Collagen Lips Sink Chicks

Every woman in Manhattan has at least one nosejob under her belt. Some have three or four. It's like their noses are some kind of weed that keeps growing back and requires constant trimming. Because of this, whenever I leave Manhattan one of the first things I notice are women with their original noses. I have come to find untouched noses somewhat exotic.

That said, I've made peace with nosejobs. Manhattan has more broken bridges than a Sherman campaign, so I've accepted that if I'm going to keep living in New York, NY, I'm going to have to get used to cutting myself on artificially pointy noses (I now put on safety goggles before each kiss).

What I won't make peace with are lip implants. These things look horrendous 100% of the time. Whenever I see a lipjob coming my way I take cover in the nearest alley.

When I encounter a lipjob my first thought is that I looked too quickly. Surely her lips couldn't really look THAT bad, right? After a second look I'm thinking: Is it a makeup job from an Ed Wood movie? Did she accidentally glue a rubber coin purse to her face? By the third look I'm reaching for my camera phone so I can share this cosmetic tragedy with the world.

Breast implants at least make sense on paper, but who is getting excited about plus size lips? I can't recall a single time I've heard a guy brag about dating a woman who needs a paint roller to apply chapstick.

Remember how everyone always raved about Sheryl Crow's incredible lips? Well if you recall, Ms. Crow's lips were not large. They were pert.




I believe Sheryl Crow* won some award like Sexiest Mouth in Music. Or maybe it was Sexiest Mouth in Rock. Or maybe is what Sexiest Mouth on a Woman Who Dated a Steroid Fiend (which would actually be impressive considering she'd be beating a field full of athlete trophy wives). Whatever the award was, Crow's pert, medium sized lips look a helluva lot better than the Dr. Frankenstein experiment that is Lana Del Ray.




If you're an average looking woman who thinks she needs an edge, here's what you do: WORK OUT LIKE A MANIAC and get your body into decent shape. A tight figure (especially in this age of hyperflab) will make you a far rarer commodity than a woman with lips that stop traffic for the wrong reasons.

By the way, the lip implant trend does not bode well for the future. One day all these women getting lipjobs are going to be old grannies. The rest of their face will have shrunken, making their non-biodegradable lips look even more monstrous. Remember how when you were a kid your biggest fear was getting a kiss from granny? Well the next generation of kids are going to be forced to kiss grannies with lips that start at their chin and end at their forehead. Not gonna be pretty.



*By the way, Sheryl Crow is still pretty hot. I should have included her in my tribute to women who never hit the wall.

Why there are no ugly babies

"OOOOOOO-h, he's adorrrrrrr-able!"

You've probably heard that there are no ugly babies.

Here's why: babies are showroom fresh and therefore don't exhibit any of the unsightly signs of age; no wrinkles, no ear hair, no gray hair, no liver spots, no receding hairlines.

Age is the ultimate cosmetic buzzkill, and is irreversible to boot. Babies haven't fallen prey to that buzzkill. This is why we are surprised when we see an ugly baby (and amazed when we see a decent looking older person).

As we age, we start accumulating the hallmarks of decay. So in a way, all of our efforts to counteract them are a way of remaining baby-like.

And once we realize there is nothing we can do to hold off this decay, we have a baby ourselves, which is as close as we can come to starting over.



There are no ugly tweets on my feed: https://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne

Pandora's Box

I was sitting in a hotel lobby, resting uncomfortably, when my eyes fell on a discarded newspaper. The article in view discussed the increasing popularity of surgical techniques aimed at “labia beautification.” You read that right. Labia beautification. Labiaplasty if you’re nasty.

These procedures were previously unknown to me, mainly because the caliber of woman I pull has no need for such improvements.

How did we reach a point where lacking labias became enough of an issue to spawn a labia-makeover racket? Excuse me while I put on my detective hat:

Before shaving/waxing became widespread, most women, and certainly most men, were unaware of how the female nether regions were supposed to look. I doubt even the randiest salon discussions delved into much detail. Then shaving became the norm for female porn stars, causing men to expect well-trimmed women, causing many women to start shaving; leaving them more exposed and more likely to evaluate themselves more closely; causing them to start fretting about the appearance of their naughty bits.

Say goodbye to sex-positivism and hello to gyno-irony! Turns out something designed to make you feel sexier can also give you something new to feel self-conscious about.

So-called repression is not necessarily a patriarchal-Christian-bourgeois-capitalist conspiracy to keep everyone unfulfilled. In fact, “repression” sometimes saves us from ourselves. No one ever achieves fulfillment or completion or contentment. They’re just carrots we dangle in front of ourselves; words to describe the unattainable state we’re all chasing. So the more things we leave unrepressed and out in the open, the more things there are for us to feel unfulfilled about. I doubt labia aesthetics were a major concern in the bad old days of repression. Now there are people paying shrinks and plastic surgeons thousands to help them with their labia dysmorphia (if that isn’t already a widely used term, it will be soon).

Given current trends, I see no reason why this should change. Repression doesn’t seem positioned to remerge, and better technology and smaller families (childbirth now exists mainly to provide edible afterbirth to drooling foodies) means Western women have more free time than ever to scrutinize every inch of themselves. Soon fallopian beautification will be just an app away.

A little bit of repression can go a long way. Just as some stones are best left unturned, perhaps some hairs are best left unplucked.



Improve yourself on the inside and outside by following me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne