Impolite Society: Exploring the Weird, Taboo & Macabre

Did You Have Work Done?

• Impolite Society • Season 2 • Episode 6

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We’ve all thought about having plastic surgery, at least casually. And if you haven’t, fuck off. Just right now. Fuck off, go away, you must be a perfect human with a perfect body and no insecurities. We don't want your kind here. For the rest of us, a good way to cure yourself of wanting any of this shit done is to hear more about it. Because getting a new nose sounds great- until you watch it being done. 

So let’s jump into the gory details of three of the most common cosmetic producers to try to understand why we are so repulsed and fascinated by plastic surgery. That’s you’re in for today on Impolite Society.


Sources:

 https://medihair.com/en/plastic-and-cosmetic-surgery-statistics/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2VtqmLxhbE

https://science.howstuffworks.com/anesthesia4.htm

https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/blog/what-is-capsular-contracture-and-how-can-it-be-treated

https://www.plasticsurgery.org/cosmetic-procedures/breast-augmentation/implants

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/tumescent-anesthesia



Got your own thoughts? Text them to Impolite Society!

Text Rachel and Laura or email us at rude@impolitesocietypodcast.com. Visit our website for info about the show and your hosts.

Surgery, at least casually, and if you haven't, fuck off. Just right now. Fuck off. Go away. You must be a perfect human with a perfect body and no insecurities, and we don't want your kind here. For the rest of us, a good way to cure yourself of wanting any of this done is to hear more about it. Because getting a new nose sounds great. Until you watch it being done. So let's jump into the gory details of three of the most common cosmetic procedures to try to understand why we are so repulsed and fascinated by plastic surgery. That's what you're in for today on Impolite Society.

Laura:

Hey, here we are again, Impolite Society. I'm Laura. And I am Rachel. So in case you couldn't tell by the cold open today, we're exploring plastic surgery and not even the crazy kind, which I am absolutely certain that we are going to do an episode on. some point because it's a really wild world and I have watched so many plastic surgery videos and I've got some pretty gross and detailed stories to share with you guys here today and I assume that you're into gross because you're here.

rachel:

I know we said we're saving the really wild stuff for later but I think this is pretty wild. I think any of this gets wild real fast.

Laura:

Oh, indeed. Because

rachel:

It's all before and after pictures until your face is splayed

Laura:

open. 100%. And so, there I, I, I can't stress enough how many hours I sat and watched YouTube, plastic surgeries. I, at least four hours that I spent doing this, because it's addicting. Just like I assume getting plastic surgery is, I just sat there and clicked the next, the next, the next, the next, because I, you just want to see more and there's different surgical techniques and you want to see all the befores and afters and. I'm fascinated by human bodies anyway, so it was just a spiral down the YouTube suggests rabbit hole.

rachel:

I'm more into the before and afters. I just want to imagine becoming beautiful. I don't want to see all the gritty details of

Laura:

how it happened. Oh, well then this is not the episode for you because we are getting all into those details. So, to start, I looked up the most popular surgeries in the U. S. And for women, top of the list is boob jobs and liposuction. And of course, yeah, no big surprise. And for American men at the top of the list is hair transplant. And plot twist, lipo too. And that kind of shocked me. I don't know about you, but it makes sense because getting old means getting fat, no matter if you're male or female and dieting is really fucking hard. So yeah, who doesn't, who doesn't want some lipo? Everyone wants lipo, right?

rachel:

Yeah, from one person who likes beer to an, well, not to you, but to the proverbial other person who likes beer, I feel you because let's just, as the saying goes, abs are made in the gym and shown in the kitchen. And if you just don't wanna commit to a low calorie diet to, you know, get to the point where your body fat percent are just low enough so that everybody can see those hot, hot abs and that V thing that goes down there. I hate the V thing. Just suck. Suck it all out. What do you mean? I love the V thing, just on principle that men have to be thin

Laura:

as well. I don't know, it looks like ken doll eggs or barbie doll eggs. Like they can just like. Pop off your legs at any given time. I don't know. I just, it's too, no,

rachel:

no, you couldn't because you crushed you because he's so muscular and size and running low on carbohydrates

Laura:

and he's angry because he's hungry.

rachel:

That's, that's why all the bodybuilders go berserk. It's not the steroids. It's just the. The hanger,

Laura:

so I'm not going to touch too much on hair transplants, but I will tell you if you never looked it up, you should look it up because it is grossly satisfying. It's kind of like zip popping. Like, you don't actually pop it, but just like the action of it. It's just weirdly. Weirdly satisfying. They like, pull the hair follicle out. No, not the Well, yes. It's like a little like, almost like a melon baller. Uh, like they just pop it into like, around a hair follicle and like, twist it. Like, boop! And then it just comes out. And then they make a little slice and goes back in. Whaaat? Yeah, you should watch

rachel:

it. That is That is very Very interesting. It also sounds like my personal hell because it's very tedious. I imagine.

Laura:

Oh, yeah, it pretty much takes forever So you can do you know a whole head of hair or a section of beard. Beards are really popular For people to get hair transplants into their face So they can have a full and manly beard. It's like a really gross game of Tetris, I think. Like, trying to get all these pieces to fit together. They take Where do the beard

rachel:

hairs come

Laura:

from? If you have a full head of hair, it comes from your head hair. So you have like a soft

rachel:

Cause here's the thing. Hair is different on different parts of your body. So that's why it's like, Sure, you can grab some of my leg hair and stick it on my head. And it's gonna be very different. It's gonna be very different. And I think if you took a hair head and you stuck it on a beard, you would have like a weird mane that's like luxurious and soft

Laura:

and not like coarse. But it's mixed in with some like coarse other ones. So, you know, you're kind of just like filling it in. Just be bald at that

rachel:

point, but,

Laura:

uh, so I'm not going to walk you through that surgery, but I am going to walk you through some of these most popular surgeries, gory bit by gory bit. And that is nose job, liposuction. And uh, The titty job, which we all want to hear about just some

rachel:

body, just, just mutilation, like put on your Dexter plastic and everything, hang it all around because blood and bodily fluids are going to be flying every direction. It's

Laura:

gonna get messy. So

rachel:

that's how I imagine modern day surgery is just

Laura:

fluids spewing everywhere. Like a murder room. Yeah.

rachel:

All surgeons are wannabe murderers.

