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Injectable Fillers: Perfect or Problematic?

 
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In the first part of this article I detailed my journey into the world of injectable fillers. Upon seeing these substances advocated in magazines such as Redbook and Better Homes and Gardens, I decided to delve further into my thoughts regarding how they impact, or reflect upon, female sexuality as a whole.

To draw upon one more point of media reference, I recently viewed the movie Surrogates with my husband. This film depicts a world in which humans sit back into comfy dentist chairs and hook their brains up to a surrogate, which is a manufactured body allowing them to experience all of the pleasure that life has to offer without any of the physical pain. (How the surrogates allow humans to feel sexual and tactile pleasure but not pain remains unclear.)

At the end of the movie, Bruce Willis decides to literally pull the plug on the surrogates because he sees (through his dysfunctional marriage) that eliminating physical pain is not the same as eliminating emotional pain, and when the two are conflated it makes it even harder to deal with negative emotions. Although some may not see the connection, I think this is an astute observation regarding what can be seen as artificially constructed female beauty.

None of us can deny that we, as women, are headed towards surrogacy. As a society, we believe that if we can just escape the confines of our bodies then we can pave the path for eternal bliss and contentment. This belief is often expressed through the hygienic habits of women, which include makeup, diets, douching, shaving, hair extensions, manicures, skin treatments, waxing, tweezing, hair dye, and so forth.

Only recently have we been presented with the possibility of actually having a fake body. It’s already available in its extreme forms like breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, butt implants, etc. It’s slowly making its way into popular culture via injectable fillers. This is primarily due to the fact that it’s much easier to convince a woman to plump her lips than it is to cut open her skin and implant silicone bags. True and lasting social change takes time.

Right now we’re injecting neurotoxins into our faces, but it’s important to consider where we're headed. Eventually we will reach a point where we are simply surrogates, constructed of miscellaneous machine parts and products.

But even then, we won’t be able to escape our humanity. And why would we want to?

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We value and respect our HERWriters' experiences, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice, although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.

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