Every day in Toronto, you can choose from a fascinating variety of ethnic papers. Only when my head needs a rest from deciphering Portuguese do I pick up the free English-language daily available in any subway car.
It’s there that I discover the prominent advertisements promoting North America’s answer to the genital mutilation of girls, misnamed “female circumcision.”
Laser Labia Reduction Surgery claims to treat the hitherto untreated occurrence of “thick or large labia” that can be caused by “genetics.” “This problem may prevent women from wearing certain clothes that could reveal their condition.”
Surgery is the new way to avoid the hassle of buying looser jeans. Now that this condition has been identified, “it may adversely affect self-confidence and self-esteem.”
The ad makes no claim that the surgery is painless, but apparently relief from the “remarkable discomfort” of crotch-strangling clothing is worth the experience of “labial sculpting.”
Unlike the labial job, Laser Vaginal Tightening Surgery is meant to increase friction and “sexual gratification.” Whose is not specified, but the whole thing has the tone of one of the endless What You Can Do For Him articles featured in the rack of female insecurity magazines at the grocery checkout.
There’s no mention of scrotal tightening or any other procedure to improve the aesthetics of male parts.
There’s a photo of a woman’s torso. Her jeans are unbuttoned and her hands are pulling them downward. My clinical prescription is a skirt.
Both these needless mess-abouts with down there appear under the trademarked heading Rejuvenation Surgery. Meanwhile, my latest daydream scheme, which I offer here at no cost, is, of course, the contrary.
The quest for tight, smooth, glossy, young-looking corporeal features produces a mass of “beautiful” people so identical as to be interchangeable. There’s one thing you can’t buy – but you can try to sell it. Go ahead, open a franchise for it: character.
Picture a crowd of ageless well- groomed types smiling and showing their even rows of gleaming whitened teeth. All it takes is a couple of crooked canines to stand out. There’s everybody else then there’s the one with the crooked teeth.
A slight imperfection in this creepy age of zealous homogeneity is endearing. Parents who want to give their little one-in-6-billion sons and daughters an edge can invest in braces to unstraighten their gnashers.
Non-traditional nose jobs can build up noticeable hooks and bumps. Reckless boxing can achieve the same results for less. The attempt at differentiation through tattooing failed when skin inking became ubiquitous.
Cultivating a big, hairy mole, preferably on the face, will leave a more indelible impression. A dab of black henna can be applied every day to simulate this, but it must be in a shape irregular enough not to be confused with a “beauty mark.”
Speckles of red henna could produce an old-fashioned but increasingly rare faceful of freckles. Granted, these externals will not, on their own, produce strength of personality any more than the installation of bags of silicone will make a woman beautiful.
But the slight stress of looking a bit different “may” (as cosmetic surgeons carefully say) alter perspective sufficiently to allow for light lateral thinking.
The predictably fickle pendulum of fashion is due to swing away from foreheads immobilized by botox and collagen-puffed lips.
Injections will be sought to cultivate premature corrugations simulating a brow furrowed in thought. Treatments can be phased out as the monumental strain of coping with the demands of modern life begins to tell.
Worry and sleepless nights will lend a haggard look that is all-natural. A deliberate droop will be de rigueur.
As usual, I just happen to be ahead of the curve. I’ve been informed that I have “a hangdog face” and a hunchback posture reminiscent of Blanche Hunt of Coronation Street. That’s without even trying. This look is already popular on Toronto streets, where a street woman calls me “very beautiful” though I could give her neither money nor cig.
At the very least, women considering being coerced into buying radically invasive commercial standards of physical attractiveness should pause to notice that the model promoting the introduction of knives into women’s private parts has no head.
And what sort of lowlife is staring at your crotch in the first place? Better to check that you are still in possession of a head yourself open your talking hole and tell the guy off. Self- esteem without surgery.
news@nowtoronto.com