Laura:

So for all of these surgeries, you are going to be under general anesthesia and that means out out. This is the one, you know, they get the anesthesiologist in, they give you this medicine and a machine is breathing for you. Uh, so they, they cannot wake you up. And this is really good, especially for the first one, nose job, a rhinoplasty is the technical term. And it's especially good because they are going to tear your face off pretty much literally. So there are two main types of rhinoplasty, open or closed, both are horrifying, but the open one is even more horrifying. So what's going to happen is that a surgeon is going to make a cut along your columella and that's that. thing that people say is your septum, but it's not, you know, like the part between your two nostrils. I'm like lifting up my nails so Rachel can see, but like this fleshy part in between, that's not your septum. Your septum is inside where the, the, the cartilage is. That's your septum. This is the columella. So they make an incision in there, bilaterally, uh, so across, and then. They take the tip of your nose and they pull it back. Yes. They separate the tip that they just like. Bisected from the bottom. Just the tip. Just the tip. Well, it's pretty much the whole thing. Because, what they're gonna do is

rachel:

Unsheath

Laura:

Unsheath your entire fucking nose. So, they're gonna separate the skin on top from the cartilage and pull it back So your nose, the inside of your nose is hanging out. It's like Red Skull in Captain America. It's like lifting the hood of your car to look at the insides. Except it's not like lifting the hood. They really have to burrow in there to separate those tissues. And it's really weird to watch because they've got to put a lot of muscle into it because there's all this fascia that attaches your skin to the, the muscles, well, I guess there's no muscles in your nose. I mean, there's a few. I'm flaring my nostrils right now.

rachel:

I have prepared a Thanksgiving turkey. I know what it's like to separate skin from the under bits and I just, that's what I'm imagining. Yeah. It's just. Get the butter sliding around underneath just to get it real tender and juicy.

Laura:

That is exactly the analogy that I want the listeners to picture. So if you've done any type of cooking ever especially poultry, because poultry often comes with the skin on. So, so delicious turkey or chicken, you've got that skin that's over the whole thing. And then when you. Either take the skin off or try to put, you know, things underneath the skin. You can lift it up and there's like this, these thin whitish membranes. That's the fascia and that is what the surgeons have to get through in order to get to the, the stuff underneath, but in humans, it's even more tricky though, because chickens, like, they, especially on the face, right, because your muscles are attached to your skin, because we have very complex facial motions, we emote, exactly. So, there is, the, the, the muscles are also attached in there, uh, and I'm not a surgeon, I don't know how they detach all these without, uh, damaging it, but. They do, because obviously people have these surgeries and they have a still emotive face. I

rachel:

think that after you have enough surgeries, there's some damage because everybody thinks of a plastic surgery face. That's not the most expressive.

Laura:

True. True. Yeah, so clearly something is going on. But, I mean, in general though, they, if you've got a successful one and done procedure, you can still emote in your face. You can still flare your nostrils, you know, appropriately. And, okay, so that was the open version. The hood of the car, red skull situation. The closed version is only slightly less awful. So they keep the hood on your nose car closed. And what they do instead is work from incisions just inside your nostrils. So just behind your columella. And I'm imagining that you can only do this version if you have fewer structural things that you need to change, like light nose work, as opposed to the Michael Jackson, that you could get it done closed, but. That those are the two different options, but it's

like

rachel:

a little laparoscopic surgery for your nose.

Laura:

It's cute Now it's still pretty terrible because they're still like gaping these holes and you're like I can see your brain You can't really see your brain, but but either way you get there once your nose is open the real fun begins and that is reshaping what's there and You can do anything you want in there. You can slice out huge pieces of cartilage. You can add cartilage to your nose from a graph. Take it from other places. What places? I don't know. I, I didn't get that deep in the medical. But I'm like, I mean, where else? I'm a

rachel:

donor. Is there like donor

Laura:

places? I think it's like your own cartilage. So like. Maybe you slice off a little sliver of ear and put it in your nose. Honestly, I don't know.

rachel:

Okay. But who's the one that's like, I need more nose. Give me more nose.

Laura:

I'll get there. Okay. Uh, or you can shave it down. And so this is what looks to be the most popular thing is getting rid of that bump in people's noses. That's so sad. I know. Cause it's very ethnic, right? So it's like of a certain part of the world and you see it on these billboards, like this was my nose, bloop, little hump. And then before it's all smooth and white girl turned up.

rachel:

Yeah. And that's, that's, I have thoughts about that too, but this may not be the part, but Bye. Bye.

Laura:

But, but that's really popular. And so they remove those bumps because that bump is usually caused by cartilage that, that has that little protrusion. It's not like bone? Yeah, it's not necessarily in the bone, but it might be. Let's, we'll get to that. So they remove it by rasping. And does rasping sound pleasant? Because it's not. And what they do, they use basically a file, they say it's not a file, but it's a file, and they stick it up your nose, you know, along the, under the skin, and they just violently rub it back and forth until they've ground down that cartilage or bone to the desired shape. And the teeth are greater. Yeah, and you should see this thing, the teeth on it are fucking huge. And then from there, they can also just. Straight take out parts of the cartilage, um, to get that little cute upturned girl nose. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics of that, like, if how Anti gravity. Yeah, I honestly don't know. I just know that, like, they take out all these pieces to get that little upturned nose. And when I was watching it Done. I said, I can totally see how Michael Jackson ended up with such a fucked up nose. Yeah, because it was like, yeah, he was trying to go for that upturned nose so many times that it just wasn't up to his snuff. They carved out so much of his nose. That it literally just fell apart and I imagine that he did get cartilage grafts to try to put back in there, you know, to change it up and it just wouldn't take anymore. See, I

rachel:

imagine that he was just trying to fix something that was not there, right? He was just trying to fix something. That was not a physical malady. It was much deeper in the

