[xomanadaxo]

I think there's a big difference between considering plastic surgery and seriously considering plastic surgery. I've had days where I've looked in the mirror and disliked something about my physical appearance; I may have even wondered what I would look like if I had plastic surgery to correct it. However, just because I have considered it before does not mean I would necessarily do it.

I see value in plastic surgery for correcting serious physical deformities (eg after an accident), or even for someone who has been self-conscious about some feature their entire lives. While ideally I would hope that people could be confident with their appearances as-is, I also don't think it's fair to judge people who chose surgery. It's such a personal choice, and people's beliefs about it are often strongly influenced by their local culture. For example based on my understanding of Leslie Anne's post, she grew up in a culture where plastic surgery was the norm. A 14-year-old getting a nose job would be unheard of where I grew up, but it may be perfectly normal for her hometown.

To put it in a different perspective...
I had really bad buckteeth as a child...cartoon character bad. They stuck out of my mouth all the time, even when my lips were closed. I got teased about it a lot, even by adults (I had a teacher call me "bunny" for an entire year because she said I looked like a cute little bunny rabbit. None of the other kids had nicknames from her.) The older I got, the more self-conscious I felt and the harder I tried to draw attention away from my teeth. I cut my hair, grew out my bangs…In fifth grade I even practiced keeping my lower lip over my front teeth (which just made me look like a bulldog with a bad underbite). Even though my parents had always believed braces were unnecessary (My dad reasoned teeth were for chewing, so it didn’t matter what they look like), I eventually convinced them to let me get braces. Having braces was a lengthy, expensive and often painful process. My teeth were so crooked that, by the time I got them off six years later, the entire shape of my face had changed. Objectively speaking, this is really not that much different than someone getting a nose job. They are both (usually) for purely cosmetic reasons, they dramatically alter the person’s physical appearance, they’re costly and painful. However, I seriously doubt the majority of Americans would see anything wrong with me getting braces as a child.