So Katie Price's new book remains at number one on the hardback bestseller charts, outselling its closest rivals by more than two to one. That's twenty thousand people in this country a week who feel the need to read whatever tidied-up drivel she's splurged during her latest conversations to her ghost writer.
I don't blame Katie for anything that surrounds her, I guess the books are a form of therapy in which she's the one who's making the money. But presumably guys aren't buying these. Even if they find her unnatural/orange look alluring they'd only be interested in the pictures. Which means girls, thousands of them, pouring over the words of wisdom of that media and plastic surgery created vision of unreality that is 'Jordan'.
Is this what large swathes of the feminine gender aspires to these days? A woman who gave birth live on the internet to a disabled baby so that pay-per-viewers could get their rocks off to the full gynaecological horror of parturition? A 'glamour' model who pops into the clinic to be cut open and have her breasts re-sized as often as the rest of us go for dental check ups?
But the fact that society holds Mrs. Andre up as some role model of sexuality is understandable when you take a look at the way American culture has been going for the past few decades. A country that was always obsessed with the body beautiful can now utilize advances in medical technology to pursue that aim, and MTV is full of shows about attractive young airheads and himbos who think that a surgical procedure will take them that bit closer to perfection, stuff like calf implants or botox or collagen or perkier breasts or a different nose. Then, after that, maybe just one more operation, then one more'¦.
And, like every other aspect of US culture, a few years later the UK catches up, and cosmetic surgery has now become big business over here. Money talks, and the industry can promote itself big-time, particularly with the media idealising the unnaturally big-breasted bimbo as something for women to aspire to and lad mags running competitions to give away breast implants for readers' girlfriends. So more and more clinics open up featuring amoral surgeons who will confused and insecure girls exactly what they 'need' to improve the way they look.
But you don't actually need anything. Every aspect of your physicality is an exterior representation of who you are inside. Liposuction won't cure your appetite, and a little nip and tuck won't alter the fact that 99% of women in this country are unhappy with their bodies. No amount of surgery will ever change that belief, because it's all in their heads. All women are beautiful in some way, but if they don't fall into society-created categories of attractiveness then more and more look to having their body pointlessly brutalised, scarred and screwed with as some kind of solution.
The saddest example I ever heard, sadder than a working class girl saving up for enormous implants which then do permanent damage to her back, was a girl I used to work with who was intelligent, artistic, amazing and perfect as she was, but her mind was set on popping over to South Africa for implants because she was frustrated at rarely being able to get clothes that fitted her shape.
I mean, whaaatt? You were going under the surgeon's knife, enduring a painful recovery period, losing sensation in the area, just so it was easier to find outfits? I often don't fit into size 12 shoes and larger ones are much more expensive and only available from freak-shops like High And Mighty, but I'm not popping into the clinic to ask them to take a half-inch off my toes on both feet am I? But this is just the kind of warped logic you have to deal with when trying to talk the deluded out of plastic surgery.
I could never go out with someone who'd had cosmetic surgery, and if that's a prejudice then sorry but I'm prejudiced. Quite apart from the fact that, as Charlie Brooker observed, it makes operated-on parts resemble something from Gunther Von Haus' Bodyworld exhibition and that, as you age with plastic surgery, you end up looking like a surrealist's nightmare (see Sly Stallone's mother, or rather don't), what does that priority say about you as a person? That you value people noticing your breasts or lips or lack of wrinkles more than your mind or soul? I can put up with all sorts of bodily flaws if a person is sweet and smart and lovely and interesting, I think most people can. So unless it's going to help you make more money from a career in the lad mags, why on earth would a girl do it?
