Nothing inherently wrong with an individual getting veneers or cosmetic surgery, but I really liked this article and its discussion of some of the things that have been on my mind lately as I start to age and reconsider how much I’ve been affected by social ideas around how we’re supposed to look (and as my teeth become slowly more tea-tinted).
“These perfect, inhuman teeth embody a phenomenon that I am calling “hotness creep.” Hotness here is emphatically not about beauty — which is rooted in nature and often results from an unexpectedly pleasing assembly of imperfections — and it’s not about being sexy: messy, raw and alive. Hotness, by this definition, cannot be achieved through regular means, e.g. a combination of genetic luck, fitness and nutrition; hotness here must be bought and rigorously maintained through laborious, expensive and possibly dangerous upkeep“
Yes. I had 4 impacted wisdom teeth. They were taken out pretty early. Even with wisdom teeth fine my jaw was too small. Probably should have had 4 more removed. Instead had every thing pushed back and aligned highly. I was doing orthodontics for 15 years as a child. Worked great for decades but at 50 it all started to collapse pretty fast. So now I use a retainer to keep it from going did further.
I remember the wisdom teeth sugury. Went to the hospital and a dental surgeon took them out. They put me out. Remember my dad getting the bill. He was way impressed at how much it cost. Said it went into major medical.
I lucked out and only had one wisdom tooth. Genetics or something. They still put me under to remove it though.
I still cringe thinking about it. My dentist was our neighbor (not the surgeon though). I remember one weekend my mom was worried it was getting infected and called him. He said … oh… I’ll meet you a my office in a 1/2 an hour. He’s happy to take a look and is marveling at how great a job the other guy did. It was fine and he charged us nothing. That was all back in the days medical people were more focused on care and treated patients like people not profit centers.