time used corrosives like lye to lighten their hair, or sulfuric acid to darken the hair. Presumably they were careful not to touch the skin. Women used drops of belladonna (also known as deadly nightshade, a poisonous plant that can cause hallucinations or death) to increase the size of their pupils, and thus create the fashionable dreamy-looking eyes. Wealthy women used mercury facial peels to improve the complexion. The nervous system is very sensitive to mercury in all forms, and mercury vapors are most harmful because they reach the brain and can cause permanent damage to it as well as to the kidneys and to developing fetuses.
Perfecting the Body
In the 17th century, bodices that were originally designed to cover women’s curves, developed into the corset, which, by thinning women’s waists to a drastic 13 inches, emphasized the breasts and hips. No wonder the women of the time were perceived as delicate and prone to fainting at the least excitement: they couldn’t breathe! On the other hand, 17th century Spanish girls wore lead breastplates to stunt the growth of their breasts.
Women in the Restoration wore harmless, but bizarre, genital wigs, called merkins or muggets to disguise the fact that their pubic hair had fallen out as a result of venereal disease. And French women used hair-growth “enhancers” to lengthen pubic hair so it could be adorned with bows.
In China, foot binding became a popular sexual fashion during the Ming Dynasty (although it had been practiced earlier). The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco describes the practice of deforming women’s feet: “By the time a girl turned three years old, all her toes but the first were broken, and her feet were bound tightly with cloth strips to keep her feet from growing larger than 10 cm, about 3.9 inches. The practice would cause the soles of feet to bend in extreme concavity.” This malformation of the feet symbolized wealth and forced the women to walk in a manner that the men of the time found arousing.
Ancient Japanese women used a mixture of nutgill, tannin and iron to fashionably darken their teeth. Northern Japanese girls tattooed their foreheads, hands, arms, and upper lips, with a motif that stretched from ear to ear (the tattoo was completed by the groom on their honeymoon). Tattoos, still popular, carry risks including infections, lesions, and allergic reactions.
In West Africa, Assini women encouraged the larvae of some insects to attack their nipples, so the consequent swelling would make them appear larger. The Venda girls of southwest Africa would pull on their labias from the ages of 10 to 12 to stretch them to fashionable length. Although most women were trying to improve their appearance, some altered their looks to make themselves unattractive – the Padaung women of Burma stretched their necks with rings and the women of some African tribes stretched large holes in their lips – to prevent themselves from being kidnapped or taken into slavery.
Men have also gone to painful means in the name of physical attractiveness. Ancient Greek warriors practiced phimosis: the narrowing of the orifice of the penis and extreme lengthening of the foreskin by attaching metal clamps to the foreskin. Central Australian men enhanced their pubic area by attaching beads or shells to their pubic hair. And in many tribal societies, the pattern of scar tissue, which results from rubbing in charcoal into small cuts (known as scarification or cicatristation), denoted a man’s social status or rank.
What Price Beauty?
Over time, laws have tried to deter people from using “false” good looks. An 18th-century British law allowed husbands to annul their marriage if they discovered their wives had deceived them with makeup, wigs, and the like. To prevent a rebellion of female workers, during the Second World War, the American government had to reverse a decision to remove lipstick from its list of essential commodities.
Where do standards of beauty come from? It used to be primarily from the desire to find a good mating partner. Physically, long lustrous hair is a sign of good health, light skin makes it more difficult to hide illness, and a blush on the face and lips indicates sexual arousal.
Although we may laugh, and sometimes cringe, at the risks taken by people in the past to attain beauty, today, there is even more incentive to be beautiful. It is no longer just about attracting a mate – it is about having a better life. Studies have shown that attractive people earn more – up to 15% more for men and 11% for women. And attractive criminals receive sentences that are up to 20% lighter than less attractive offenders.
So it’s not surprising that, globally, beauty today is a US$160-billion-a-year industry. Americans spend more each year on make-up, skin and hair care, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet pills than they do on education. Cosmetic surgery has become a US$20-million-a-year business, and cosmetic procedures have increased more than 220% since 1997. And while, historically, beauty procedures and treatments were limited to women of the wealthy class, today, more than 70% of those having cosmetic surgery earn less than US$50K per year.
With television shows like Extreme Makeover demonstrating how average plain-Janes (or Johns) can become attractive and attain happiness, where will this ability to redesign ourselves lead? How will we define beauty in the future? And as self-transformations become more common and more extreme, will self-improvement become self-mutilation?
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