Showing posts with label standards of beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label standards of beauty. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2013
McSteamier Does Appearance
Grey's Anatomy has replaced McSteamy with Mc (in my opinion) Steamier and thus one plastic surgeon exits and another moves to the forefront offering me more appearance-based storylines to critique. Aren't you just jumping for joy?
On "The End is the Beginning is the End" (Season 9, Episode 11), James, a sixteen-year-old teenager, comes for his sixth surgery to address what he refers to as his "weird" appearance. Everyone around James cringes to various degrees about the weird label further substantiating the point I made in Grey's Anatomy of Appearance. Those of us with the weird face can accept it and the social consequences with far more equanimity than those around us. Why is that? And that's not a rhetorical question.
When The Hot Girlfriend visits James, McSteamier seems perplexed and James offers an explanation that goes something like this: McSteamy told me surgery was going to get me only so far so I had to develop some moves to get anywhere with women. He said his moves wouldn't work for me, so I had to come up with my own. I blind them with my personality. This brief explanation took me to the heights of elation only to drop me to the depths of infuriated resignation.
My personal experience of plastic surgeons is that they bank on all the negative consequences of having a weird appearance in our society – isolation, rejection, scaring children, lacking dates, getting treated like you're contagious and... Then they offer you the infallible remedy – described in as little detail as possible -- to vanquish the horrifying fate. It's an approach of extremes selling you on the described course of action better than any ad campaign could achieve because no convincing is necessary that looking weird has lousy consequences and we've been taught to believe Medical Gods have all the answers. After all, they became doctors to "do good" and no self-interest or ego is involved in their proclamations. They only want what is best for us and are going to deliver it.
At no time in my life has anyone let alone a doctor said, "Surgery will only get you so far." I'm actually a little terrified to even contemplate how that might have altered events. Would my parents have been so persuaded and determined that I needed to be fixed? Would I have been such a willing sheep? Would such an honest perspective coupled with identical experiences somehow left me with less emotional scars?
Of course Grey's Anatomy's writers then made me furious by implying the right behavior (moves) could overcome a weird appearance. Really? I'd love to attend the workshop that taught me that particular set of skills.
Replacement of my biological eyes with prosthetics altered my appearance in a manner socially perceived as an improvement. Since then, I have noticed significant behavioral changes in those around me. Strangers engage in innocent flirting. Children's questions have morphed from "Mommy, what's wrong with her?" to "Mommy, why is she using that stick?" Dates haven't suddenly begun raining from the heavens, but stranger discomfort has drastically decreased. However, while under anesthesia, I did not receive an infusion of improved social skills nor a transplant of dazzling moves. To me, this experience argues that how I look has more power to impact others than anything I say or do. I looked weird. I look a little less weird. People behave accordingly.
In the end, Grey's Anatomy may have mitigated the impact of it's "If you have the right moves" perspective. With all his blinding personality, James still said, "Looking less weird would be cool."
The blog has a new home at:
People Aren't Broken
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Grey's Anatomy of Appearance
With a plastic surgeon as one of the regular characters, Grey's Anatomy has more than the average dose of appearance-related storylines. There was the woman whose face was entirely rebuilt so she didn't recognize herself. There was the husband who had become a recluse because of chronic growths. There was even a man having a face transplant. And now they've done multiple storylines involving children with facial birth defects.
This passed Thursday, I was struck by the way one doctor articulated why an infant needed surgery. In arguing for who she considered the "best" surgeon for the job, she gave a long list of all the ways the boy's appearance would impact his life from social isolation to who he took as a prom date to the job he landed to who he married. To me, it felt like a laundry list of how I know social standards of beauty have, well, messed with my life. Social isolation as a child? Check. Prom? Never went. Spouse? Still single at age thirty nine. Job? The jury is out on that one because I don't have the energy for employment.
I was struck by the difference between how people talk to me about appearance versus the way this show did. When I get frustrated by the negative consequences of the societal evaluation of how I look, people often very gently tell me I'm wrong. I get lectures on how complicated relationships are or explanations about how nobody at my age has an easy time making friends. My expectations are too high. My devaluation has nothing to do with how I look.
In less than sixty seconds of dialog, a television show pretty much substantiated every feeling I've had about how my appearance – or rather how society perceives it–has impacted my life. While painful to hear, it was also liberating because unlike what people say to me, this was akin to an uncensored opinion that nobody thought you'd overhear.
My question is this: why do people who love me show such, excuse the term, blindness when it comes to this? Is it harder for them to accept the reality I inhabit than it is for me? Perhaps it's a sort of empathy gone awry. Nobody likes to think their friend will have a hard life where people will judge them harshly and they especially do not want to share such a negative prognosis with the person who will have to experience it.
