Answering Readers, Part 8

Biblical (תַּנַ״ךְ) depiction of
the flight from Sodom and Gomorrah

Plastic Surgery |
Thursday – August 27, 2026

Surgery, specifically plastic surgery is a topic that I have covered in the past, and in this post I have decided to respond to one of my readers who is wondering about plastic surgery, and I suppose that yes, plastic surgery can be quite a controversial topic, mostly because most people who claim to oppose plastic surgery are obsessed with tolerance, but there is also a certain amount of envy on the part of these people, but I may return to that later; in the meantime I direct you to my post "My Views on the Nature of Equality (Egalitarianism)".

    Now, this is a part of my "Answering Readers series", which is where I am trying to respond to my readers, and I must say that I very much enjoy responding to your questions, and I intend to keep this up as long as you continue to write me letters. At this point I believe that I am quite able to keep up with the load, but I should add that if your letters, questions, and mushings addressed to me would run dry in the future, that I may find it necessary to put this series on halt. Now, sometimes I may consider not responding to a letter, this has not yet happened, and this would mostly be because I find the letter at hand too controversial or too cryptic. If a letter is too cryptic, I will attempt to send a counter letter were I will ask you to clarify and/or specify certain parts of your letter to me, as my goal is to respond to all of your letters. At this point, there are 34 letters that I am working on, which means that this will take a while, as I am only writing one of these posts per week; this could mean that I will attempt to write two of these posts per week. Now, it could also be that I respond to two letters one week and only one letter the other, it will depend. I am a human being still after all, and I do have certain things going on in the background that I have to respond to, personal matters and matter that I typically do not reveal here, but for more on my personal side, I direct you to my "Personal Notes series", where I attempt to engage with these subjects from a more individual and personal point of view; I also direct you to my post "Dreaming". In terms of letters that may bee too controversial, I must say that my only "line" is breaking the law; I will not break the law and I will never call on anyone else to break the law. Now, I have yet to receive any such letters, but since I also have not had time to read through each and every one of the 34 letters that I have received so far, I have to declare this in the event that this could be the case.*

    I should add, again, that I have a certain editorial policy in regards to this series, and that policy is not too hard and not too inflexible and iron, but for one, I may sometimes find it necessary to edit certain quotations that I include in these posts, this has only happened once so far, and if this were to happen in this post or in any other post, I will indicate this by substitution; the substitution will be indicated by the usage, again, of two brackets, [text]. Typically I will only substitute parts of quotations that I find offensive/and or that could be illegal; now, if there are illegal parts of a letter, I am more likely to refuse to respond. The point of my editorial policy is not to be politically correct; the point of this policy is to protect myself and the person in asking me a question, because something that is quite offensive could indeed hurt both me and the author of the letter/question. Again, none of the letters I respond to are secret, at least not in quotation. It could be that I do not include the whole letter, because the letter may be too long, and this will be indicated by the usage of three dots inside two brackets, [...]. Sometimes, I also refuse to include the whole letter in quotation because it could be that certain privileged and private information is revealed in the letter, and information that I have not been given permission to reveal; typically this will be names and highly personal information. Lastly, most people do include their name in the letters addressed to me, and while I am happy for this, I want to reiterate that this is not necessary; you may write to me anonymous, or you may ask me to refer to you in my response as "anonymous". The individualism of one reader is hardly important to the overall purpose of this blog, read my "Dear Unknown Reader..." page.

    Now, to get to the letter and the question that I have decided to address in this post. The letter is written by a man who has granted me permission to reveal his name, Mr. Peyman Mehrdad, and the letter concerns a topic that I gather could be somewhat controversial; controversial because it concerns a person that is underaged. But to the point that this letter is controversial I assume that some people may even be outraged and find the person behind the letter quite reprehensible, but this in itself has not prompted me to censor anything, as there is nothing to in the letter itself that is quite offensive enough to be be censored. Since this letter does contain a question about someone who is underaged, I will absolutely reveal no personal details about this person, and I happy to announce that the letter contained no personal information either. This means that we may proceed with some caution in responding to this letter, but nothing too exaggerated.

    Mr. Peyman Mehrdad asks:

"Hello Mr. Dutt, My name is Peyman Mehrdad and my question to you is if I should recommend that my niece should get plastic surgery for her wobbly nose and her protruding ears? I want her to be a beautiful wife to her future husband. She is going to be 7 later this year in November. Sincerely, Peyman Mehrdad from Iran." — Peyman Mehrdad.

