From “Baywatch” to Rodeo Drive, it is everywhere. Hollywood would not be the same without it – silicone. The “wonder drug” of the nation has advanced from victim to victim, beginning with women and taking its most recent step into the animal world.
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Neuticles, the latest innovation in the world of veterinary technology. The new implant will take the place of the old policy of neutering by replacing the dog’s neutered parts with plastic implants that are supposed to make him look and feel “like a man.”
It is an interesting concept. After all, we would not want Scruffy parading the streets being laughed at by all the stray dogs in the neighborhood, would we? This implant promises to end the days of inferiority complexes for dogs.
By introducing this new implant, we have personified dogs all over the country. We have given them characteristics that only humans possess, such as the ability to feel inferior. As far as I know, dogs eat and sleep. Some dogs bring in the morning paper. But I do not think the trauma experienced in the neutering process has called for this new implant. It is bad enough that the human population has been plagued by the need to “look great.”
Body parts all over the country are being shot with silicone or stuffed with implants. In today’s society, appearance is everything. To some, cost is no object. Whatever it takes to change that “flaw” is worthwhile.
With this “image is everything” belief, women and men all over are taking their physical images and transforming them with one simple shot or implant. For women who feel that their lips are too thin, there is the simple and relatively inexpensive collagen shot, which temporarily inflates the lips to make them “fuller.”
What many women do not understand is that these shots are very temporary. Not to mention the swelling that results from this foreign liquid being shot into the lip is both ugly and longstanding.
The ever-popular breast implants have made a comeback. Although it is true that they never went out of style, it is easier to receive the implants than it has ever been. In the early ’80s, plastic surgeons did not encourage implants. They did exist, but were only encouraged under circumstances where the patient had suffered a significant decrease in breast size due to child birth or other circumstances. Plastic surgeons were few and far between back then. Now, a person can flip through any phone book or magazine and see either an ad for a plastic surgeon or for a “simple and inexpensive” procedure.
Men can flip through any men’s health magazine and read ad upon ad for penile implants. What once was hush-hush in a man’s world has become common knowledge. If the size is not just right or if you have been feeling a little inferior, then surgery is the answer for you. The ads boast of thousands of successful implants and thousands of satisfied men. What about the ones who came out marred or dissatisfied? Those customers are not given the same ad space.
It is also not mentioned that oftentimes the length or width increase is not substantial. Other times the pain that is endured is excruciating, or the body just rejects the foreign object, as is often the problem with foreign objects being implanted into human bodies.
Dogs do not need to have plastic parts replacing their real ones. Who does this satisfy? The owner or the dog? The neutering procedure has been practiced for hundreds of years with few complications. Not until now, when appearance is so important, do humans feel that such an implant is necessary for an animal. By perfecting such an implant we are trying to boost the esteem in an animal that never had problems with esteem in the first place.
Whether it is lips or breasts, the problem that is solved with implants is rarely the problem that is at hand. When it is the decision to increase from a “B” cup to a “DD” cup, there is only one problem that needs to be fixed-self-esteem. And no surgeon, shot or implant can help in that department.
Christie Reed, a junior journalism major, is editor in chief of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at reedc@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.
