Originally posted by: isildur
Originally posted by: DougK62
Originally posted by: Skoorb
I can pretty much always tell fake ones but it doesn't bother me at all. I can also tell fake teeth. By fake I mean white and well shaped. Real ones look like
this. Few would scoff at the idea of braces, so why scoff at breast implants?
Further to geekbabe's comments it's quite unnatural for most adults in our society to have an 8% bodyfat and nice biceps. It requires artificial modification of the body. Though it's not surgical, it still results in an abnormal (albeit unarguably good) appearance.
Generally people are well received when they say that they're going to start excercising, consciously cutting back their calories, and trying to look better in this way, so why not boobs?
Really I have yet to figure out how somebody could be for braces and against breast implants. In fact, considering that braces are generally started on minors and breast implants are not, at least with BIs the person getting them has some say in the matter as a legal adult.
You can't compare fake boobs to braces. Fake boobs require surgery and are purely cosmetic. IMO, having surgery for mere cosmetics is insane. Braces are mostly used for cosmetics, but can also solve a lot of mouth problems in young people - like fixing an incorrect bite and seriously goofy teeth. A badly misaligned bite and jacked up teeth can cause serious jaw problems later in life and be very painful.
Lifting weights and such to improve muscle mass is not an artificial modification of the body. That's absurd. There is nothing artificial nor abnormal about it. Fatties eat a lot of McD's and don't exercise to get that way. Who is the one using artificial means? A built dude that lifts and does cardio or a fatty that plugs himself full of preservatives and artificial foods?
Your whole post is seriously jacked up. I hope you weren't serious.
Its just a matter of degree, not substance.
Nearly all people take various steps to alter their appearance, some are more invasive than others, but the purpse is the same - to exert a willful control over how I/you/they look.
Braces, teeth whitening, shaving, hair replacement treatments, hair dye, plucking eyebrows, manicure/pedicure, tanning (booth, outside, applicated, whatever), birthmark removal, colored contacts, laser eye surgery, liposuction, breast reduction/augmentation/prosthesis, etc.
The distinction between someone who alters their appearance in some way b/c they simply feel more confident or comfortable with the change and someone who changes their appearance b/c of some deeprooted self-loathing issues or some other neurosis, as you ascribe to ALL, is not one that can be discerned from the simple fact of the alteration. Not at all that there AREN'T people changing their body for those reasons, but not EVERYONE who does so is one of them.
That would be akin to asserting that everyone who eats fast-food crap does so b/c they don't know or care anything about their own nutritional health - you can't claim to know the "why" simply by the incident when there is more than one plausible solution for "why."