I liked the clean, clear perspective shown in Grey's Anatomy because it described reality. In denying this reality, as a society we actually further perpetuate the problem for you cannot address what you are not willing to acknowledge. Far better to find a solution than to engage in further burying our heads in the sand.
and in terms of solving the problem, there are really two choices. We either change people to fit the definition of acceptable appearance or we alter the definition itself. Clearly, I have a strong preference as to which path we take.
I find it fascinating that we teach our children to not judge based on appearance and yet we somehow do not actually change anything because those kids grow up to have the same, in my opinion warped, beliefs about our outer shells. It is one of those cases where actions don't simply speak louder than words, they in fact drown out the words.
One part of the storyline made me extremely happy. A doctor told the mother, "We're going to make this handsome felllow even more handsome." That's the kind of thinking that might have an effect.
This passed Thursday, I was struck by the way one doctor articulated why an infant needed surgery. In arguing for who she considered the "best" surgeon for the job, she gave a long list of all the ways the boy's appearance would impact his life from social isolation to who he took as a prom date to the job he landed to who he married. To me, it felt like a laundry list of how I know social standards of beauty have, well, messed with my life. Social isolation as a child? Check. Prom? Never went. Spouse? Still single at age thirty nine. Job? The jury is out on that one because I don't have the energy for employment.
I was struck by the difference between how people talk to me about appearance versus the way this show did. When I get frustrated by the negative consequences of the societal evaluation of how I look, people often very gently tell me I'm wrong. I get lectures on how complicated relationships are or explanations about how nobody at my age has an easy time making friends. My expectations are too high. My devaluation has nothing to do with how I look.
In less than sixty seconds of dialog, a television show pretty much substantiated every feeling I've had about how my appearance – or rather how society perceives it–has impacted my life. While painful to hear, it was also liberating because unlike what people say to me, this was akin to an uncensored opinion that nobody thought you'd overhear.
My question is this: why do people who love me show such, excuse the term, blindness when it comes to this? Is it harder for them to accept the reality I inhabit than it is for me? Perhaps it's a sort of empathy gone awry. Nobody likes to think their friend will have a hard life where people will judge them harshly and they especially do not want to share such a negative prognosis with the person who will have to experience it.
I liked the clean, clear perspective shown in Grey's Anatomy because it described reality. In denying this reality, as a society we actually further perpetuate the problem for you cannot address what you are not willing to acknowledge. Far better to find a solution than to engage in further burying our heads in the sand.
and in terms of solving the problem, there are really two choices. We either change people to fit the definition of acceptable appearance or we alter the definition itself. Clearly, I have a strong preference as to which path we take.
I find it fascinating that we teach our children to not judge based on appearance and yet we somehow do not actually change anything because those kids grow up to have the same, in my opinion warped, beliefs about our outer shells. It is one of those cases where actions don't simply speak louder than words, they in fact drown out the words.
One part of the storyline made me extremely happy. A doctor told the mother, "We're going to make this handsome felllow even more handsome." That's the kind of thinking that might have an effect.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Newsflash: I'm Female!
The desexualization of disabled people seems a bit overstated to many TABs. Nobody makes a public announcement that they don't find the woman in the wheelchair to be sexy. There aren't any articles in Cosmo saying, "Men who use crutches have zero sex appeal." It is one of those unspoken and often unconscious things making it impossible to prove or disprove, yet disabled people are clear that it is part of their reality.
Thanks to the unintended consequence of prosthetic eyes normalizing my appearance, I have received a lesson on disability desexualization and to my surprise discovered it is worse than I thought. In addition, it has given me new insight on womanhood.
When I became active in Bi Forum, I knew women sometimes weren't comfortable because of unwanted male attention, but I thought it might be an exaggeration or oversensitivity. AS I observed the group, I sometimes saw hyper sexualized behavior directed at other women and began to understand on an intellectual level that a problem existed. Because I was not perceived as female, I was never the recipient of such attention and it protected me for which I felt fortunate.
Bringing the issue to the group's attention, I sooner or later had to admit that I could only report what other's said not speak from my own experience. That admission made certain my words were not taken seriously. The men stripped me of sexuality then refused to listen to me when I spoke about inappropriate hyper sexuality. Only now do I see that I could not change things because of a dynamic beyond my control.
Then I began to get a little taste of what the women experienced. In the Era of Prosthetics, men not previously known to me are behaving in ways unfamiliar to me. On a bus, I was told that I was "girlfriend material." Playful and unintentional flirting caused a counterman to go above and beyond. The words "pretty" and "beautiful" have entered my ears more in the past year than in the sum total of the rest of my life. People are more comfortable. Mild in comparison to what most women encounter, I still find it disconcerting. And even if the attention comes in the form of compliments and "perks," it is still behavior based on me being a sexual object not a woman. Desexualized and denied personhood. Sexualized and denied personhood. Frying pan to fire.
