Ad Feminem

Cosmetic Castrations Banned For Thai Boys

Thailand has temporarily banned cosmetic castrations, as it ponders measures to ban the operation for boys. Removal of the testes leads to a loss in the production of testosterone and is considered a quick and effective transexuality measure. The irreversible procedure only takes 15 minutes and can cost as little as $50, consistent with Thailand's position as a hugely popular destination for plastic surgery tourism.

In typical Thai fashion, the ban is not being universally observed and a permanent ban is simply expected to drive the practice underground. But it has been welcomed as a move helps protect boys at an impressionable age. Jetsada Taesombat of the South-East Asian Consortium on Gender, Sexuality and Health commented:
"The pressure to look beautiful is imposed equally on everyone by an adult-controlled media. Witness all the slimming and fitness centres and clinics offering nose jobs and eye-lid operations, all catering to young people."

Liposuction, Famine Victims and You

It's an arch comment, sure. Pradeep Mehta of the CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economy and the Environment, made it when suggesting that money spent in the U.S. on liposuction to remove the fatty deposits of excess consumption should instead go to aid the victims of famine.

Mehta was hitting back at U.S. claims that India's economic growth, like that of China, is to fault for the effects of resource depletion being felt around the world. That blame followed the news last week that big box stores had started rationing rice. Mehta also pointed our that if Americans ate at the rate of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.”

Of course, many might argue instead that if the American middle class ate less, then it would instead convert the spare biomass into ethanol for its SUVs. But that's not the point. Instead, we do need to take a look at our willingness to blame others for our modern maladies, both real and perceived. Is our over-consumption the fault of the ads that surround us? Of the corporations that place them? Of the plastic surgeons who seek to benefit by sucking out the excess?

Just as America needs to look at its own problems before blaming India and China, individuals need to bring order to their own before blaming society. Each of us needs to resist the notion that we can only be more by owning more, that wrinkles equal sickness, that size zero should be our monolithic ideal.

So take a good long look at yourself. And love what you see. Then start thinking about what we can do collectively.

Who's Touching Your Kids?

"I can't see any reason why a child … would need to expose their intimate body parts to strange adults for the sake of fashion or a trend," said New South Wales Minister for Community Services, Kevin Greene, following that Australian state’s recent ban on the piercing of children’s nipples and genitals.
His view seems fair enough, yet is one will all too little resonance among US states. Take Iowa, for example, where two attempts at similar regulation failed. Republicans there balked at the idea of raising license fees for body-piercing establishments, needed to ensure there was financing for enforcement.
Reports from Philadelphia, meanwhile, show that girls as young as eight are having bikini waxes for non-existent public hair in the back rooms of state-licensed salons. What training and guidance does the State Cosmetology Board provide there, on the subject of children? None. Ad Feminem did the research. The Governor’s office is unconcerned. Neither is the Department of Public Welfare, charged with implementing Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services law.
The same story is told by the FDA, which has technically banned the marketing of breast implants to teens, yet sits idly by as thousands more girls each year go under the knife for bigger breasts.
Is it really too much to ask that eight year olds not be subjected to bikini waxes? The simple shock jock response is of course to evoke the exercising of parental responsibility. But such a response is merely emblematic of a superficial approach to society consistent with making appearance matter too much in the first place. In fulfilling its role as the arbiter of a fair society has a responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
The campaign being fought against self confidence by the beauty industry and its collaborators is so ferocious that merely attaining the age of 18 provides little defense. But it’s a line we’d like to see drawn all the same.

Nevada to Nix Botox Cowboys?

Add Nevada to the list of states currently considering regulations for plastic surgery. A new legislative health subcommittee is looking into just who does what (against reports of cosmetic surgery spa receptionists wielding the ubiquitous hypodermics of poison and filler).

Singapore Slings New Lipo Regulations

Earlier today, Singapore announced a long-awaited tightening of regulations on liposuction: according to draft regulations, patients will have to sit out an 15 day cooling-off period before the procedure can be carried out, and doctors will be required to meet minimum standards for specific training.

Regarding the 15 days, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said: "We think this period is useful, otherwise, some operators might hard sell and force the customer to go and lie down and do it immediately.”

In order to be certified to carry out the procedure, doctors would be required to undergo at least a year of general surgical training and also receive specific instruction on liposuction. While this falls well short of the board-certification requirements for plastic surgeons, it would at least improve the training levels of general practitioners posing as cosmetic surgeons.

The draft regulations have met with much debate. A notable voice in favor has proven to be that of liposuction's inventor, Professor Yves Illouz, who points out that allowing untrained doctors to carry out the procedure was a "disaster" in his native France, resulting in 65 deaths.

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Germany to Ban Teen Cosmetic Surgery

Deputies from Germany's dominant Social Democratic Party (SDP) laid the groundwork for a legislative ban on cosmetic surgery for teens, Wednesday. Rising numbers of medically unnecessary procedures for minors is cited as the reason to introduce the new law.

"I believe that the beauty ideal, mostly for teenagers but also for children, has gone astray," said SDP health expert Karl Lauterbach according to an AFP report. The German Federation of Paediatricians supports the ban, while unsurprisingly, the German Society for Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery is rather less enthusiastic.

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