Laura:

psyche. Yeah, absolutely. And then after the cartilage work, last comes the nose breaking, because cartilage is only half your nose. So you can feel it. The top half Like right between your, um, your eyes. That's both. Oh, that's solid. Yeah, that's solid. And then you go a little bit down and then Oh, it gets wiggly. Yeah. So the top half is bone. And if that is wider than the cute little skinny part that you just made by slicing out pieces of cartilage, then you're gonna have one fucked up looking nose. So there's several techniques to do this breaking. The two ways that I saw, one. was a chisel and a hammer. To break it. And, uh, and then the other is a tiny saw that goes up your nose and they until you hear click, fucking broke it. And then how did I get it out? They don't get it out. What they do is they just kind of wiggle it around, Crack it around to where they want it to be. I imagine, I think what they do is they break and I'm not a surgeon guys So I watched these videos. I went through the what I think you're qualified. I think they crack it in the middle or this side and then just kind of like Like push it to where they want it to be. Geez. Yeah. And

rachel:

what even is a surgeon? Anybody with a knife and willpower and a little bit of chutzpah, a little bit of gumption, yeah, that is a surgeon right there, you know, sometimes you have. Patients that are willing sometimes, you know, but you know what unites all surgeons? The love of slicing noses open or people specifically maybe in their nose and just. Just digging around in there.

Laura:

So I saw them use the chisel from the outside of the nose in several videos instead of on the inside, which that surprised me. So they would put it like right along your cheek to be against your nose. Yep. And into the skin and then with the hammer. And you, you'll hear it. You hear it on the video. You hear it crack. And I was like, that really surprised me because I feel like you wouldn't want any incisions on the outside. But I think it's small enough that it heals well. I assume as long as you're not like a keloid scar. So, I don't know. It, however it breaks, they just push it around until where they want it. And this was the part that I was like, there is so much fucking blood. Like, it was gushing in every single one of the videos that I saw. Out of the, out of the bottom? Out of the nose. Out of the nose. Yeah. And. It, there really wasn't too, too much until the break part happened and, but just watching it and how they, they literally, they're ripping off someone's nose and pulling it up to their eyeballs and then rooting around in there, using saws to cut out parts of a nose, using a hammer and chisel to break it and shove it around, so much muscle that they use. I am amazed that how, of how much trauma our bodies can truly take. It's really amazing. You have to really hate yourself

rachel:

To get to that point where you're like, yes cut my face open of all places and just fucking hammer and chisel it Please

Laura:

you know what? Just like bang it into where I want it Because voila, you're now the proud new owner of a brand new schnoz. So you're going to have a black eye for a while, a couple of weeks, but your little cute girl knows it's going to reappear after a few weeks after the swelling has gone down.

rachel:

And my point of issue here is, I think you're very spot on when you say, Your cute girl nose because I think the nose that we are all trying to replicate is the nose of a small child And there's just a lot to unpack there, right? The narrow upturned Nose, and I understand that your nose gets bigger as you age and like it swells Like with pregnancy and all that kind of stuff. So like having it your nose changes as you age so it's definitely like a A youthful thing, I guess, but like, why is, why are you so obsessed with looking like children?

Laura:

Yeah, a nose is a particularly hard thing for me, because like, if I were to like, pick a nose for myself from a roster of noses, it would not be the one that I own. However, would. I have never, ever seriously considered a nose job, or anything major done to my face. Because, as much as I might Dislike some of the things about my face when you look in a mirror. That's me. That's my face Do you know what I mean? Like it could be thinner and it could be tighter and it could be blah blah blah It could be younger looking but I cannot wrap my head around changing a core feature of my face maybe my My nose is also a very much so a genetic thing like it's very much so my family knows so it's a little bit of Like heritage like right there in front of my face So I'm attached to it, you know talk

rachel:

about it being a symbol of your whole ethnicity and you're like fucking detach it Get it out of there. Yeah, it's just it to

Laura:

it. Take it Rasper

rachel:

I mean, but here's the thing to say we can both say this because we have For two white ladies with moderate sized noses, like I don't know what it's like to have a, like a honker, you know, um, I mean, mine's a little long. Am I out of place by saying I have like a somewhat idealized nose?

Laura:

No, you have a total, you have a normal nose. I've never looked at your nose and thought anything about it other than that's a nose. Ditto to you.

rachel:

I've never noticed your nose. There you go. I never noticed your

Laura:

lymph node either. Yeah, that's true. I am thinking about getting that lymph node removed. We'll get to that. But that's different. That's Yeah. That came up. That wasn't what I was born with. That was like a weird thing that popped up. Anyway. Itty hoodle. Okay.

rachel:

Anyways. You must really hate your face to have somebody cut it open and, um,

Laura:

and, um, get to school your face. Yeah. So next up is liposuction. So lipo is pretty straightforward Again, you're under and first what they do is they inject the areas that you want the fat sucked out So belly love handles thighs pretty much wherever with something called Tumescent fluid and this is a mix of saline solution epinephrine and lidocaine. And as far as I can tell, again, not a doctor, this fluid does a few things. So epinephrine is going to shrink the capillaries in the area and it's going to reduce bleeding because there's, there's a lot of stabbing going on, right? So if they're bleeding all over the place, you're just going to be giant and black and blue. So it's going to look like a Dexter scene. Yeah, a hundred percent. And then there's lidocaine, and it acts as a local anesthetic, but you're under, so I'm assuming that this is going to make you less sore when you wake up. Again, lots of stabbing. And then lastly, the saline. I think what the saline does, it kind of spaces things out. Things out in the area. So the area that the tissue then becomes firm and swollen and easier to get to. And I'm imagining what's happening is it's plumping it up. So like there's more space in the, between the fat cells to make it easier to suck out. Sure. That sounds right. And then the sucking begins and what they use is called a cannula, but it's not a needle, but think of a thick, really like thick, like think like, I don't know, quarter of an inch thick or half an inch thick, maybe even, needle. So it's like. Hollow, it's a, it's a hollow tube and what they do is they stick it underneath the skin above the muscle, which is most of where your subcutaneous fat, the fat that you don't want to people to see that's where it lives. And so it sucks out that fat and the fluid that's between the skin and, and, and muscles. So it's pretty violent. So they're stabbing and pulling and stabbing and pulling and stabbing and pulling like, imagine. If you were vacuum cleaning with a big ass needle, so you'd violently like kind of thrust forward and then pull back a little slower and do that over and over and over again. I think

rachel:

the best visual comparison is if you ever have had a Bear stuff that build the bear. It's like that, but the opposite. It's you're watching this happen and it seems pretty violent. That minimum wage worker is really jabbing that bear all over the place.

Laura:

It's like that. They try to only stab like one time. I mean, not once isn't realistic, but like as few times as they can. And then like radiate the, the. The needle into all the other areas from where you are. Does that make sense?

rachel:

Yeah, it's just like the way I do one stab into my bear's arm and then another

Laura:

stab in the bear's head. Well, think of like one stab in the bear's belly, right? And you're stuffing radially, like up, down, back, and front. Yeah, you're stabbing all the different ways to get to all the places, um, without having to make more than one incision in your bear. And so as I was watching, I was thinking, It did not look fun, but when they were done, I literally said, Oh my God, like this woman, she was lying on her side and she was getting like her waist lipo'd. She went from looking like a perfectly normal American person, you know, not, not super fat, not super skinny, just somewhere in the middle, lying on her side, to looking like a fucking playboy model. I mean like a Perfect hourglass from laying there and I was like, Oh snap. Should I, should I do this? Should I get this? Yeah.

rachel:

Of all the surgeries, this is the one that I would probably sign up for the most. Not because you know, my face is, I like your face is your face. My boobs, they're, they're there, but I'm like, everybody's fat. You know, everybody's got some fat on them that you want removed. I think this is, this is the common man. plastic surgery. And if somebody said, Rachel, you want a free liposuction, I would do it tomorrow. I would walk in there and I would like, give me a flat stomach, take away this weird little Ghibli bits under my butt. And then I would, I would literally. Be my best self. We'll also slap on underarms and the bra boob. Oh that like a bra fold bra fat Yeah, get rid of that and I my problem is I put on my fat very evenly So there's not just one spot you could just vacuum out real quick. It would be like five or six places It's just like just

Laura:

go on a diet. So In case you're wondering, I looked up how much fat they can remove with one session of lipo, and that is about 5, 000 cc's of fat, which is 10 to 11 pounds. So maybe not. That's perfect. Oh, well, not for me. I need way more than that. But

rachel:

you have to spend the money every session, I guess.

Laura:

Well, that, so that's, that's as much that can be done in one session. So that's like the max. So it would be like one, like five to 10 pounds in the stomach, which is immediately where I would get it. But then even so, like you would have to do, then your legs and then your arms and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, do you know why? I'm Cuz you would die cuz there's oh, yeah Oh, yeah. You're bleeding. The fat

rachel:

has blood in it. Yeah. Yeah, because I've heard this, and I tried to Google and confirm it, so I could not. So it's still, in the 30 seconds I took Googling to back my story up, I could not find it. So take this with a grain of salt, but I've heard back in the day when they were first figuring out surgery, they would just cut out fat from the people that they were doing the surgery on because they're like, they don't need

Laura:

this,

rachel:

like it's extra, cut it out, cut it out, get rid of it. And then their patients would die because. They're losing all this blood that's in the fat because I mean guess it is still part of

Laura:

you Oh, absolutely. Everything in your body has blood supply. So yeah. Yeah, and that's why they gave you that epinephrine to keep You from bleeding out through your insides. Yeah So it's

rachel:

it's to make it go smoother But also to keep you alive and that's just a good underlining point of all of this is that you are taking your life into your

Laura:

own hands I mean, that's general anesthesia period, you know, it, it's, you're, there's always a risk. It is like, 0. 05 or, I, I don't know what the percentages are. I know they are very small, which seemed like nothing when it was me, but my daughter has been under twice for ear tube surgery and it is an under under surgery. And so every time I'm just like, because there's that tiny percentage that something is going to go horribly wrong. So. You know, take that care that you have for your children. Take it for yourself and don't do it unnecessarily.

rachel:

Yeah, that's, and that's my moral stance behind, Oh, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, bummer index. It's moving. It's moving. How can you talk about taboos without having bummers? I don't know. We're trying it out. Okay. Move on.

Laura:

Our next category.

rachel:

Stop the fat out. Maybe or maybe not. The

Laura:

breast augmentation, the itty bitty titty committee is here and they got a lot to say. Boob jobs, there are a zillion techniques. They can make incisions wherever they want. It can be under the arm, under the boob, around the nipple. And then the implants can be placed in a bunch of places too, either over the muscle and underneath the gland, AKA that's your natural breast tissue, or underneath your pectoral muscles. And there are a ton of different shapes and kinds of implants. There's round, teardrop, gummy bear, silicone, saline. The list really goes on. So there's, this is the most popular surgery. So there is a lot of money to be made here. So they are pumping out new things all the time to, to get them better, more realistic, more long lasting.

rachel:

What the fuck shape is gummy bears?

Laura:

I don't think they make gummy bears anymore. It's, it's, it was a more natural breast shape. So the shape of a silicone implant. Is I don't know how to describe a hamburger. Yes. Like a really fat hamburger. There you go. It's, you know, it's a circle. I need

rachel:

the light. So I'm always thinking about hamburgers

Laura:

and it's squishy. The gummy bear is a different kind of material. So it's not as goopy as silicon. Like it literally is. It's kind of like a gummy bear. So it doesn't move the same way and then it's shaped more like a natural breast where it's thinner on top and then rounder at the bottom. Oh,

rachel:

like the belly of a gummy bear. Not like a head and then a stomach and then legs. You're like, it's the most natural and I'm like. Just

Laura:

picturing like a, like a giant, like one of those novelty gummy bears shoved underneath on my

rachel:

chest. Like,

Laura:

Hey, that would be

rachel:

a surprise for the guys you take home from the bar. Just like, Hey, it's Easter under here or whatever occasion gummy bears are appropriate for.