One of the most complicated aspects of my new status involves flirting. It used to be that people only flirted with me when they had actual sexual interest. I was either not sexual or an object of concrete desire. It took an awkward situation with a male friend for me to discover another utterly baffling category – flirtation without intent.
How on earth are you suppose to know the difference? I guess if you grow up with it, then you probably learn to distinguish without much trouble. I, on the other hand, have no discernment skills. None. Until recently, I have never been a woman in another's eyes without them wanting into my pants.
It is a new experience I find exciting, confusing, fun, stressful and above all informative. Since I am still desexualized on a regular basis, I cannot fully understand what women encounter each day. What I have experienced in the last year is enough to make me appreciate desexualization in a whole new way.
That said, I also have learned that desexualization is alive and well. I changed not a wit in terms of behavior or self-esteem. In fact, my new eyes made me feel less attractive for a time. Yet male attention went from zero to noticeable. This is not okay.
Desexualization has become a blessing and a curse. It spares me the full force of unwanted male attention. It denies me womanhood and thus wanted romantic attention.
Here's a very female analogy to articulate how it feels. I'm that woman having excruciating menstrual cramps who is "blessed" because she knows she's not pregnant.
Thanks to the unintended consequence of prosthetic eyes normalizing my appearance, I have received a lesson on disability desexualization and to my surprise discovered it is worse than I thought. In addition, it has given me new insight on womanhood.
When I became active in Bi Forum, I knew women sometimes weren't comfortable because of unwanted male attention, but I thought it might be an exaggeration or oversensitivity. AS I observed the group, I sometimes saw hyper sexualized behavior directed at other women and began to understand on an intellectual level that a problem existed. Because I was not perceived as female, I was never the recipient of such attention and it protected me for which I felt fortunate.
Bringing the issue to the group's attention, I sooner or later had to admit that I could only report what other's said not speak from my own experience. That admission made certain my words were not taken seriously. The men stripped me of sexuality then refused to listen to me when I spoke about inappropriate hyper sexuality. Only now do I see that I could not change things because of a dynamic beyond my control.
Then I began to get a little taste of what the women experienced. In the Era of Prosthetics, men not previously known to me are behaving in ways unfamiliar to me. On a bus, I was told that I was "girlfriend material." Playful and unintentional flirting caused a counterman to go above and beyond. The words "pretty" and "beautiful" have entered my ears more in the past year than in the sum total of the rest of my life. People are more comfortable. Mild in comparison to what most women encounter, I still find it disconcerting. And even if the attention comes in the form of compliments and "perks," it is still behavior based on me being a sexual object not a woman. Desexualized and denied personhood. Sexualized and denied personhood. Frying pan to fire.
One of the most complicated aspects of my new status involves flirting. It used to be that people only flirted with me when they had actual sexual interest. I was either not sexual or an object of concrete desire. It took an awkward situation with a male friend for me to discover another utterly baffling category – flirtation without intent.
How on earth are you suppose to know the difference? I guess if you grow up with it, then you probably learn to distinguish without much trouble. I, on the other hand, have no discernment skills. None. Until recently, I have never been a woman in another's eyes without them wanting into my pants.
It is a new experience I find exciting, confusing, fun, stressful and above all informative. Since I am still desexualized on a regular basis, I cannot fully understand what women encounter each day. What I have experienced in the last year is enough to make me appreciate desexualization in a whole new way.
That said, I also have learned that desexualization is alive and well. I changed not a wit in terms of behavior or self-esteem. In fact, my new eyes made me feel less attractive for a time. Yet male attention went from zero to noticeable. This is not okay.
Desexualization has become a blessing and a curse. It spares me the full force of unwanted male attention. It denies me womanhood and thus wanted romantic attention.
Here's a very female analogy to articulate how it feels. I'm that woman having excruciating menstrual cramps who is "blessed" because she knows she's not pregnant.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Does It Serve Me Well?
I came across a question reading Confessing Queer. Does the culture in which I find myself serve my mind, body, and heart? The quick answer is no, but I believe the longer explanation bares elucidation.
In this case, culture refers to what we as a people believe, the standards by which we collectively judge the world around us, and what we expect from individuals. We are an industrialized, productivity-oriented, evaluation based on results society where what you can do is highly valued along with how you look. Though pluralistic, democratic principles permeate our social fabric so that even outside of government, majority rules.
Does this mindset positively impact my mind, body, or heart? I don't produce, achieve expected results, or even do things in the usual, efficient ways. I look different, want different, and feel different.
