Perfect Christmas Gifts: Facelift, Nosejob, Boobjob

[Thom Little]

Last year Helena Rasin's grandmother gave her $200 for Christmas. This year her grandmother gave her a new nose.

"A nose job is the best Christmas present ever because you'll have it forever," Ms. Rasin, 25, a drug company representative in Los Angeles, said two weeks ago while at home recuperating from her rhinoplasty. "It's not like some sweater you don't like and have to take back to the store. Even with the bandages still on, I can already tell I look cuter."

.......

"We're seeing more and more women in their 20's and 30's who have loose tummies and hollow breasts as a result of having babies," said Dr. Linda Li, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, Calif. "The women want to restore themselves by having surgery, and their husbands are giving it to them."

Dr. Li, a regular on the makeover show "Dr. 90210," said she has about 30 new patients this month who are receiving surgery as a gift. Some have appointments for $7,000 breast augmentations. Others, she said, will have multiple surgeries in a single session: a $23,000 combination of a tummy tuck, liposuction, breast implants and eye lifts, for instance.

"The way we view cosmetic surgery has really changed," Dr. Li said. "If you can shop for your own new tummy, new chest and new teeth, you can buy them for someone else too."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/fashion/thursdaystyles/29skin.html

[Deja Q]

1. And the ultimate goal for all that?

Blowjob.

[neweurope]

2. If my SO gave that to me it would signal "I don't like you the way

you are" to me. He could go packing.

----------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[wakeme2008]

3. I think not...

I would bet all these women had told their husbands that they did not like XXXX and their husbands gave them what they wanted.

[Lerkfish]

6. I think your POV is supported..otherwise the surgeries would not happen.

IF the person was insulted by the gift, they simply would not allow the procedure.

I lived in Los Angeles, in the valley, for a short year. I knew many completely attractive women who dreamed of plastic surgery to make themselves "perfect". Its a local psychosis brought on by the worship of the surface being over substance.

[mdelaguna2000]

4. Try the gym ... lazy "entitled" Americans

This is so symptomatic of what's wrong with our country and those like it.
Like Rome before the Fall. What the cost of one of these surgeries could do for a poor
family somewhere else on the planet. Jeez.

[Lerkfish]

7. There are arguably good reasons for plastic surgery...

repairing cleft palates, restoring a breast after breast cancer, reconstruction after trauma, etc.
Its important to have plastic surgeons available for these types of things.

I wonder if the frivolous surgeries don't help to finance the overhead so that the necessary surgeries can happen.

at any rate, I agree that many of these surgeries are unnecessary, not because someone is "lazy", but because someone has been brainwashed by society into believing appearance is more important than personhood. I'd use "gullible" more than "lazy".

[Deb]

5. Nothing exemplifies the inequity in our health care system

like an article on the gifting of elective surgery. sigh...

[Lerkfish]

8. one better: Viagra being an approved health insurance item while pap

smears are not covered.

that's an inequity. The first is just so Mr Johnson can get his johnson off on the health company's tab, and the second a necessary examination to prevent disease.

But because its a "woman's thing", its not covered.