Cancer Free, Mastectomy?

I know this was simply an online news article, but I find this topic very interesting and wish the article would have been longer.
Body modification, health, individual concerns in turmoil with family ties, to me this is intriguing.
Even though personal experiences with cancer are so emotionally charged, you would think a family member would be able to put aside personal bias in order to try to help someone decide what is best for them.
And yet here this woman is, being bombarded on all sides by family members with different opinions.
I understand the need for validation. The choice is, essentially, individual, but the individual wants to know they are making the "right" choice and if they make the "wrong" choice at least it's not totally their fault.
The article also brings up another interesting issue with cultural concepts of femininity. Would a woman still be considered feminine without her breasts? Or even with fake ones that were "incapable of feeling touch or nursing children."
A personal health decision involving the scariest of scaries...CANCER
is no longer about the individual, or even their family,
but also the GUY THEY'RE DATING?
Ok, I shouldn't judge. Maybe he is "the one."
But still, you're not married. If your concern is for you being able to feel or nurse children for your own sake, by all means worry.
But if the deciding factor is your boyfriend's opinion of fake breasts, DO NOT RISK CANCER FOR HIM.

These are all interesting issues that I wish the article elaborated on.




EDIT: Whoops. Gotta love technology. The article I printed was not the full article. It ended up addressing all of my points. Overall, this was an excellent article.

Visibly Queer: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics

To me, SM always seemed perverse.
Not in the normative sense like sex has to be a certain way or heteronormativity must dominate,
but masochism, especially for the sake of sexual gratification, confused me.
I thought it was purely about the physical, primitive and animalistic.
I never once considered its political implications, or its use for community building.
So, according to norms, straight women bond through cooking, salon gossip, talking about boys.
Straight men bond through athletics and video games.
GLBT bond through branding each other?
Alright, yes, I understand that the point is to stray from the norm.
But by trying sooo hard to stray from the norm, aren't you just giving it more power?

In my opinion, people should do what they want to do (to some extent) and disregard if it fits into a norm or not.
Purposefully following the norm or purposefully breaking it, either way you're giving it more power.

In the instance of Mark and Shawn, it seems to me that Shawn originally did not want to do SM, but he felt like he needed to in order to fit into a "non-normative norm."
I may be wrong, it is possible that he would have wanted to do SM had he been exposed to it.
It just appears to me that a culture obsessed with tearing down the norm is just as bad as a culture obsessed with the norm, because they're both obsessed with it, and both forming norms of their own, in a sense.

It seems like a pointless battle.
Identity, and the search for it, are not pointless.
But building your identity off of a norm, in either direction, will only lead to the creation of conflict and new norms.

Body Modification "Extremes"

I agree with Katie, I didn't find the article about extreme body modifications particularly offensive, just different.
I noticed a lot of our classmates blogged about how outrageous it is that people are doing this. I don't find it so outrageous, it just bothers me how people are going to such great lengths without using safe medical procedures.
Having stars, creating interesting new shapes, even splitting the tongue to become a lizard, while these are all extreme forms of change, they are just personal changes an individual has the right to make.
I am most concerned about the safety of these procedures and the consequences that can arise if something goes wrong.
While it is the responsibility of the individual to take these risks into consideration, I feel like there should be some sort of regulation for these kinds of modifications.
Surgeons refuse to do it because they want people to be safe.
If you really wanted these people to be safe, wouldn't you do if for them instead of letting them go to piercing parlors?
Also, if safey if your main concern and you argue these are unnecessary procedures, then what are the cosmetic procedures you keep performing?
I feel like this argument of "medical ethics" mainly has to do with surgeons judging those who undergo such procedures, as well as the controversy created due to the nature of these procedures. I'm fairly certain they were not created by someone in the medical field, so that is a concern.

Horns, stars, sea horses, I don't really care.
It's your body, just be smart about it.

MeMe Roth

I agree with Joanna, MeMe Roth is a bit ridiculous.
One of the arguments brought up in class is that the new weight that is considered "normal" and "healthy" is actually heftier than previous weights, due to skewing caused by obesity.
That's insane. In other countries and cultures, larger women are more socially acceptable.
Throughout history, women with larger bodies are considered more healthy than the super skinny because they have food and potentially develop muscles through healthy lifestyles. Hell, women with wider hips were valued because they were more likely to survive giving birth.

