The Cultish Nature Of Plastic Surgery
“We are living in one of those sci-fi films where we thought the events were fiction, but are actually reality. It is cult-like.”
- jessica Giraldo
I always used to say that if I had the money to, I would get liposuction and a double chin removal. I would say these things, and I am not sure if I ever truly meant it. My first concern would be where I would get the money for this. The second would be, why? Why did I feel like I needed these things to look pretty when people would compliment me without them?
Image Courtesy: Instagram
When did we as a society decide that we can coin what is deemed beautiful? Beauty is ever-changing and highly personal, varying from culture to culture, and person to person. As a pre-teen, I was fed the idea from Tumblr that having a thigh gap and being thin is beauty. In high school, I was told that at just 16 years old, I needed to be full of curves. I would obsessively pull at my belly fat in the mirror, saying if only I could cut this right off, or being in bed with a lover and consciously paying attention to each way I turned my body to minimize how many rolls they could see. It is exhausting, but I love people like Michaela Stark and the way she beautifies bodies with rolls.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
I thought plastic surgery would be the only way I could be seen as attractive. I have tried the diets, but as someone who struggles with eating too much or not enough, they can be very upsetting. I thought, if only I had enough extra cash lying around. Then, I watched my friends get lip injections and heard my coworker talk about her upcoming nose job, and that was when it all clicked. It is not just me, and it never really was.
We stare at screens for hours, watching countless women becoming carbon copies of one another, losing all individuality. We are living in one of those sci-fi films where we thought the events were fiction, but are actually reality. It is cult-like. We desire big lips and a thin waist, and we keep our haircuts and makeup up-to-date until we look back a few months later and think how “cringe” we looked doing so. We start to become only the physical, and no longer the internal. Focusing so much on how you present yourself externally only pulls away from your inner beauty.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
High-maintenance women are not bad women, and you are not a robot if you care about your looks. Additionally, not all plastic surgery is bad, and some is necessary to increase quality of life, or to allow people to feel comfortable in their gender. Yet, cosmetic plastic surgery in particular has begun to erase women’s inner beauty and make them believe that the outside is what is important. There is such a fine line between doing it for yourself and doing it to impress others. Yet, your soul is hungry and begging to be fed with love because it knows it is beautiful. It knows it has so much to offer to you and to those who interact with you. Your imperfections do not make you, nor do your perfections. There is far too much pressure on impressions based on appearance, and too many opinions on how to become “more beautiful.”
Image Courtesy: Instagram
I know I sound super preachy saying how beauty comes within and you should love yourself; yet, I am the first to look at an image of myself and say I look fat and ugly. I am not an all-knowing being, I am a 21-year-old English Major who treats these pages as a canvas of expression while drinking wine on a Tuesday night. I do not have the magic fix to stop the conditioning we have endured our entire lives. But, you are not ugly if you do not look like the next trending internet celebrity, and you do not need plastic surgery because you feel like you need to look like them. Some of them are not even happy themselves. You are beautiful, everyone is beautiful, and you do not need to sacrifice your body and mind to feel like such.
Strike Out,
Jessica Giraldo
Saint Augustine
Editors: Maya Kayya, Emmy Brutnell
Jessica Giraldo is the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief, Blog Director, Beauty Director, and a Writer for Strike Magazine, Saint Augustine. Jess is addicted to her Revlon blowout brush and sweet little treats (especially mint Oreos). Check her out on Instagram: @jessica.giraldo and reach her via email: jessicagiraldobusiness@gmail.com
