No Pain, No Gain

Posted by marieClairvoyant on Sep 23, 2010 in fashion & beauty, hot topics | 0 comments

One of my (annoying) hobbies, is to research and study matters of irrelevance. This often ends up with me having knowledge on the most random topics and always having a little to say about most things with an interesting fact (much to the irritation of those around me). Today, the topic is… beauty is pain. Or is it? Well, with foot binding and neck stretching as examples, you tell me.

After doing my morning browse on theguardian.co.uk I read an article of a woman who got cosmetic foot surgery. She had her bunions removed, and her toes shortened and straightened. The recovery period of aesthetic foot surgery is around 8 – 10 weeks, with a 15% possibility of complications arising. Why?! Women (and a few men) go through an incredible amount of pain and suffering for what they might think is “beauty”. From the new advances such as the foot surgery, to plastic surgery as we know it, chemical peels and of course, the all too common: starving themselves. Though this is not a recent development, as I’m sure you know. Allow me to go back a few years and remind you all about the torturous (yes, torturous) things people did to themselves in order for them to obtain the ludicrous, painfully attainable, illusion of beauty.

Foot binding:

Scary stuff this is. It started in the 10^th century China, when a legend says a Prince started this because he loved the lily shaped foot of his lover. The bound foot became a symbol of wealth and well born women. Making them more desirable the smaller and more deformed their feet were.

Neck Stretching:

The Paduang tribe of Burma still practice this custom today. Girls from the age of five are given metal rings for their necks which pushes their shoulders sown and increase the length of the neck.

Corsets

As early as the 1700’s they’ve been in the fashion scene. However, how does dislocated internal organs, constricted lungs and heart, pressuring the liver, pushing up the stomach, squeezing of the intestines and compressing of the bladder sound to you?

Remaining respectful of the culture/customs of these followings, this is just a mere observation that beauty is pain, and this saying knows no bounds.

Lauren Joubert -Marie Claire CT intern