It's really quite fascinating watching the outright hatred that the tooth whitening article is bringing out… a lot of people very angry that it's being covered at all, even though in terms of “is it body modification” it's easily inside what BME (and certainly BME/News) has covered in the past. It's certainly more permanent, painful, and drastic than much of what's covered.
I think though that maybe tooth whitening strikes a nerve in the same way as exercise, liposuction, fashionable clothes, and so on do — as “symbols” of the attractive end of the mainstream that many people with atypical body modifications are rebelling against (and for some also symbolizing a class struggle because of the expenses involved — ignoring that many people spend more on their tattoos than a surgical “extreme makeover” would cost). That is, it's not so much that there's a disagreement on whether it's modification, it's more a question of politics and whether we want to allow “those sorts of people” on BME.
That is, does getting a modification that brings you closer to the cultural beauty norm somehow make it “less valuable” because it's some kind of affront to the individual or even this counterculture? Here's a simple truth about the cultural beauty norm:
Beauty, on a cultural level, is defined by what most people agree is beautiful.
So most people will think that white teeth are attractive. Most people will find a fit body attractive. We've been programmed with these attractions because at our core we're biological machines that need to spread our genes — these “beauty markers” have evolved as indicators of underlying biological suitability. Tattoos play into that as well in the form of both self-beautification and attention attracting behavior which is also very common in animal mating behavior.
Anyway, so the point is that you shouldn't feel bad about wanting to look a certain way, even if most people agree that it's beautiful. You shouldn't feel bad about wanting to look the exact opposite either. You should look however you want to. But don't ever let anyone here tell you that you should accept brown teeth or an out of shape body that's shaving decades off your life as some kind of “be proud of who you are” rebellion. If it's what you want, then great, but if it's not what you want, change it into something you do want… but don't think you have to keep something you don't like about yourself just because it's “how you are”.
Who you are are naturally is nothing to be proud of.
You have no more right to be proud of who you are naturally than you do to be “proud of your heritage” (aka white pride, etc.). You did nothing to earn or achieve it. You should on the other hand be proud of your achievements. You should be proud of the things you've worked hard to achieve and to bring closer to perfection. You should be proud of who you've made yourself.
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