Mr. Mehrdad, I am delighted to hear that you are from Iran (Persia) and I hope that you are able to handle the current low intensity war going on in your country, specifically in the air, read more here. I am also noticing that you seem concerned about your niece, and I assume that your question comes from a place of attempting to gather her place in the world, her place in creation, read "Hierarchy". I gather too that you find her ugly, to be frank, and perhaps you find her ugly not because she is ugly as a person, again I do not know her, but ugly physically, and this is the chief reason why anyone would attempt plastic surgery. Another reason why you may be concerned about her appearance could be because you prefer for her to be beautiful to her husband in the future, because an ugly girl may not be properly loved by her husband, which could create friction in her life later on. So, I have concluded that you are asking a fair and reasonable question, a question grounded in the harsh facts of reality, and a question grounded in love and respect.

    Before I proceed to answer your question more specifically, I would prefer to gather if it could be the case that her "wobbly nose" and "protruding ears" could be features of her kind: is it the case that these are traits that run in the family? If they run in the family, the could be indications of something having to do with ability and aptitude. See, perhaps she is ugly, but perhaps her place in the world is to be ugly? Even ugly people must experience life; for if there are going to be beautiful people and indeed a place in the world for beautiful people, then there must also be a place in the world for ugly people. Again, I do not know your niece and perhaps she is beautiful and perhaps her features are a combination of something quite unfortunate, maybe even a curse? Again, there is no way for me to know this since I am not familiar with the girl.

    I would say this about the prospects for plastic surgery at her age: since she is only 7 years old, I believe that many plastic surgeons and doctors would reject her, saying that she is too young and that she is still developing. Perhaps they will say that she is too young still and that she has a certain potential to grow into a more beautiful form in the future, read "The Primordial Body". Now, the likelihood of this may vary, but the general rule appears to be that with age, people tend to get uglier, so I do not necessarily believe that these prospects are great or even likely. That stated, there are reasons profane as well as sacred in asserting the unlikeliness of this, read "Sacred Medicine". Besides, since most things tend to become worse as a function of time, I would expect her to become more ugly as a function of time, and this does create a pressure: should she go in for surgery now in the hope of rectifying her faults, or should she wait in the hope of growing out of a condition that otherwise may be permanent?

    This means that yes, I do believe that you could talk with her and her parents about plastic surgery, and about the prospects of her being a good and beautiful wife to her future husband, and also for the purposes of protecting her and ensuring her place as a proper member of the community. What will the community say about her appearance? Will they refer to her as a witch, and what about her weight? If she is overweight, this will also be something that will contribute to her life developing along the a course that is more difficult that her potential. Now, I am not calling on you to advocate that she also undergoes gastric surgery as she likely is far too young for this, but this could be a consideration. What you should do is to consider her beauty an integral part of her individual, of her material being in the corporeal realm, and while she may be too young to properly understand this, you are not. This does not mean that you should talk to her about matters that only concern adults, as this is likely to infect her mind with all sorts of mental pain, but it does mean that you can talk to her about her appearance and gauge if she is revolted by her own appearance; if she is, then this is a strong indication that she is ugly and that she is struggling with her appearance. Now, you may choose to approach the issue from the point of view of a do-good liberal and essentially lie to her face and tell her that the sky is green and the grass is blue, but in the end this would do her more damage than good, read "My Views on Bodhicitta". A wobbly nose and protruding ears could be the beginning or it could be the end; the point is that she can decide to embrace her appearance, or she can decide to embrace the fact she can do something about her appearance.

    Again, because she is very young, you may end up facing legal problems, and I can simply not answer whether or not any procedures of this nature (plastic surgery) is legal for a girl her age. Again, she has two options: either she waits and hopes that she grow out of her ugliness; or she acts now, in the hope that her ugliness can be rectified, and also in the hope that she can exist in accordance with her ancestors, who may not find her beautiful. Now, in this regard I should also add that beauty standards may be different depending on the context, and indeed if she is to undergo plastic surgery, I would recommend that it is attempted for he to look in accordance with Persian women, and I suppose this may become a point of contention if she ever gets to this step. Lastly, you should talk with her parents before you talk with her, and perhaps it would be more appropriate for her father to approach her, if she is to be approached about these issue at all.

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – August 27, 2026.

Footnote(s)

* For more on this, I direct you to my posts: "Should You Break Rules?", "The Law Of the Land", and "The Problem of Secular Law". Each of these posts will address that point in greater detail.