Think about that for a minute. I live in a world that, by its nature, says I am of lesser value because I do not produce, am a failure since I need help, and take up valuable resources. On an individual level, a child raised with such negativity would not thrive nor would anyone expect it. How, then, is it any less damaging to an adult when her society believes it?
I am beginning to confront some painful realities and not liking it much. I tend to kick and scream my way through such a process. It is messy, unpleasant, and deepens my sense of isolation. But, well, moments of revelation come when they come and working through things happens without one's convenience or comfort in mind.
The revelations are these: I will have medical issues cropping up routinely for the rest of my life because I am medically fragile. The things I want – either because I was taught to or genuinely want them – such as home, family, and avocation are not statistically likely. In fact, they are very unlikely. Finally, hard isn't a word to describe a period of my life but a word that will describe the rest of my life.
Have I depressed you yet? That's not my intent. My point is that I inhabit a specific reality that means certain things and I should really accept them so I can stop making myself miserable. Medical issues aren't bad unless I buy into the idea that they are. It is possible to learn to want other things that are more likely. A hard life is not a bad life.
I spent years clearing society's beliefs about beauty out of my head and heart. Somehow I seem to have left many ablist beliefs that do not serve me well. It's time to do more than just decry them from the pages of this blog. It's time to actually stop believing them.
In this case, culture refers to what we as a people believe, the standards by which we collectively judge the world around us, and what we expect from individuals. We are an industrialized, productivity-oriented, evaluation based on results society where what you can do is highly valued along with how you look. Though pluralistic, democratic principles permeate our social fabric so that even outside of government, majority rules.
Does this mindset positively impact my mind, body, or heart? I don't produce, achieve expected results, or even do things in the usual, efficient ways. I look different, want different, and feel different.
Think about that for a minute. I live in a world that, by its nature, says I am of lesser value because I do not produce, am a failure since I need help, and take up valuable resources. On an individual level, a child raised with such negativity would not thrive nor would anyone expect it. How, then, is it any less damaging to an adult when her society believes it?
I am beginning to confront some painful realities and not liking it much. I tend to kick and scream my way through such a process. It is messy, unpleasant, and deepens my sense of isolation. But, well, moments of revelation come when they come and working through things happens without one's convenience or comfort in mind.
The revelations are these: I will have medical issues cropping up routinely for the rest of my life because I am medically fragile. The things I want – either because I was taught to or genuinely want them – such as home, family, and avocation are not statistically likely. In fact, they are very unlikely. Finally, hard isn't a word to describe a period of my life but a word that will describe the rest of my life.
Have I depressed you yet? That's not my intent. My point is that I inhabit a specific reality that means certain things and I should really accept them so I can stop making myself miserable. Medical issues aren't bad unless I buy into the idea that they are. It is possible to learn to want other things that are more likely. A hard life is not a bad life.
I spent years clearing society's beliefs about beauty out of my head and heart. Somehow I seem to have left many ablist beliefs that do not serve me well. It's time to do more than just decry them from the pages of this blog. It's time to actually stop believing them.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Getting My Mad On
For the past two weeks, I have been trying to avoid the terrifying thought that the last dose of anesthesia zapped the writing part of my brain. The mechanics were possible with words forming sentences and sentences becoming paragraphs, but the unnamable quality making words into more than the sum of their parts was beyond me. Fortunately, as the past tense indicates, I got my mojo back. In the middle of a concert.
I should probably thank the musician who caused me to lose my temper waking the writing part of my brain from its slumber, but I'm not sure it would have the desired results. "Time after time, I have heard you put down your looks and while I assumed you were probably making it seem worse than the reality, I concluded you were probably of average looks. Then my friend informed me that you are adorable. I sort of lost my temper which finally woke up the writing part of my brain that I thought had gone into a permanent coma. Thank you so much for helping me get it back." Yeah, that would backfire.
On the surface, my anger seems simple to explain. This man puts himself down in order to get positive feedback from others. Immature, but he's twenty-seven and male, so it's understandable. The fact that he is making people feel sorry for him reinforcing our society's obsession with appearance equally justifies my anger, but also doesn't quite cover it.
No, I got my mad on because he seemingly hates his body more than I dislike mine with far less reason. Every day in a myriad of ways I am told that how I look is unacceptable. I invested and continue to invest a great deal of time and energy in counteracting that message. In the past year, circumstances have forced me to integrate loss of eyes and the advent of prosthetics into my body image and I can even see the light at the end of that tunnel. I work my backside off to have feelings about my body separate from what I'm told to think. The effort is completely worth it because most of the time I walk through life happy with myself.
Then there's this adorable twenty-seven-year-old who referred to himself as ugly. How ungrateful and lazy bringing new meaning to the term 'self-deprecating.' I truly would like to shake some positive body image into him. Jump up and down until he understands what he has and starts valuing it.
Please don't misunderstand. This isn't about one of us having it 'better' or 'worse' than the other. Simply put, I am proof that you don't have to accept societal beliefs about appearance. Why, then, is he doing it? For that matter, why does most of the human race do it?
Maybe I'm incredibly fortunate to have lived at the edge of socially acceptable appearance. It allowed me to clearly perceive the subjectivity of our standards of beauty and how they are imparted to us. Then again, there are tons of people who also inhabit that extreme edge and they pursue changing their appearance with single-minded determination. Perhaps the combination of blind and unusual looks offers the answer. Whatever the case, I am truly lucky to have found a way to not hate my body.
Back to the musician. What can I say to someone like him? Offering my own experience up as an example of "It can be different" would probably engender pity not elucidation. Telling him he's adorable would simply re-enforce his behavior of putting himself down.
Guess I'm stuck listening to his put-downs and offering up prayers to whatever higher power is out there that he one day gets it, puts the sentiments into a song, and changes the world by playing it everywhere.
I should probably thank the musician who caused me to lose my temper waking the writing part of my brain from its slumber, but I'm not sure it would have the desired results. "Time after time, I have heard you put down your looks and while I assumed you were probably making it seem worse than the reality, I concluded you were probably of average looks. Then my friend informed me that you are adorable. I sort of lost my temper which finally woke up the writing part of my brain that I thought had gone into a permanent coma. Thank you so much for helping me get it back." Yeah, that would backfire.
On the surface, my anger seems simple to explain. This man puts himself down in order to get positive feedback from others. Immature, but he's twenty-seven and male, so it's understandable. The fact that he is making people feel sorry for him reinforcing our society's obsession with appearance equally justifies my anger, but also doesn't quite cover it.
No, I got my mad on because he seemingly hates his body more than I dislike mine with far less reason. Every day in a myriad of ways I am told that how I look is unacceptable. I invested and continue to invest a great deal of time and energy in counteracting that message. In the past year, circumstances have forced me to integrate loss of eyes and the advent of prosthetics into my body image and I can even see the light at the end of that tunnel. I work my backside off to have feelings about my body separate from what I'm told to think. The effort is completely worth it because most of the time I walk through life happy with myself.
Then there's this adorable twenty-seven-year-old who referred to himself as ugly. How ungrateful and lazy bringing new meaning to the term 'self-deprecating.' I truly would like to shake some positive body image into him. Jump up and down until he understands what he has and starts valuing it.
Please don't misunderstand. This isn't about one of us having it 'better' or 'worse' than the other. Simply put, I am proof that you don't have to accept societal beliefs about appearance. Why, then, is he doing it? For that matter, why does most of the human race do it?
Maybe I'm incredibly fortunate to have lived at the edge of socially acceptable appearance. It allowed me to clearly perceive the subjectivity of our standards of beauty and how they are imparted to us. Then again, there are tons of people who also inhabit that extreme edge and they pursue changing their appearance with single-minded determination. Perhaps the combination of blind and unusual looks offers the answer. Whatever the case, I am truly lucky to have found a way to not hate my body.
Back to the musician. What can I say to someone like him? Offering my own experience up as an example of "It can be different" would probably engender pity not elucidation. Telling him he's adorable would simply re-enforce his behavior of putting himself down.
Guess I'm stuck listening to his put-downs and offering up prayers to whatever higher power is out there that he one day gets it, puts the sentiments into a song, and changes the world by playing it everywhere.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Body Complicated
I am my body and my body is me, no more distinguishable as two "parts" than water's components can be perceived as hydrogen and oxygen by the tongue. This body that is me, that I inhabit fully, is at the center of a multitude of complicated relationships. There is the body I dwell in and the distorted image reflected back to me from others as if viewed in a fun house mirror. There is the body I know and there is the construct that has seemingly constant medical issues. There is the body I occupy and the shape the symptoms of my illness outline. There is even this body I inhabit and the form revealed to me by the hands of a lover.
The friend of my body finds the strangers of image, construct, shape and form to be alien. Yet still they tangle together in my mind hard to distinguish from one another.
Sometimes even my fingers forget who is friend and who is foreign. They may slide over the same skin, but they sense a radically different typography. One is the familiar smooth skin over muscle and bone that contains strength, determination, passion, and playfulness. Depending on the circumstances, my fingertips will encounter something else. Sometimes it's scars, asymmetry, and flab that compose an ugly, damaged image. Sometimes they feel that which is underneath the skin and constantly going awry. Sometimes they sense all the aches and pains, stiffness and tenderness of a sick shape. And sometimes they even discover the swells and valleys, softness, warmth, and sensitivity of a sensual form. And though one is friend and the rest alien, I mistake one for the other more often than even I know.
While it is clear that the reflected image, medicalized construct, and sickened shape are unwelcome in my head, you would be surprised at how often I do not welcome the sensuous form. It acts as a reminder that no eyes are looking upon it with desire, and no hands enjoying its contours. There is no wanting, no intimacy, and no affection. When this stranger comes to me, the loneliness that wells up pushes tears from my eyes and sorrow deep down into my soul.
Unlike the reflection, construct, or shape, I would make friend of this stranger if only it wasn't a painful reminder of that which I do not have. In the moments when I think maybe, just maybe I can call it friend, something acts as a reminder that it's not possible. At best, we are acquaintances having extraordinary trouble becoming closer. At worst, the companion I long for hurts me in a way unable to be soothed.
The friend of my body finds the strangers of image, construct, shape and form to be alien. Yet still they tangle together in my mind hard to distinguish from one another.
Sometimes even my fingers forget who is friend and who is foreign. They may slide over the same skin, but they sense a radically different typography. One is the familiar smooth skin over muscle and bone that contains strength, determination, passion, and playfulness. Depending on the circumstances, my fingertips will encounter something else. Sometimes it's scars, asymmetry, and flab that compose an ugly, damaged image. Sometimes they feel that which is underneath the skin and constantly going awry. Sometimes they sense all the aches and pains, stiffness and tenderness of a sick shape. And sometimes they even discover the swells and valleys, softness, warmth, and sensitivity of a sensual form. And though one is friend and the rest alien, I mistake one for the other more often than even I know.
While it is clear that the reflected image, medicalized construct, and sickened shape are unwelcome in my head, you would be surprised at how often I do not welcome the sensuous form. It acts as a reminder that no eyes are looking upon it with desire, and no hands enjoying its contours. There is no wanting, no intimacy, and no affection. When this stranger comes to me, the loneliness that wells up pushes tears from my eyes and sorrow deep down into my soul.
Unlike the reflection, construct, or shape, I would make friend of this stranger if only it wasn't a painful reminder of that which I do not have. In the moments when I think maybe, just maybe I can call it friend, something acts as a reminder that it's not possible. At best, we are acquaintances having extraordinary trouble becoming closer. At worst, the companion I long for hurts me in a way unable to be soothed.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
It's in the Eyes
[This is a follow-up to Eyes and I.]
Having matching prosthetic eyes has been both what I expected and anything but what I predicted. Though I know I made the right decision for me, I have yet to feel comfortable with this new version of myself. And there's absolutely no forgetting they are there because they make themselves known in countless ways. For example, over the holidays I discovered that your eye lids don't like touching the freezing surface of acrylic. It's like touching any mucus membrane to cold plastic. Ugh.
There are moments when I forget they exist and go through my life pretty much as I did prior to all this eye craziness. It's peaceful to just be the me I've always known. Then some physical reminder will transpire and I'm back to consciously knowing I'm different from before. I pause during the day and take deep breaths trying to inhale a new self-concept that includes these eyes that I try to not view as other. They might come out, but they are me. Trying to wrap your mind around that is not exactly easy.
The other mind-bending aspect of this is other's reactions. Actually, it's the lack of reaction. Friends who have known me for years have literally not been aware of the change. Apparently the ocularist made eyes that so fit me that they look like they've been there my entire life. Since I'm not sighted, I can't exactly judge what superficially seems to be a deficiency in observational skills. Not noticing? It blows my mind each and every time it happens.
Based on who has and has not noticed, I have come up with a determining factor – how the person felt about my appearance before. I suspect those actively disturbed by it are aware of the change because they are aware of how I look in general.
Part of me worries that those who do not see changes in how I look may have gotten to a point where they don't really see me anymore. Did that "not seeing me" happen as a coping mechanism for being around me? The idea that people must not truly see me to be comfortable around me is upsetting and all too familiar.
Then we have changes in behavior. One man who I know in a wait staff capacity suddenly became much friendlier, making certain I knew his name, tossing off "good night" or "take care" when I walked past him out the door, and trying to strike up conversations. I'll admit it freely. My response has been polite indifference. Personally, I think he's lucky I haven't given him a lecture on not treating people differently based on how they look.
And of course there was the "beautiful" incident. I encountered an acquaintance who hadn't seen me in months. While it took a minute for the difference to register, when it did her reaction was the most intense thus far. She said, "Oh, wow, your new eyes. They look great." Then her voice changed as she cupped my cheek in her hand and said, "You look beautiful." I held back, "I looked beautiful before, too. Glad you finally noticed."
Finally, the other day I am pretty sure my request for the Cheese Man to go above and beyond was met because I asked in a funny way, tossed my hair, and smiled. Never has that happened to me before. There's a certain heady power in it that I hope I never exploit.
So has this changed my thinking about anything? Yes. It dawned upon me recently that I am walking around with less about me that gives people pause. I have long posited that physical differences such as scars, abnormal features, or deformed eyes loom so large in other's perceptions that they are unable to see the individual. Not only are my physical charms beyond their ken, but they don't really notice my intelligence, sense of humor, or quirky personality. My physical difference blinds them to who I am.
Now with my "normalized" appearance, there is less to kidnap other's awareness. This will shape my interactions in ways I cannot ever know for such a thing is impossible to assess. Its impact on dating does seem clear to me. With less obscuring me, people will have a better chance to know me which I find disturbingly wrong, but nonetheless my new reality. On one hand, I will never know if a person would have found me attractive before. On the other hand, I won't object to an increased chance of romantic entanglements.
I mourn the loss of my old appearance. It taught me so much about society and human nature. With my new eyes, I am now experiencing the world in a different way. Much of it makes me even more convinced that societal standards of appearance are wrong and need to change. If anything, I am more motivated to change the world.
Having matching prosthetic eyes has been both what I expected and anything but what I predicted. Though I know I made the right decision for me, I have yet to feel comfortable with this new version of myself. And there's absolutely no forgetting they are there because they make themselves known in countless ways. For example, over the holidays I discovered that your eye lids don't like touching the freezing surface of acrylic. It's like touching any mucus membrane to cold plastic. Ugh.
There are moments when I forget they exist and go through my life pretty much as I did prior to all this eye craziness. It's peaceful to just be the me I've always known. Then some physical reminder will transpire and I'm back to consciously knowing I'm different from before. I pause during the day and take deep breaths trying to inhale a new self-concept that includes these eyes that I try to not view as other. They might come out, but they are me. Trying to wrap your mind around that is not exactly easy.
The other mind-bending aspect of this is other's reactions. Actually, it's the lack of reaction. Friends who have known me for years have literally not been aware of the change. Apparently the ocularist made eyes that so fit me that they look like they've been there my entire life. Since I'm not sighted, I can't exactly judge what superficially seems to be a deficiency in observational skills. Not noticing? It blows my mind each and every time it happens.
Based on who has and has not noticed, I have come up with a determining factor – how the person felt about my appearance before. I suspect those actively disturbed by it are aware of the change because they are aware of how I look in general.
Part of me worries that those who do not see changes in how I look may have gotten to a point where they don't really see me anymore. Did that "not seeing me" happen as a coping mechanism for being around me? The idea that people must not truly see me to be comfortable around me is upsetting and all too familiar.
Then we have changes in behavior. One man who I know in a wait staff capacity suddenly became much friendlier, making certain I knew his name, tossing off "good night" or "take care" when I walked past him out the door, and trying to strike up conversations. I'll admit it freely. My response has been polite indifference. Personally, I think he's lucky I haven't given him a lecture on not treating people differently based on how they look.
And of course there was the "beautiful" incident. I encountered an acquaintance who hadn't seen me in months. While it took a minute for the difference to register, when it did her reaction was the most intense thus far. She said, "Oh, wow, your new eyes. They look great." Then her voice changed as she cupped my cheek in her hand and said, "You look beautiful." I held back, "I looked beautiful before, too. Glad you finally noticed."
Finally, the other day I am pretty sure my request for the Cheese Man to go above and beyond was met because I asked in a funny way, tossed my hair, and smiled. Never has that happened to me before. There's a certain heady power in it that I hope I never exploit.
So has this changed my thinking about anything? Yes. It dawned upon me recently that I am walking around with less about me that gives people pause. I have long posited that physical differences such as scars, abnormal features, or deformed eyes loom so large in other's perceptions that they are unable to see the individual. Not only are my physical charms beyond their ken, but they don't really notice my intelligence, sense of humor, or quirky personality. My physical difference blinds them to who I am.
Now with my "normalized" appearance, there is less to kidnap other's awareness. This will shape my interactions in ways I cannot ever know for such a thing is impossible to assess. Its impact on dating does seem clear to me. With less obscuring me, people will have a better chance to know me which I find disturbingly wrong, but nonetheless my new reality. On one hand, I will never know if a person would have found me attractive before. On the other hand, I won't object to an increased chance of romantic entanglements.
I mourn the loss of my old appearance. It taught me so much about society and human nature. With my new eyes, I am now experiencing the world in a different way. Much of it makes me even more convinced that societal standards of appearance are wrong and need to change. If anything, I am more motivated to change the world.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Eyes and I
I am now the (proud? confused? overwhelmed?)owner of two prosthetic eyes and for the first time in my life, my eyes not only look normal but also match. Very intense experience.
