Where do you get that from this?

“I mention this not to make light of a tragic situation”

The undertone, if there is any is that the man was terribly confused and his life may have been lost because people predatorily took advantage of frivolous desire that should have indicated a disturbance, rather than to direct him to counseling to affirm his intrinsic worth.

We have no idea whether this guy wanted to ‘be a tiger’ or just like the idea of ‘looking like a tiger’. We do know, though, that lots of people are into ‘looking like’ things who never kill themselves and we also know many people who ‘look normal’ end up killing themselves. The purpose of this post wasn’t to try to understand this man but to exploit him.

Here was a guy who was ‘wierd’ and eccentric. Maybe that was connected to his suicide but maybe it had nothing to do with it. Either way it feels like the purpose of this post is in fact to make light of a tragedy. Its purpose is to reassure ‘normal’ people that they are better than this guy because they aren’t killing themselves. Even though more often than not suicide victims are not people covered with ink with extensive body modifications but are instead quite ‘normal looking’ people.

There is value in conformity. Humans are social animals and peer pressure isn’t always a bad thing, all of us would be much worse off without it. Yet the undertone, I believe, of this post is along the lines of “see fellows, this is here you what you get for acting outside the box”. Of course when a clean cut guy who looks and dresses normal kills himself, you won’t post his picture up on the wall and assert maybe his need for conformity caused his to kill himself.

This guy was into doing stuff you didn’t like. You can make a case that such extreme modification crosses the line from simply being aesthetically displeasing towards immoral. But you don’t really have a right to exploit his death by assuming much of anything about it. The opportunity to really care about this person’s mental wellness was when he was alive. All those who, for whatever reason, never bothered to know him and care about him beyond an amusing laugh off the internet are too late and should hold their peace now.

All done by those who pat themselves on the back for supporting things like human dignity.

Surgery to make a man a tiger (or a woman) is not possible

It’s not clear to me what he had really qualifies as surgery to begin with. Look at his face, 80% of it is ink and piercing. Neither of which require a surgeon. The puffy lips and cheeks might have been achieved with either implants or something like botox. That would require some medical professionals, but hardly the cutting edge medical community. In terms of body modification, it’s on a par with what primitive people’s have achieved.

I am not sure I understand this. What does it mean?

“If I had a child who had huge, protruding ears or a grotesque nose, and that child was being teased and bullied, I don’t think I would hesitate to allow him or her to have plastic surgery.”

First of all, this poor soul wasn’t trying to mediate a perceived abnormality, he was mutilating himself in a a futile attempt to exhibit the characteristics of an animal.

As for your thought of allowing a child to have plastic surgery for something like huge, protruding ears or a grotesque nose, I find that an astounding confession.

It sounds benign when you say it, but if you really think about it, it carries a myriad of implications.

Surgery on a child is surgery on a developing person, and at any age invasive intervention must be for a serious reason. It requires a real risk of morbidity or mortality, because surgery carries risks, not only of an errant outcome, but morbidity or mortality.

Beyond the physical peril, what you would be communicating to that child is the message that their measure of worth is to be determined by the opinions of peers-and as we know, children in groups can be brutally cruel for the most ridiculous of things and we should examine some others.

What are you going to do about the freckles, red hair? Do you know how many girls have become anorexic/bulemic trying to conform to others standards? Remember Karen Carpenter? Ditto for boys, some of whom just skip the tactical weapons of DHEA and Creatine, and go for things like Dianabol and Winstrol V.

It seems beyond belief that an adult would tell/allow a child to have SURGERY for such light and transient reasons as vanity.

I see an awful lot of young people tattooing, piercing and mutilating, without the slightest consideration how these things will look in a job interview, let alone when their skin loses is elasticity.

We have enough people in government in corporate offices not doing the right thing because it might draw the derision of peers, we need to teach children to stand up, not wilt.

Dr. McHugh discusses the connection between mental illness and desire for surgical change.

Aren’t there legal restrictions on performing surgery?

I have read that some people are “addicted” to plastic surgery, and their appearance does suggest mental illness. Why wouldn’t a surgeon or some governing body put the brakes on that?