Breast Implants

Recently there was an article examining "the modern dating crisis" by examining Mormons and Orthodox Jews:

http://time.com/dateonomics/

It did have some interesting information, though the research didn't feel intellectually vigorous. At least for me, part of that is knowing that a large part of the breast implant market in Utah consists of married women. I'm not sure that's so much about dating.

The premise of the article is that because men outnumber women in the dating pools of these religious groups, thus having more options, this puts extra pressure on the women to increase their desirability. There is pressure on the physical appearance of the Orthodox Jewish women too, but there has also been a huge increase in the use of dowries, and their relative value. Apparently in Mormon culture there is only the focus on appearance, hence breast implants.

The article mentions at least one patient who is getting implants because her boyfriend would like them bigger (also, the plastic surgeon mentioned sees a lot of college age women coming in for Botox injections), so it's not that unmarried woman are not affected. Still, there are a lot of housewives getting the procedure too.

That is probably not completely unrelated. The ads are there for everyone to see, so even if they are geared toward one demographic, they could affect another.

There is a very interesting article on the topic at http://www.beautyredefined.net/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-salt-lake-city-is-vainest-of-them-all/, which lets us know - among other things - that Salt Lake City earned the title "Vainest City in the Nation" in 2007, based on an index of plastic surgeons per capita and spending on beauty products.

Vanity is not a Young Women value. It's not a Gospel value. It should not be something we want any of our women to aspire to. But if we tell them that they have to be attractive, and then our messages that are purportedly about other things - like modesty - still focus on the appearance of the girls, that is a likely result.

Then, if they succeed too well in being attractive, it becomes so easy to modesty-shame them.
- "That top is too tight."
- "It wasn't before the implants."

Initially my concerns with the modesty shaming was that it can alienate people who may forget that the Church is true if they find enough members being jerks. That is a concern, but even without that, this seems like a concept destined to make women neurotic and keep them from discovering their true potential.

I'd call it manure, but manure can at least produce good results. This is toxic.

I'm do have some thoughts about how focusing on service and charity, gratitude, and developing your own talents while appreciating the talents of others would do a lot more to foster true modesty anyway, but these attitudes aren't about modesty anyway. They are about keeping women down, and modesty-shaming allows women to also have a position above someone else. When your heart is right, there probably are some clothes you won't wear, but you're not going to care a lot about what other people are wearing.

That's all I have to say on this for now. Oregon Field Guide's "Unprepared" airs October 1st at 8 PM on OPB. You can watch it online too. Check it out, and then we will go back to talking about earthquakes.

(Actually, not just earthquakes; megaquakes. In fact, the megaquake. Yeah, be ready for that.)