Choices had to be made about the way my new eyes would look. I could have instructed the artist to copy pictures of my old eyes. I could have instructed him to do just about anything. Instead I chose to have "normal" eyes in my face. It was a terrifying thing to choose because I knew it could change absolutely everything.
For quite some time, I have believed that plastic surgery has risks that at least for me far outweigh any potential benefit. In my own life, I have paid dearly for my "normalized" appearance. In fact, I pay a price every day because of chronic pain etc. More reconstructive surgery to "improve" my face seems like a worse idea than jumping off a five story building.
I know I have given people the impression that I don't care about how I look, but that's not quite the truth. In actuality, I care about the impression I create, but not in the typical way. I want my outside to feel like my inside. While I have rejected traditional standards of beauty, I do have my own desires that boil down to me visually embodying the sassy, witty, animated, quirky woman I know myself to be. Freed from societal beliefs about what beauty should be, I have been able to be how I want to be and pay only the price I deem reasonable.
Deciding to have "normal" eyes was a tough decision, but I came to realize that intentionally looking different was a deliberate choice to violate appearance norms. It felt like being different not because different happened to coincide with what I wanted but merely for the sake of being different. That's not the type of person I want to be. As you know, having an abnormal appearance does have costs especially in terms of how others treat me. Any decision to continue looking "abnormal" would be the equivalent of choosing those bad annoying behaviors. It would bring a degree of negativity into my life that I do not want and would feel responsible for its continuation.
Total honesty dictates I also admit to wanting to have "pretty" eyes. Maybe it's internalized social norms. After all, my eyes were the most "abnormal" part of my appearance. Maybe that type of eyes fits my internal image of myself. Maybe I'm a complete hypocrite. You decide. All I know is that deep inside I wanted them.
My reasons here seem very clear and logical. There's a cleanness to the whole process that, trust me, wasn't present while I was working through it. Even now I have a sense of betraying my own beliefs with this choice.
No matter the decision I made, I knew I would never feel quite the same. Yet again, I would be faced with adjusting to another version of myself. As a child, surgery after surgery, I wrapped my mind around the new face molded from flesh and bone. Now I must expand my reality to encompass this new version. Can't quite count it, but I think maybe Jen version 5.2.
[A follow-up to this entry can be found at
It's in the Eyes.]
Choices had to be made about the way my new eyes would look. I could have instructed the artist to copy pictures of my old eyes. I could have instructed him to do just about anything. Instead I chose to have "normal" eyes in my face. It was a terrifying thing to choose because I knew it could change absolutely everything.
For quite some time, I have believed that plastic surgery has risks that at least for me far outweigh any potential benefit. In my own life, I have paid dearly for my "normalized" appearance. In fact, I pay a price every day because of chronic pain etc. More reconstructive surgery to "improve" my face seems like a worse idea than jumping off a five story building.
I know I have given people the impression that I don't care about how I look, but that's not quite the truth. In actuality, I care about the impression I create, but not in the typical way. I want my outside to feel like my inside. While I have rejected traditional standards of beauty, I do have my own desires that boil down to me visually embodying the sassy, witty, animated, quirky woman I know myself to be. Freed from societal beliefs about what beauty should be, I have been able to be how I want to be and pay only the price I deem reasonable.
Deciding to have "normal" eyes was a tough decision, but I came to realize that intentionally looking different was a deliberate choice to violate appearance norms. It felt like being different not because different happened to coincide with what I wanted but merely for the sake of being different. That's not the type of person I want to be. As you know, having an abnormal appearance does have costs especially in terms of how others treat me. Any decision to continue looking "abnormal" would be the equivalent of choosing those bad annoying behaviors. It would bring a degree of negativity into my life that I do not want and would feel responsible for its continuation.
Total honesty dictates I also admit to wanting to have "pretty" eyes. Maybe it's internalized social norms. After all, my eyes were the most "abnormal" part of my appearance. Maybe that type of eyes fits my internal image of myself. Maybe I'm a complete hypocrite. You decide. All I know is that deep inside I wanted them.
My reasons here seem very clear and logical. There's a cleanness to the whole process that, trust me, wasn't present while I was working through it. Even now I have a sense of betraying my own beliefs with this choice.
No matter the decision I made, I knew I would never feel quite the same. Yet again, I would be faced with adjusting to another version of myself. As a child, surgery after surgery, I wrapped my mind around the new face molded from flesh and bone. Now I must expand my reality to encompass this new version. Can't quite count it, but I think maybe Jen version 5.2.
[A follow-up to this entry can be found at
It's in the Eyes.]
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