Cosmetic vulnerability

the new face of human frailty

Emilio García-Sánchez

pp. 189-217

in: Aniceto Masferrer, Emilio García-Sánchez (eds), Human dignity of the vulnerable in the age of rights, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

In postmodern societies concerns about physical attractiveness arise. Many want to be eternally young, sexy, slender, unwrinkled and muscular. Therefore the queues get longer in beauty centres, gyms and cosmetic clinics. The aesthetic consumerist desire is stressful and often infinite. No beauty enhancements are possible without cosmetics, fashion industries or clinics. Cosmetic enhancements have become an important source of both income and anxiety. Dysmorphophobias, eating disorders (anorexia, bigorexia), depression, body dimorphic irreparable damage are often caused by surgery and other treatments. The chapter identifies and discusses the emergence of a new social group of vulnerable people… the cosmetically vulnerable. Some negative results of cosmetic practices are raising serious questions about the bioethics of its procedures. Are some cosmetic doctors complicit in promoting socially suspicious standards of beauty and causing the spreading of this new face of human frailty?