The lure of aesthetics. Cultural scientific perspectives on aesthetic surgery

BackgroundSince the late 1960s aesthetic surgery has also been a topic in the humanities and social sciences.ObjectiveHow is aesthetic surgery viewed from a cultural scientific perspective?Material and methodsThis article describes the evaluation of the surgical literature, literature on the humanities and social sciences, a discussion on narrative terminology and an analytical discourse on pictorial science and feminist history.ResultsThe term aesthetics is a diffuse term, which is used in the cultural construction of policies also for human beauty, not for specific policies. In the surgical literature it is used with very different objectives, which leads to the fact that it does not describe any clearly differentiated category. References to artistic policies only provide surgery with rough guides and often serve the authorization of surgeons. In feminist criticism, aesthetic surgery is interpreted as (self)submission and in the more recent literature as a possibility for self-optimization. The recognition of aesthetics as cultural construction and the disclosure of one's own working principles enables patients to have a greater self-determination.