Laura:

Uh, but then also this was something that I learned because I was always like, why are they so round looking? Because they look so unnatural. Impacts always look so unnatural because how round they are. And I was like, oh, so these more natural shaped ones would look more natural. Well, spoiler alert, uh, the natural breast shape sags. Just like natural breasts do. So you're going to have to get them, yeah, you're going to have to get them, redone more often. So it is an option, but not a lot of people opt for them because you're going to have to get them redone even more often. I'll talk a little bit about redoing boob jobs here later. They have an expiration date.

rachel:

They do. Or you can just let your natural looking boobs naturally sag, because what's more natural than sagging boobs?

Laura:

So either way, once the incisions are made in the chosen location, what the surgeon will do is to create a pocket to hold your new titty, because everything in your chest is very much so situated where it needs to be. So they all accounted for? Yeah. every square inch is accounted for, so they have to make room. And so if that's underneath the muscle. That means they are cutting in and going down to where your pectoral muscles attach to your ribs and cutting apart the muscle and fascia from your ribs and Separating it to make room for that new artificial body part. This was very disturbing to watch. There's a lot of slicing, there's a lot of pulling, they use things that look like little mini crowbars, uh, to kind of hold open these gaping incisions. They start rooting around in there and in the surgeries that I saw, several of them used this little cauterizing thing rather than a scalpel. Yeah. And it's really freaky. So you can see the little tiny flame that it uses and like, cause it, it, it doesn't use a tiny flame. It's like really hot, but it catches tiny bits of fat and then it like kind of flares out and sizzles. And you can see these little like burn bits of scar tissue that it leaves behind as it, as it makes its way through making room for your, your new breast.

rachel:

It's like internal barbecuing

Laura:

yourself. Yeah, yeah, and I'm looking because I mean, you know the tissue it turns brown it turns black and I'm just like This is this like you're sewing this back up inside your body It just doesn't it doesn't look healthy Okay, but here's

rachel:

the question is where did you see all this? Like where is this stuff available? YouTube. Yeah, who is the doctor? That's

Laura:

like there was one guy Oh man, he had the best setup. He had, he's got a camera on his head, he's got a camera up top, and he narrates the whole thing as he does it. I imagine that it is a great marketing technique. Oh my

rachel:

gosh. Yeah, but like, who's the one who wants to sign up? Like, are there just like boobs out the

Laura:

whole time or do they put a black bar? Yes, but they don't see their face. No, no. Tits are out. Tits are all out. But you don't see their face. Does YouTube allow nipples? I think in a surgery setting they do because I certainly saw

rachel:

them. When they're, when they're cut off of your body. That's

Laura:

it. They're okay. And back. So once they've made the little Little hot pocket, uh, in there, the implant goes on in, and the surgeon, he'll jiggle it around to make sure that it's placed correctly. do more cutting as needed to shift it into place. They'll raise the surgery table, so it's more of a sitting position. Cause we gotta see how they hang, right? How they hang in

rachel:

gravity. That's the, that's the problem.

Laura:

Yep. And so the breast natural

rachel:

enemy

Laura:

gravity. And from here, they'll do any tweaks that they need to shifting it one way, shifting the other, making more space as needed. If it's hanging, you know, if it's getting squeezed out by another muscle that's attached, you got to go in there and cut it out. And then they stitch on up. And I watched. Maybe five or six boob jobs because One I wanted to see the different techniques and two I was absolutely fascinated. So one of these women. And three, boobs

rachel:

Who doesn't like

Laura:

boobs? Yeah, they are kind of fun to just watch. Sometimes I just jiggle them just for fun

rachel:

Oh my god, every time I go down the stairs, I'm like Boop, boop, boop, make sure they're still there. You know, men like to reposition their junk and women are just like Tits

Laura:

just hitching them up. So continue one woman that I saw she was some hot young thing And this was her third Boob job. And that Well,

rachel:

somebody probably fucked him

Laura:

up along the way, right? Well, so that's, that's them thinking that, that's what the surgeon said, that she wasn't happy with them. I'm like, but three times? I think that's really the lesson that you should take from this. Not even plastic surgery can buy your happiness. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, maybe the surgeon messed it up once and then she did another one to fix it. But then why the fucking third one? You know what I mean? Like There's some things that you just can't fix. If you're not happy with yourself, you're just not happy with yourself. There's nothing to be done. And of course, I mean, she was a freaking hot ass, hot ass girl. She's got a totally flat belly and, you know, giant knockers. plastic surgery. Yeah, well, either way, but she looks great. Well, I feel like she doesn't see that. Skinny girls

rachel:

are attracted to the breast surgery because it's like, you're, if you're a naturally skinny person, guess what makes up boobs? It's fat. So if you don't have a lot of fat, you don't have a lot of boobs. And so then they need the plastic surgery. So that's the ones, the skinny girls who

Laura:

get the knockers. Well, that was the other one that I, another one that I saw. It was a woman who was ironing bordered flat. She went to D cup. And they looked so fucking stupid fake. It was just, you know, like two half basketballs strapped in. I'm like, you look fucking stupid. And then the last one I watched, that was the best one. And it was a saggy old titty woman like me. So I was all in. I'm like, let's see, slow clap

rachel:

everybody. Yeah. It's just my boobs swinging and slapping against each other as I walk around.

Laura:

So saggy McGee got it all done. She got a lift and an implant. And this is what they do usually because you can just do a lift, but I've looked them up. They don't look as good. The shape doesn't come together the same way. But I got the meat, Laura. I got the meat. I know exactly the 30 Rock episode that you are referencing. It still, it doesn't work. Cause what they do, see this is what you want to do. When you look in the mirror and you say a lift. Like, what you'll do when you're naked in front of the mirror is you'll put your hands on top of your, your titties, and then you'll lift up, and you're like, oh, that looks good. But that's not what they do, because you can't do it up there. You have to do it at the bottom. So imagine taking a breast in each hand, and then squeezing all the skin, and you're like, yeah, they come up, but the shape isn't right. They're all a weird shape. That's why you also need the implant. And so what they do, they basically flayed her breast open and then they put an implant under the muscle and reconstructed her breast. So they keep her nipple attached to the natural breast tissue, but they cut all around the areola and then they cut down to the crease of the breast. Okay. And then like, flay it open, separate all the skin. All right. They've, they've put, they've, they've, uh, put an implant underneath. So it's like all, like the skin is like full, right? As full as it can be while not looking absolutely ridiculous. So you've got like a disembodied titty gland with an areola attached. Just floating, just floating there. Yeah. And then they hoist the areola up to a new location on the higher up on the breast and then they staple it like legitimately Yeah, I was like, I was like this is can't be how they do it. You have to make an incision You have to attach it. Yeah, but what they do is they do that to get the positioning, right?

rachel:

Oh, and then they cut and then sew.

