Althouse: Eye color implants.

October 31, 2014

Eye color implants.

"I looked in the mirror and I was, like, they’re amazing."

ADDED: "The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison.... The title The Bluest Eye refers to Pecola's fervent wishes for beautiful blue eyes. She is rarely developed during the story, which is purposely done to underscore the actions of the other characters. Her insanity at the end of the novel is her only way to escape the world where she cannot be beautiful and to get the blue eyes she desires from the beginning of the novel."

36 comments:

chickelit said...: No one knows what it's like
To be the bad girl
To be the sad girl
Behind blue eyes; 10/31/14, 10:47 AM
Anonymous said...: Aren't these called colored contacts?; 10/31/14, 10:49 AM
Shanna said...: Crap. Now instead of people randomly asking me if I wear contacts, they are going to start asking if I had implants.; 10/31/14, 10:49 AM
traditionalguy said...: Since brunettes look more attractive with blonde hair styling, then the addition of blue eyes seems like a good choice.

One could use colored contact lenses with added trouble and expense.

But why would implants be forbidden? implants are used in all cataract surgeries today, so how dangerous can they be?.; 10/31/14, 10:51 AM
Amexpat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/31/14, 10:54 AM
Wince said...: “I just wanted to do something different. I have the right to do that,” Harris said. “It’s my body.”

It's offering the service that's illegal.

You can do it yourself.; 10/31/14, 10:56 AM
Mark said...: Looked at the pictures and my first thought was "Happy Halloween!"; 10/31/14, 10:57 AM
MadisonMan said...: @eric -- know. They're actually implanted beneath the eye's surface (Ouch!)

How long before someone grinds out an article bemoaning that the color switch is a sign of underlying racism?; 10/31/14, 10:58 AM
Ann Althouse said...: What is it about blue eyes?; 10/31/14, 11:08 AM
glenn said...: After 50 years of marriage I'd still like dive into my wife's beautiful brown/green with gold flecks eyes and swim around. Nobody has eyes like her.; 10/31/14, 11:31 AM
chickelit said...: What is it about blue eyes?

Same as red hair. It's recessive. It's actually minority status and rare in the world. But nobody thinks that.; 10/31/14, 11:43 AM
Hagar said...: Blue eyes tend to be more sensitive to strong sunlight and other eye troubles.; 10/31/14, 11:45 AM
chickelit said...: If these cosmetic physical changes are seen to impart an evolutionary advantage, they are mistaken.

It's a bit like small breasted women with implants getting more mates. This will, over time, increase the pool of small breasted women if breast size is hereditary.; 10/31/14, 11:47 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Same as red hair. It's recessive. It's actually minority status and rare in the world. But nobody thinks that."

No, it's not like red hair, because red hair isn't enthusiastically embraced as clearly the best hair color. Many people think it's the worst.

The enthusiasm for blue eyes is something else. It might be in part the rarity, but it can't be just the rarity.; 10/31/14, 12:24 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Toni Morrison wrote a book that seems to be about a black person going insane from her incapacity to have blue eyes.

I haven't read the book. What I quoted was from Wikipedia. I've seen the book title for years.; 10/31/14, 12:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "It's actually minority status…"

As a person of red hair and blue eyes, I have acquired a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry.; 10/31/14, 12:29 PM
Achilles said...: I wonder how people will adjust to culture when any person can pretty much look how they want to look. When everyone can get cosmetic surgery done for relatively cheap will there be supermodels? What will you do when everybody is hot?; 10/31/14, 12:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Implants are more serious than contacts. Located in an area as sensitive as the eye, I would assume they can have more drawbacks in the long run.

So much of your life trajectory is predicated on what you look like, especially if you are female. As far as evolution, (@chickelit), you are instead selecting for character traits - the type of woman that would risk later complications to put plastic bits in her body to fit the accepted mold of success, which is a trait unto itself - sort of a genetic business major. ;) You're also selecting for guys that can't tell the difference or don't care.; 10/31/14, 12:31 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I wonder how people will adjust to culture when any person can pretty much look how they want to look. When everyone can get cosmetic surgery done for relatively cheap will there be supermodels? What will you do when everybody is hot?"