"When I look at her, I see diabetes and heart disease."
Honestly, who says that?
Even if I see an actual severely obese person, I look at them and see a PERSON.

I have never seen American Idol, but to say that a person should not win a contest due to superior talent because they "send the wrong message" is completely unfair.
The contest is not America's Thinnest Idol.
In addition, Jordin Sparks appeared pretty healthy to me.

We argue about "idols" we put out their for today's girls.
We don't want them to be Barbies with huge breasts
we don't want them to be models with emaciated figures,
we don't want them to be slutty pop stars with no morals,
but we also don't want them to be healthy-sized women with respectable talents?

Alright then, who do we want? MeMe Roth?

One MeMe Roth is already one too many.

Growing Up and the Transitions of Hairstyles

Dan's blog really got me thinking about my own hair and how my relationship with it evolved as I grew up.

He wrote about how his thoughts of hair changed through observations about his brother.

When I was A LOT younger, I had the traditional little girl bob of a hair cut.

I don't remember feeling any particular emotion associated with this hairstyle.

The first time I can recall feeling insecure about my hair was when I realized I looked stupid wearing the cute types of headbands the other girls could wear.

How did I know I looked stupid? The other girls told me.

As I got older, I grew my hair out longer.

I remember getting it cut in the 5th grade to a much shorter length, and crying.

Honestly, it sounds pathetic, but this is actually a common response of women who cut their long hair.

They've had their hair for so long that they have become attached to it, even possibly proud of it.

Anyway, I donated to Locks of Love and got over it.

I grew my hair out again (down to my waist) until sophomore year of high school, when I cut it again for Locks of Love.

My junior year, I cut my hair super short. Around this time, my boyfriend told me my haircut looked like his dad's old hair cuts from when he was younger.

Needless to say, that did not go over well.

Since junior year, I have been growing my hair out again. Basically, I'm vain and don't want to be told I look like a guy again, much less a guy with a dated haircut.

Another interesting aspect of hair isn't just style or length, but color.

I cannot tell you how many boxes of dye my friends went through during high school.

They got highlights, lowlights, and most of them have been redheads at one point or another.

My friend Lia even went shades of purple, but going to a Catholic school, this wasn't allowed. Her solution was to wear a wig to school.

Hair isn't solely dictated by cultural norms or professional expectations, but also private educational institution dress codes.

As I mentioned before, Lia could not have purple hair. This is because none of us were supposed to have hair that was not our natural color. We could get away with going redhead etc, but if a blonde tried to go brunette, it was too obvious and they would be punished.

In addition, we couldn't have "punk" or "goth" hairstyles, meaning no mohawks.

My friends who wanted to shave their heads after seeing V for Vendetta had to wait until after graduation so they weren't kicked out of school.

The boy's institution also had hair regulations. Their hair could not touch the collars of their shirts. If a boy's hair was too long, he was called to the dean's office and received an impromptu haircut from the dean himself.

This led, of course, to boys growing their hair out as acts of rebellion.

These regulations didn't only apply to the hair on the tops of their heads, but also facial hair.

Every boy had to be clean shaven, or they would receive a complimentary shave from the dean, with the added perk of detention.

Detention for fuzz? Really?

Really.

Importance of Hair

In response to Dan's blog, I think he made a lot of good points about hair and the interview with Neal Lester. It is rather ridiculous how a haircut can be used to "define" a person's job capabilities. One of my friends is currently growing out his hair, even though he doesn't like it long. He hates how it looks long and hides it under a bandana, which gets quite itchy. When I asked him why he's doing this, he said it's because this is probably the last time in his life he will be allowed to have long hair and a beard, because he is going into chemical engineering.

If you ask me, that's a bit ridiculous.

Dan also reflects on Neal Lester's explanation of hair in relation to beauty. It's true that certain types of hair are considered more beautiful than others in a certain cultural context.

When I did volunteer work in Detroit, I worked with a lot of underprivileged black kids. One of the first points my leader made before we entered the building to meet the kids was that the girls were going to go nuts over our hair, and that we should allow them to play with it. I didn't really get it, why would they care?

The girls wanted to braid our hair and play with it because it was so different in texture and in the case of blondes, color.

It was funny, because I had a shorter hairstyle at that time, so the little girls didn't bond with me as quickly because they weren't interested in braiding my hair. In fact, one little girl told me I had ruined my hair and made it ugly by cutting it.

This is just another example of cultural concepts of beauty in relation to hair.