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

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.

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.

What's your favorite scar?

Across the street, there is a local live music venue I have come to haunt, drawn not just by the wonderful sounds but the intense emotions I absorb through every pore. Sometimes the sentiments touch tender places – after all I am single, in my thirties, and carry life’s baggage. On this evening, though, it will surpass anything I could have conjured and I have an overactive imagination.

The singer-songwriter--guitarist begins setting the scene for his next piece by asking, ”Anyone have a favorite scar?”

I am extremely proud of myself for not scrunching down in my seat. Not that I can hide as I am in the front row. From birth defects and the corrective efforts of the medical profession, I am blind and have what can best be described as an asymmetrical face. My body is littered with scars, some not covered by clothing. Simply putting scar and favorite in the same sentence has stopped my thoughts as I hold perfectly still.

Though laughing, nobody in the eight person audience answers. The musician decides to take advantage of the intimate setting. “I’m going to go around the room asking each of you.”

While I am grasping at shreds of composure, my internal-observer suddenly stands at attention, rubbing its hands together. Tonight’s inner torture will apparently be interesting material for analysis.

The singer-songwriter-guitarist asks his prize pupil. “What’s your favorite scar?”

The twenty-three-year-old woman replies, “I only have one in my eyebrow.”

“Amateur,” I think while the performer coaxes, ”From?”

“Childhood accident.”

The interrogation of the audience continues. Everyone has a story about a random or not so random accident. WE never even approach the realm of emergency surgery let alone something planned.

Even my internal-observer is silent, unable to pick one of my scalpel creations, with memories of pain and trauma clinging to it, as favorite. Could that mountain be scaled, merely telling basic facts would kill the mood. If asked, I might choose one earned by actually living, best loved because it was not caused to improve my quality of life. This would cause the same bucket of ice water to be dumped over the laughing group.

The story of one fellow patron grabs my attention, “I have a favorite scar, but the story is disgusting.”

“And?” urges the singer-songwriter-guitarist.

***“Well, nobody told me not to put a band aid on a wet wound. Once everything had dried, it needed to be picked out from the crust.”

Now I remember suture cleanings where hydrogen peroxide was used to soften blood before it was flaked away by cotton swab. I yank my thoughts away from that journey down memory lane.

Then, the internal-observer part of my brain announces, “Just imagine, if you are reacting like this, the female protagonist in the novel you’re writing would also respond intensely to tonight’s events. It would show how she feels about her own scarred body. There is also an essay in this about how society perceives scars differently based on how they are attained.”

“Gee, thanks,” I think. Whirling in my mind are fragments of memory each connected to one of my twenty-six surgeries and the tangible reminders left upon my skin.

Meanwhile, the singer-songwriter-guitarist has questioned everyone in the room. Well, everyone but me. The moment is perfect in its uncertainty, as my mind suddenly empties. Should he call upon me, I know only gibberish will pass my lips.

Then, he begins to speak, telling his own story before picking up his instrument.

Again my internal-observer speaks. “I wonder if that happened because he doesn’t know how to get the attention of a blind woman without using her name?”

Ignoring the latest comment, I lose myself in the writing possibilities, soothed by the creative process.

After the performance, I cluster with some other patrons and the evening’s performers. Through the conversation, I locate the singer-songwriter-guitarist and, looking in his direction, ask, “Hey, can I steal that thing about favorite scars? It inspired a scene in my novel.”

As soon as the words are uttered, my internal-observer is resurrected. “Did you ever think that realizing you were in the audience, while he joked about scars, might upset the man? I know you heard him speaking about depression so intense he could only sit in his underwear watching movies. Are you trying to cause psychological trauma?”

The singer-songwriter-guitarist replies, “Sure.”

My internal-observer applauds, “He understands more than I expected – no backpedaling or apologizing. Unless, of course, you don’t look as scarred as you think you do.”