Laura:

So then they decide this is where it looks, this is good, this is how we like it. So then they cut a new opening for the areola higher up on the breast, stitch it in. And then close the bottom, removing some skin, some excess skin there. And then the surgeon

rachel:

goes home and thinks, yes, I have contributed to humanity

Laura:

today. But I'm not going to lie. And

rachel:

they cry into their stacks of

Laura:

money. But once it was done, I'm not going to lie. They look good. I mean, they did look fake. After it healed. Right? Well, no. I mean, even just after they were done. I mean, they look like Frankenboob. You know, she's got stitches and staples. But after it was done, I'm like, I can see how this is gonna heal and this is gonna look nice. Fake. Again. But still pretty good looking.

rachel:

Nice. As long as all the nerves are connected to where they need to be, I guess, it is. I think,

Laura:

I mean, if you're leaving the whole nipple attached to the breast, then I assume Um. You know, because nipples are, you know, they're, they can be important. So I assume that they don't mess with anything, but I mean, I don't know, I'm sure a ton of them go wrong. I've heard that

rachel:

it reduces sensation in

Laura:

the nipple after the fact. How could it not? You literally sliced it

rachel:

off. Yeah, so you're literally reducing the things that you can feel to make your boobs more attractive. You're turning, you're putting plastic, you're reducing your Potential sensation to make yourself more attractive to your partner. Anyways, Feminist soap box. I'm getting off of it right now.

Laura:

Okay. And then the last one I watched, this one was a doozy. They were removing old breast implants. And I learned something that I did not ever knew. I knew that you had to replace breast implants every so often. But I didn't know why. So there's a couple of different reasons. It's the integrity, the implant, like it can, you know, leak or puncture, they have an expiration date. Yeah, leaking silicon out into your body. But there's another reason. It's called so, your new knockers, they are not a part of you, and your body is 100 percent aware of this. So to protect itself from this foreign item that it deems as a potential threat, because again, it's not supposed to be there, your body tries to quarantine it. It forms a barrier all around it, all around the entire implant, a capsule of scar tissue. And this happens not just to breast implants, but any medical device that you put in your body. So if you've got like a, you know, a screw or a fake hip or whatever, like this is just something that happens. But this scar tissue, they call it scar tissue. It's not like any other scar tissue that I've seen before. Like, you know, when you cut yourself, you know, you've got like a denser, you know, skin. And Luz has seen scar

rachel:

tissue. She has dissected bodies. She has opened up bodies.

Laura:

It is hard. And brittle and hard and brittle are generally not the words that you want to describe your boobies. So when they get like this You have to have them removed and replaced because not only are they going to feel weird. They'll start to look weird because That previous hamburger shaped implant is going to get bow constrictor ed into these round basketball looking things because the scar tissue is encapsulating a smooshy hamburger. Does that make sense?

rachel:

Yeah, it does. It does. At first, when you said it changes the shape and the appearance, I was like, the general public hasn't seen the actual shape of my breast in years, so it's just like, what's the difference, right? You know, it's the same, but if it's starting to like, crystallize

Laura:

and change the shape, it gets, yeah, it gets hard. Like, imagine, like, you know, you've got a boob that's like, you know, it naturally is like round and soft. So, you know, it. But imagine if you literally just put like a softball underneath your skin, it does not look right. It gets lumpy. Of course, it, it contracts in like an ununiform way and they're misshapen. Did you see the picture that I put in the notes? Cause I put several in there. So

rachel:

Laura has added screen grabs. Is now the appropriate time to describe what I'm seeing in the screen grabs? Yes. So there are several screen grabs of a video of a removed breast implant. And the best thing that I can describe it as is it looks like a Babybel cheese wheel. It's got like a red waxy outside that they have peeled off and then inside is the yellowish like cheese wheel, which was the silicone implant.

Laura:

I refer to it as a pomegranate. Like, so it's red and it's lumpy and circular on the outside, and then you, he peels it open and I mean, literally it cracks the wax

rachel:

open. Wax coating. Yeah. Cracks

Laura:

open of the baby bell cheese wheel and it starts to flake everywhere and, and so it looks like he just hold a pomegranate and. The sound that he made, I mean they, they, they cut open and they like lifted some of the tissue and he took a Surgical instrument and hit it and it was like, it was like hitting a watermelon like boom boom boom boom. Oh

rachel:

Jesus

Laura:

Christ. It, I, I, it just, why, why, why, why would you put this into your body? I don't get it. This is My boobies are so

rachel:

flat and I feel like a man And i'm self conscious with my flat stomach

Laura:

So that

rachel:

is it

Laura:

that's the top three plastic surgeries in the United States. And so now that we've gotten all the gory details of how they're done. And

rachel:

can I reiterate that these are not the most extreme. These are the most common. People are having their faces opened, their fat stabbed and their breast blade open like the Viking blood Eagle every goddamn

Laura:

day. Yeah. I bet, I, I was wondering about how many surgeries does this guy do in a day? That's what I was wondering. Two, three, five? I have no idea.

rachel:

At least three, I don't know. How long does it he's probably got it down

Laura:

to Zip zap. Oh my god. He's so confident and so like, you know. Slip them up,

rachel:

jiggle them around, slap them around a little bit. Well they do, they do

Laura:

slap them around.

rachel:

And then they're like, looks good. I'd I'd put my dick between those. Sew them up.

Laura:

That it is definitely difficult to watch the surgeries because they are like, they're these unconscious women laying on a slab and people are cutting and grabbing and it's just like, it does make you feel very uncomfortable. Well, I'm

rachel:

sure it makes us feel uncomfortable in a lot of ways, right? Like why, speaking of taboos, why is this, you know, your body, your choice, but like why are there so many taboos around this?

