I learn today that the government has announced a “crackdown” on “on dodgy cosmetic practitioners in England”, which is another way of saying they are not going to do much about it. Governments of all colours announce crackdowns to make it look like they are doing something about an area of public concern and today’s concern is around dodgy cosmetic practitioners. Isn’t that all of them?
I know that this is a huge industry as people, mainly, though not solely, women are encouraged to effectively rage against the natural process of ageing by going through various procedures, which they are told makes them look younger and so more attractive. Far be it for me to criticise people for undergoing whatever procedures they choose because, frankly, it’s none of my business, although I do have general opinions. I find lip fillers utterly grotesque, the same with silky smooth skin and the like brought about by so-called dermal fillers. I am quite fond of the lines of age and accept that as one ages, things begin to go south. The pressures upon all of us to look a certain way can be intense.
And let’s be clear about this: cosmetic practitioners are in it for the money. It’s about convincing people they will look more attractive and younger if only they have all manner of gunk squeezed into their faces, go through invasive breast augmentation surgery and have what is known as a Brazilian Butt Lift. A less attractive, and more accurate, term for the latter procedure is “fat graft”, whereby one’s own fat is transferred surgically from another part of one’s body to one’s arse. Lovely.
Women, in particular, are subject to enormous pressure to look a certain way. A male-driven media more than encourages them to look a certain way. The gutter press, like the Daily Mail, is forever offering its middle aged and elderly female readers diets to make them look slim, as of course they are supposed to look. Their voyeurist reporters are forever sharing photos of ‘models’ and celebrities “flaunting” their “curves”, pressing home their agenda that this is what women are supposed to look like. And the wider media has form for showing no interest in women as they get older, particularly in the world of entertainment. You, ladies, cannot go grey, you must have a Kardashian “butt”, your breasts mustn’t sag and God forbid if your lips shrink as you age or that you acquire lines on your face. The ageing process cannot be stopped but if you do this, that and the other, it can look like it can be.
I am not convinced that the result of these cosmetic processes does actually make anyone look younger, although I suppose it’s part of a greater illusion that if you feel younger, then that’s all that matters. But how safe is it?
As things stand, I could set myself up in the aesthetics business. I wouldn’t need any formal training nor qualifications. I could, if I wanted to make it look authentic, pay for a private training course and put some meaningless letters after my name, to impress people and convince them that I was essentially a qualified operative. But some people have died and almost suffered leg amputations when treatments have been carried out by unqualified charlatans. I am sure that many of these so-called practitioners are decent and principled but none of them, not one, are medically trained. They carry out cosmetic procedures, which is to say surgery, purely to make people feel better about themselves.
The so-called beauty industry exists because people have been persuaded that getting old and looking older is a bad thing or that some of the features they were born with are not perfect and should be changed. Our job, surely, is to query that assertion and to remind ourselves that everyone is different and beautiful in their own way. If someone looks at Katie Price and thinks, well, I’d love to look like that, then that’s their choice and theirs alone. I do not believe beauty is skin deep – at least I hope not given what I look like these days – and neither should you, although that’s not to say you shouldn’t do what you want to your body.
More than some kind of government here today, gone tomorrow “crackdown”, what I think we need is a change of mindset. No one should feel pressured to change the way they look, regardless of the pressures of society in general and the gutter end of the media in particular.
“You’re beautiful, it’s true,” slobbered the ghastly crooner James Blunt. Awful music, bang on message. And you don’t need to inject tons of shit into your body if you don’t want to.