"The Twilight Zone" already did that: "Number 12 Looks Just Like You."; 10/31/14, 12:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "What will you do when everybody is hot?"

I presume individualism or naturalness will become more valuable.

Isn't that already true? Perhaps not. If not, what difference will anything make anymore? Who will care?

I stopped going to the movies when it became hard to tell the characters apart.; 10/31/14, 12:47 PM
Ann Althouse said...: But I am not a man, and I find it impossible to understand the enthusiasm for breasts with implants. Maybe you just have an internal trigger that's wholly apart from anything to do with thinking, and your response is unaffected by the knowledge that there are these these are bags of liquid or gel or whatever that the woman has allowed her breasts to be sliced open to be slipped in and sewn permanently inside. Why isn't that, to put it mildly, off-putting?; 10/31/14, 12:51 PM
Sigivald said...: No, it's not like red hair, because red hair isn't enthusiastically embraced as clearly the best hair color.

I've never noticed blue eyes being "clearly the best" eye color.

They're occasionally lauded in English culture.

But so's green, and also brown.

Let's not over-analyze aesthetics.; 10/31/14, 12:54 PM
Shanna said...: I've never noticed blue eyes being "clearly the best" eye color.

Seriously. I wanted brown eyes when I was a child.

Green eyes are far less common than blue, btw.; 10/31/14, 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: AA: What is it about blue eyes?

Maybe they're just pretty. Like gemstones are pretty. Recent mutation in humans, possibly subject to sexual selection. 'Cause they're pretty.; 10/31/14, 1:03 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I accidentally made a separate post out of what was only going to be my next comment here.; 10/31/14, 1:11 PM
M. Findlay said...: Althouse said:
But I am not a man, and I find it impossible to understand the enthusiasm for breasts with implants.

I'm a man and I think breast implants, for strictly cosmetic reasons as opposed to prosthetics, are cheating. They do nothing for me visually, and detract from attractiveness if obviously fake.

I just happened to re-watch a long forgotten Seinfeld episode in which Jerry breaks up with a woman because he believes she has implants. He explains to Elaine that finding out that a woman's breasts were fake would be like finding out that Mickey Mantle corked his bat.

I agree.; 10/31/14, 1:20 PM
madAsHell said...: Those tits appear to be bolt-ons.; 10/31/14, 1:34 PM
traditionalguy said...: Old Gray Eyes, also called Abe Lincoln, sounds like a good Presidential eye color to me.

When my shirt is a blue, than so are my eyes, but when my shirt is a white/black than my eyes are gray.

Never trust a gray eyed lawyer.; 10/31/14, 1:45 PM
traditionalguy said...: As for breast augmentation it was done more for symmetry of size between the pair to help shy women who felt defective. Than Playboy Magazine had run so many 5 foot centerfolds with normal breasts that size di8fferential became a fetish, but one that women accused men of having.

But it was never a bigger size matter for most guys; so long as they female curve difference was visibly there in cleavage of any size.; 10/31/14, 1:53 PM
RecChief said...: I'm a man, and I don't understand the fascination with breast implants either.; 10/31/14, 2:15 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Blue eyes? Hardly noticed them. I was so drawn to and captivated by the nose ring.; 10/31/14, 5:01 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: ...and those Oh-So-Sexy attractively displayed black roots in her hair.; 10/31/14, 5:04 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: But the boob-tat. OMG! 'Scuse me while I go choke the chicken.; 10/31/14, 5:06 PM
Anonymous said...: I'll go with archetypal aesthetics: blue eyes are the color of the sea and sky.; 10/31/14, 6:18 PM
chickelit said...: I'll go with archetypal aesthetics: blue eyes are the color of the sea and sky.

Naomi Wolf suggested earth tone eyes for Al Gore.; 10/31/14, 6:23 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Some people see dark eyes as deep, and you could feel the person is profound or able to hide their real feelings.

Blue eyes seem clear, as if you perceive honesty. That's why it's effective politically.

It's all illusory, of course.; 10/31/14, 7:43 PM