Laura:

Okay. So there's a couple of theories and it's not just the, the red skull nose, the ripping, the stabbing. There's something going on, on a social level, because if plastic surgery was not taboo in some way, we could ask anyone at all, Did you have work done? And it wouldn't be rude. But it's super fucking rude. Don't ever ask anybody that. Wait, can I share a

rachel:

story about this? Yes. Yeah. So when I was a young, ripe Late teenager. I went to community

Laura:

college. Right. I don't like that word.

rachel:

I just think of how my breasts looked at the time. They were right. And I was very into low cut shirts and I was a high school senior doing like dual credit. So I'd go to the community college in the afternoon to take classes. And in one of my classes, a theater class, nonetheless, I was sitting there with probably one of my low cut tops, boobs looking magnificent, you know, as they do when you're 18. And this older woman who was there, and she was like, thought she was hot shit, talking about how hot she was. She was probably like 40, I don't know, I was 17, everybody over 20 was like ancient. And then she asked me, we're sitting in the theater doing something, she turned and asked Are those implants? Like, did you get a boob job? And I was just like, no, this, this is my tits. And I have the stretch marks to prove it.

Laura:

That, honestly, I'd be like, no, they're real. Thank you. What a compliment.

rachel:

No, she definitely meant it as a dig because she was old.

Laura:

Um, yeah. And jealous. That's what I mean. So to me, that's a confidence booster. Like, yeah, they're young, they're high and they're tight. Thanks. Thanks for noticing.

rachel:

They won't be forever, but today they're good. Do

Laura:

not laugh.

rachel:

When the bustier goes by, cause where you are, so once was I.

Laura:

That's what I say.

rachel:

I've never liked them. I don't want them. And yeah, that was ridiculous. Yeah.

Laura:

She also want them. Why are you wearing these low cut tops? Well, at the time,

rachel:

that was the style. That was what everybody was wearing. I was buying the shit at Abercrombie is everybody else. and She also said a lot of weird stuff about like how I'm attractive and my husband is attractive and I was worried our kids weren't, weren't going to be attractive because sometimes two good looking people can have ugly babies, but I'm like, yeah, this is why you're in a fucking community college theater class at 40. I'm just,

Laura:

come on. So that was a super rude thing to say and here are my theories as to why we are all collectively a little weirded out plastic surgery. First up, vanity and shallowness. Vanity is a deadly sin for a reason, right? We're taught from a young age that it is not good to be too focused on our appearance and people don't like people who are vain. Yet for some reason, we also fucking love beautiful people. Preferably someone who doesn't know or care that they are beautiful or put in any effort. Effortless beauty. Yeah. That's what we value over everything else. Next one is seeking validation. So, American society expects us to be confident self assured. Self assured. But how? No one can tell you how one becomes self assured. But we do know that you should not seek validation from the people around you. And getting work done so that you can receive external validation? Pssh! Fucking loser.

rachel:

Yeah. So like, aren't you happy enough with yourself? Like why do you need to put your body, why do you need to face death, you know, potentially kill yourself to be more attractive? Like what?

Laura:

Yeah. And we looked down on that. I mean, we did it ourselves talking about it previously. Like, why would you do this to yourself to fit a beauty

rachel:

standard? Because you're not mentally well.

Laura:

Next, artificiality. It's interesting to me that in our most technologically advanced time, we are still obsessing over what is natural and what is not. But to me, it's like putting all natural on a food product. It doesn't mean anything. It's just like a, a term that we grabbed out of the air that has no definition. I think there's something going on here that kind of correlates with the uncanny valley, kind of instinct of like. You, it looks too fake, close to real. So it weirds me out. So we don't like that. I think that there's a tipping point that's probably different for everyone. You know, for some people it's Tom Hanks in, uh, what is it? The Polar Express. The Polar

rachel:

Express. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo,

Laura:

doo, doo, doo, doo. And then for some other people, it's a fake nose or a fake breast. Like knowing that it exists, it gets too fake and it weirds you out. And. I don't know, I just think that there's, there's something interesting going on there. I can't put my finger on exactly what, but something.

rachel:

Well, yeah, you can take, especially when you come to, like, Natural, you can take a person who's born that way and somebody looks exactly like them who was created through surgery, people are going to prefer the natural. And I think it goes way back to that ideology or that belief that attractiveness equals goodliness. So if you can change your appearance and look more attractive, then all of a sudden you're duping us, right? You're somebody who isn't as good. Who is now appearing

Laura:

good. It's like makeup. You know, people get slammed for wearing too much makeup. They get

rachel:

so offended, they, men.

Laura:

Mm hmm. Like, this is why I have trust issues, women. I'm not, those videos, like those transformation videos on TikTok, you know, where you find like a really homely looking woman, and then like, boom, I'm super hot, and guys are like, oh my god! I'm like, what you need to do, men, is you just need to understand the hallmarks of makeup. Like, you cannot look at that person that is literally, So painted, and then be surprised that they look different when they take off that makeup. Like, of course they look different! You cannot see anything! You can see nothing!

rachel:

All these men who are like, I like a natural woman. I like a natural woman. They will like, when you give them images, they will point to a woman wearing makeup and be like, she's natural.

Laura:

Exactly! Because they don't know. They're completely Just, if you wanna educate yourself, men, just go on TikTok and start looking up makeup tutorials and then you'll see the transformation step by step by step. And then if you're freaked out by the idea that you're gonna be, you know, catfish by some woman who looks a certain way in the bar and then looks awful the next morning, look for the hallmarks of heavy makeup.'cause you can see it happen as you watch people get dressed.

rachel:

Or I was gonna say, if you want a woman who looks natural, she's gonna look like a man. Because, guess what? You guys aren't wearing any makeup! And when we don't wear makeup, we look like you!

Laura:

With longer hair and bigger boobs.

rachel:

Well Depending on the man. True. True. And depending on the woman if she didn't get plastic

Laura:

surgery. And the last one, the last reason I think that we are collectively weirded out by plastic surgery is it shows some kind of weakness of character. And I think of this in the sense, let's be real. Women don't get bigger boobs. So their shirts will fit better. I'm sorry. Just shut the fuck up They get big boobs because it's in style because men like them people say it's for my confidence like okay but again your confidence is Shaped by the patriarchy shaped by the image that society has deemed as attractive. So That's just, I mean, if you, I bet if you looked at how many lesbians have implants, it's a lot lower than straight women because, yeah, I mean, everybody likes titties, men, women, you know, lesbian, whatever. But it's that sense of like, where do you draw the line? Where is your worth coming from? You know what I mean? I do. But my response

rachel:

is you do the research. I don't want to do the research. I don't want to look into it. You look into it.

