Flat, Frozen and Everlasting: Cosmetic Surgery Abroad and the Production of Erotic Female Bodies in Neoliberal North America

Cosmetic surgery abroad is a growing trend in North American society, as surgeons are offering increasingly competitive pricing in an international marketplace. This thesis examines the impact that these contemporary cosmetic surgery practices have in shaping a normative, heterosexual female identity that defines an erotic ideal female body in North American culture. An overarching neoliberal strategy that establishes the female body as requiring work through consumption practices is rendered visible through language, and informs women’s understanding of everyday life in bodies that will be inevitably transformed by aging or pregnancy. The ideal erotic female body that is linked to ideas of youthfulness and happiness provides a medium for analyzing the moralized, implicit aspects of gender performances that may be localized on the female body and its symbolic meaning within cosmetic surgery practices. A qualitative analysis of online blogs written by North American women were analyzed.