I had a nose job.
Now before you all start calling me vain and selfish and materialistic and shallow, let me explain.
I was always uncomfortable in my own skin, always self conscious. My looks weren't picked on by my peers per se, but I did not like the nose on my face. Sounds simple, right? Some girls think their boobs are too small or they're too big, some think their ass is too big, some don't like the pouch on their belly. Some don't like the flab on their arms because it makes them uncomfortable to wear what they want to wear. I didn't like my nose.
The root of that comes from my stormy relationship I had with my dad (hindsight is 20/20) I looked exactly like him, and I hated it. I wanted to distance myself from him physically as well as emotionally. I wanted to change my looks because I was tired of seeing my father's face every single time I looked in the mirror. Call it vain or shallow if you want, but I wanted the change for me because this was something I would have to live with and take to my grave. It was my decision, and mine alone.
So I had a nose job and I'm happy with it. I'd do it again. I feel that the small differences made to my nose is the nose I should've been born with. It feels right, it looks "natural" (I shopped around and chose a very skilled surgeon who actually took the time to counsel me beforehand to make sure I wasn't getting the surgery for anyone other than myself.) I got the surgery for me, not because I wanted to be popular or like the women in magazines, but because if there was one thing I wanted to change, that was it and I had the means to execute that desire.
I know others out there will disagree with me, but I don't think getting surgery disrupts a person's relationship with God or Christ. Surely you are judged by the merits of your heart, what's inside, what faith you hold dear. Our skin is only a shell that takes us through this lifetime.
On that same token, would it be "wrong" for a person who was obese at one time and lost the weight to have the extra loose streched skin taken off his/her body? Surely this is aesthetic as much as getting a nose job or a boob job. If a woman is small breasted but it would make her feel more womanly to have larger breats thereby "enhancing" one of the attributes that seperates her from being male, is that wrong? How about a woman who doesn't want to be the size DD God graced her with? How about a person who got in a disfiguring automobile accident? Was it God's will that that person continue through life with a disfigured face/body? Maybe, but how do we know for sure? How about a person born with a cleft pallette (not the horribly disfiguring kind, but the minor conditions that don't effect the person's ability to eat.) Or prosthetics? Or tattoos? Or nose piercings or ear piercings? These are all body modifications one chooses to make to their own bodies - it just so happens that even though there may be social stigmas attached to looking apart from the norm, there are definitely social stigmas attatched to plastic surgery - as people here and elsewhere speculate a person's self worth on the grounds of them having the surgery in the first place.
One can say that plastic surgery is for the weak minded, for people who feel insecure socially. There are people out there who are looking for the fountain of youth or bigger boobs or smaller butts because that's fashionable and maybe these people aren't getting the surgery for themselves, but who are we to know for sure? We have our own skins to carry through a lifetime and I'm under the notion that if a person wants to do something to help make them happier with themselves, then more power to them.
Plastic surgery by the way, has been around since ancient Roman times and maybe before. Mainly used as reconstructive surgery though.