Laura:

I did no into the lesbian thing. No, I didn't. I didn't think we're done with that. Yeah, we're done chasing those kinds of strings. We're on a time budget now, folks. We're going

rachel:

to pose the question and we're going to say, You really want to know that? Let your fingers do the

Laura:

walking. You look it up and then

rachel:

you let us know. You send us the article, then we'll do a

Laura:

podcast. Oh, I like that. Submit, not only your ideas, submit your research to In The Lights This Side.

rachel:

Your peer reviewed research, and if you want to write a script, I mean, I, we'll probably read it word

Laura:

for word. I like that. Crowdsource our research and

rachel:

script. Crowdsource the podcast. Here we go. Here we go. If you want to hear your words read back to you in our voices.

Laura:

I just got the email for you. All right, so we judge people who have gotten plastic surgery because it feels like they've caved to those unrealistic body standards and accept that cultural lie that to be valued, you have to be beautiful.

rachel:

Or they just don't like themselves, right? Like if this, like we talked about assuredness, that's a very Open way or very forward way to be like, yeah, I'm not happy with who I am and this meat sack. I'm walking around with and I'm like, well, if you don't like you, why should I like

Laura:

you? Yeah, and I, I struggled with this section when I was writing it and it came down to, okay, all these reasons. Do I, do I find validity in it? Do I agree with it? Yes. Yes, I do. I mean, we've talked about it throughout all the research when we were going through it. It absolutely. Bothers me. I can understand every single one of these. But, would I get lipo if someone gave me a free coupon for it? You bet your ass I would. Do I also get Botox pretty regularly? Yep, sure do. We are

rachel:

hypocrites!

Laura:

That is cognitive dissonance, folks. And honestly, I think that this is a huge reason why plastic surgery makes us so uncomfortable because we're coming too close to that cognitive dissonance. We're facing it nose to nose and saying, I think that getting plastic surgery is shallow and awful and blah, blah, blah, but damn, it does look good.

rachel:

You look good. Well, we're all looking for the

Laura:

easy way out, aren't we all? I absolutely am. And that's the end of this podcast. That's

rachel:

the easy way out. It's over. Bye.

Laura:

Well, I should say that's the end of the research, but that, that's the conclusion that I came to that cognitive dissonance, that, that is why we're uncomfortable with it because we don't know what to do with it. We don't know where to place it. Yeah, because it's all,

rachel:

it's bad when other people do it, but it's okay when we

Laura:

want to do it. Because we look hot when we look in the mirror. Well,

rachel:

yeah, we all feel better. We all will feel better about ourselves once we change one or two things, ideally, right? So

Laura:

it's just One or two. I thought about doing an experiment one time. I've never actually done it. I've just thought about it. Of like, if you were to literally take bit by bit, like, top of my head to the tip of my toes. And write down everything that I wanted to change about my body. And I'd be like, that would be the longest list in the world. And then I'm like, I don't actually want to make that list. I just want to note to myself that there's a lot of things that I don't like about myself. But that's okay. You know what I mean? Like, it's just part of being a human being. Yeah, and like,

rachel:

people won't ever look at you that closely.

Laura:

Exactly. Because they have no idea. Like, I don't need toe shortening surgery because no one is fucking looking at my goddamn toes. And if you are, you're a pervert. Get away from my toes.

rachel:

I mean, especially in this day and age, like you, Laura, your whole identity is an email signature to a lot of people. So that's

Laura:

humbling. And my picture that's attached to like, you know, my, my worker profile. And now

rachel:

you can just have AI. You can have AI make you a better one. And that's what I'll say. It's like, I get the urge and I'm not going to judge the urge. I'm going to judge it a little bit to be fair. I'm going to judge you the most when you take your, you risk your life, the one life that you have, the one chance you have to be on this earth. If you risk that to change your appearance. That's something, but if you're gonna like in the future when we all live through filters and people can present any way they want As long as people get their chance to be alive. I'm like good for you You know, I am more okay with filters and makeup and all that kind of stuff Do whatever you need to do But like just don't roll the dice that you're shortening your time here on this planet because that's

Laura:

literally This you don't get a do over. No do overs. No take backs One life to live, except for in

rachel:

podcasting, because then we're actually, we didn't like this take. So we're going to redo the whole thing.

Laura:

One life to live. All right. So that

rachel:

is it for this

Laura:

episode for Impolite Society. I would recommend that you follow us on Instagram. Instagram? I think we're going to be on Instagram.

rachel:

I just subscribe. Number

Laura:

one is subscribe. Oh yeah, subscribe. And also, tell friends. Smart, curious people know other smart, curious people. We want to bring them into the fold to hear about the rude, the macabre, the strange, the weird, the shocking. Bring them into our folds. Ha! Our folds. We'll only

rachel:

pass a little bit of judgment at them. While doing

Laura:

so. Yeah, send this to your friends who've had plastic surgery. Be like,

rachel:

You have weak morals. Only because the rest of us can't afford to have weak morals.

Laura:

We got mortgages and daycare. And car payments, Rachel's buying a van, I have a minivan, we'll have to hear about all this when the cam turns off. All right, guys, thank you so much for joining us today. Share, tell your friends and email your, completed scripts with peer reviewed research at rude at impolite society podcast, podcast. com. Thank you. Gmail.

rachel:

com. You said it impolite society podcast at. com. It's

Laura:

rude at impolite society podcast.

rachel:

com. Oh yeah. We have several

Laura:

email addresses. Don't confuse the listener, the listener.

rachel:

And you'll figure it out. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Laura:

Should we take, put a break in here somewhere? No. We didn't

rachel:

with my last episode. It was roll, roll the credits. You know? Get the people what they want, which is 40 minutes of this