Nobody’s satisfied: the imperfect earlobe and the unfashionable human body
Recently I saw an ad on TV for a product designed to fix a problem I previously hadn’t known existed: saggy earlobes.
At first I thought it must be a joke of some sort. Saggy earlobes? Of all the available body parts about which we’ve grown so self-conscious and dissatisfied, I wouldn’t have thought that earlobes would be high on anybody’s list.
But apparently a significant number of people will barely leave the house because of their worn-out earlobes—or their perception of their worn-out earlobes. So this product is the non-surgical equivalent of breast implants for the earlobe, uplifting the fallen.
Take a look, if you dare.
We’re never satisfied, it seems. In some cultures, people want nothing more than to do the opposite, all for beauty’s sake: to streeeeetch their earlobes with wider and bigger plugs so that they become—not just saggy, but stupendously, freakishly saggy.
To wit:
And lest you think such spectacular distortions of body parts are the predilection only of tribal folk, think again. Recently I couldn’t help but notice (although I tried valiantly to keep from staring) an ethnically unremarkable young man sporting similar auricular splendor behind the counter of our local health food store.
I’ve long owned a fascinating book entitled The Unfashionable Human Body. It describes the lengths to which people have gone throughout history to overcome their essential boredom with the unadorned human form. Clothes are part of this effort, although of course they have many practical considerations as well. Jewelry likewise, minus the practical. But, especially in areas where clothing as we know it is more or less optional, the body itself became the plastic clay to be molded by humankind’s driving need to not leave well enough alone.
The variety has been astounding. For example, the book has a lengthy chapter, with illustrations, on foot-binding, one of the saddest chapters in the annals of what people are willing to do for beauty and an enhanced ability to attract the opposite sex. In this endeavor, as in present-day female genital mutilation, the practice involved not just the preferences of the opposite sex, but the cooperation of older woman themselves in foisting it on young girls to perpetuate the custom and increase the girls’ desirability.
So-called “civilized” people are hardly immune to such machinations. The whalebone corset was responsible for a great deal of the female fainting that went on not all that long ago in Western life. And I’m old enough to remember a time when even young teenagers were expected to wear girdles (and, believe me, those things were uncomfortable) any time they wore a garment that was in the least form-fitting, lest they be betrayed by a tell-tale jiggle.
My own grandmother came from an era in which the assumption was that, without such support, the body would slide, jelly-like, into a state of amorphous shapelessness; even the feet and ankles needed high-sided shoes to shore up their innate tendency to “spread” and weaken.
And then there’s that perennial favorite, high heels. No ankle support there. These are a little unusual, to be sure—but only a little:
Our driving force to transform ourselves into objects of beauty—even if one culture’s transformation is another’s deformation—is most decidedly here to stay.
And don’t get me started on tattoos.
This bit caught my blogging eye:
“Foot-binding, one of the saddest chapters in the annals of what people are willing to do for beauty and an enhanced ability to attract the opposite sex . . .”
Do you suppose the gals called for it, or the guys? Both are stupid beyond the lengths to which any other mammalian species would go to attract the opposite sex, and just about everything we glean from the metamysogynist Arab world these days suggests that it’s all about preening men’s putting women down in order to build their humiliated sense of self up. Yes, I know, it’s Biblical. The woman made me do it Lord. But a lot of our fellow Americans have moved onward and upward.
Here’s my take, from a coupla months back:
Whatever happens, we are winning
Footbinding, FGM, earlobe stretching, tattooing, body piercing … anthorpologists call all of these things mutilation. Yes, even ordinary earlobe piercing.
Neoneocon, how do you feel about parents having the earlobes of their infants or toddlers pierced?
C’mon Neo, I’ll bet you’ve been turning yourself into a sex object for years as well —
by shaving your legs.
When I married my wife in 1994, she didn’t; and I was happy. But then she went to int’l conferences, like the big UN women’s conf in Beijing in 1995, and she found out that most civilized women laughed at those women who didn’t shave their legs.
So she started shaving, which is also OK, and I’m still happy.
But it was women’s nasty comments, not her husband, that made my wife want to shave. I’m pretty sure some US friends didn’t realize that my wife didn’t shave when they made their honest, but insulting against non-shavers comments.
It’s women that enforce the fashion norms.
Possibly even Golde Meir, a famous non-legacy female leader, recently mentioned on Michael Totten’s blog, too.
Golda, Golde — doesn’t Golde seem more Jewish?
I heard somewhere that one of the most common plastic surgeries done today for younger women is to have the ears pushed back more into their head.
Although I approve of properly-groomed women, I can’t imagine thinking “Wow, she’s beautiful, smart, funny, and great to be with–but her ears stick out a little too far so I think I’ll move on.”
Some of this stuff is to impress us guys, but some of it is only to impress the femal competition. Eyebrows and shoes are two examples that come to mind of things women notice that men don’t (unless it’s an extremely bushy unibrow or wooden clogs worn with an evening gown).
Fine line between attractive decoration and misdirected self-mutilation. I like smooth skin and little pieces of jewelry and pretty tattoos but an inartistic approach can easily turn an enhancement into the grotesque.
Capitalism relies on the cultivation and proliferation of desires, through the invention of artificial “needs”, such as the “need” to correct sagging earlobes.
Billions of dollars are spent on cosmetic surgery to meet this type of “needs”, while 47 million people in the USA live without health insurance and millions of people in the world die every year due to lack of medical treatment for real diseases.
I remember those panty girdles that kept our college girl friends all wrapped up and intact. To my knowledge no one got inside those things without the cooperation of the wearer. We, guys, used to call them elastic chaisity belts. Those were strange garments indeed.
Hey Deshawin… It’s not “capitalism”, it’s human nature… Those native indian women have their earlob needs too. 🙂
Does anyone else notice that the majority of the “modifications” mentioned above are performed on women and are designed, in some way, to limit the range of activities that women can perform?
Foot binding, corsets, burqas that impede vision, hoop skirts that prohibited the riding of horses, high heels that prevent running, etc.
More specifically, the majority of these inhibit the mobility of women. It’s also worth pointing out that, historically, most of these have been performed not on all women, but only on wealthy women. Lower class women needed a full range of motion in order to perform labor.
The fact that it is often women who (re)create these “beauty standards” should come as no surprise. Isn’t the easiest way of repressing a group of people to convince them that their repression is both natural and good for them?
Looking at those photos – I can understand why those women would want to somehow lift their earlobe. There were a few even I would notice and I’m about as dense headed as one can get in that regards.
However, I can not think of a single woman I have ever met that has earlobe that hang that much. Did they wear nothing but solid brass large dangling ear-rings for their whole lives? I have to wonder how long they searched for such pictures or if there is some, hmm, manipulation going on there.
I guess they figure they would show some extreme cases, imply that *all* women were in that situation, and sell like crazy as the self obsessed people (and if you figure I think females are the only ones ask me about the “axe effect” and their commercials) go to the mirror and notice some small thing that no one else in the world would even if told about it and asked to look.
strcpy, the women in the pictures are all wearing extremely heavy earrings. That’s what makes their ears look so awful. If the earrings were removed, or replaced with normal-sized ones, I’ll bet the ears would look more normal. (I suspect there’s some photo-shopping going on with the color, too.)
Also note that just about all of those women have free rather than attached earlobes (that is, the lobes hang lower than the attachment of the ear to the face — which I think is a dominant genetic trait.) I’m a woman with free earlobes who loves to wear earrings, and if I put on a particularly heavy pair, I suspect my ears might look a little bit like some of those pictures. There’s an easier solution than ear lifts, though: just wear smaller earrings!
The most widespread habit is manicure. Of course, nature requires us to regulary shorten our nails, but it does not reqire artificially lengthen them. And exactly this became a cultural norm. When I see a woman with short nails, I understand that she is a pianist, a programmer or a computer clerk (in old days – a typist). And very long nails is a signal that she is wealthy enough to do no handy work at all – not in office, not in home. She herself is simply a decoration adorning life of some wealthy businessman or politician. This is the dream of many women, so they imitate this sign of high social status.
“This is the dream of many women, so they imitate this sign of high social status.”
Let me guess, sergey – you’re single?
No, I am married on my university girlfriend for more 30 years yet and have five children.
It’s competition.
Women have traditionally been discouraged from competing with each other in sports, academia, or business, so they compete for men- and most of the time it’s not about things that are really attractive to men, but about competing with each other to meet a collective standard of attractiveness. Things have changed somewhat in sports, academics, and business, but old habits die hard. And I doubt it will ever die down completely.
Put any bunch of social primates together and they’ll find SOMETHING to settle status with.
Not only primates, really: even fishes in aquarium establish social ranking. This tendency is truly universal and crucial for efficiency of natural selection and optimal resources exploitation. Exactly this makes all projects to establish actual equality in human societies or between societies utopian and doomed to failure: divine plan for Universe (or, if you prefer, natural order) does not include this.
“strcpy, the women in the pictures are all wearing extremely heavy earrings.”
Thus – I asked the question did they wear solid brass ear rings their whole life? (solid brass being quite heavy)
I figure since *all* of the women I know do not use a similar product, nor do they have such ear lobes, then the problem isn’t that great. Skin stretches if you add weight – this those really large heavy ear rings should be the culprits (and I even notice that nearly all the photo’s have them).
Then again, none of them wear ear rings with anywhere close to that mass. I may be a male, but even I am aware of what wearing that heavy an ear ring would do – in fact I would assume that a full day of that would cause some neck pain (I know from carrying concealed firearms that less then a pound where it normally doesn’t sit can cause back pain and your back is MUCH stronger).
Deshawn Q. Williams writes:
“Capitalism relies on the cultivation and proliferation of desires, through the invention of artificial “needs”, such as the “need” to correct sagging earlobes.”
This is a standard Marxist interpretation but like so much of Marxist analysis is not accurate. What makes these products sell isn’t that the seller creates an “artificial need.” Sellers (or more accurately, marketers) tap into an existing psychological need, in this case the desire to be attractive to our fellow human beings. This is much easier to do than creating false needs. It is also much more effective to tap into existing needs than creating new/false ones.
Sergey writes:
“[V]ery long nails is a signal that she is wealthy enough to do no handy work at all – not in office, not in home.”
You evidently are not from the “hood.” I grew up in the hood and let me tell you, plenty of poor folks have long nails.
You evidently are not from the “hood.”
Sergey’s from Russia. Not sure if there are the same type of places there. With the same cultural backdrop.