Presenting Death, Sex & Money | From Brazilian Butt Lifts to Botox: Your Beauty Confessions

Pushkin. Hello. Hi. Nice to see you. Thank you for doing this. Nice to see you too. Thanks for doing this with us. Hey guys, it's Kalilah. The heavyweight team is hard at work on some episode updates for later this spring, as well as a brand new season, which will be coming later this fall. But in the meantime, we wanted to wet your whistles, so to speak, with another show that we really respect and enjoy. It's called Death, Sex, and Money. It's a show about difficult and often awkward topics, like, you know, the stuff in the title, Death, Sex, and Money. And recently, I spoke with the show's host, Anna Sale. I liked talking with Anna. She's a good listener, unlike our show's host, who sometimes, when I'm talking to him, gets this glazed look in his eyes, and I know he's just thinking about sandwiches. The last time I talked to Anna, both of our shows have been canceled by their longtime networks. But look at us now, both back in action, making a victorious return to your podcatcher. You also have recently been repotted to a new home. Repotted, yes. How's it going? You know, I hope it feels for you like it feels for us. It's felt wonderful at our new home at Slate. We used to be at WNYC. Um, and having that kind of big leap over the question of like, do we get to still do this? I think has made us just, uh, it feels really fun. It feels more fun. Um, and I feel like I'm a kid making my own zine in my back bedroom. Like, no, but I get to make this and it's my job. Yeah, I do feel the same. It like really makes me value the good things about this workplace. And then also just to be like, yeah, I can't believe we get to make this show. Yeah. Okay, so we are going to run one of your episodes today. It is about beauty interventions of all levels. Yeah, because, you know, the conversations about what we do to change the way we look, they sort of happen in these silos. There's like the makeup corner, the skincare corner, the GLP-1 corner, the like, I don't know, orthodontics corner if you've got kids who are in middle school. And so to just kind of look at it as a whole universe, wrinkles and teeth and balding and nose shape, it churned up a lot for lots of different people. Yeah, I just really loved it. I was really impressed with the way that you all handled it. I think like often in these conversations, it's easy to sort of strip the nuance out of stuff. And I appreciated that you did not do that and sort of just let all the contradictions and complicated feelings exist. Yeah. I mean, I'm all over the place on this stuff because I will be in Wyoming where I spend time and there's all these women with these deep grooves in their face and they have long white braids. And I'm like, that's how I'm going to age. And then I come back to the Bay Area and I'm like, oh, I think that I should make a Botox appointment. Yeah, no, I hear you. So I am very, I sympathize with the people with mixed feelings because I am not fixed myself on this stuff. Yeah, especially because I feel like so much of that stripping down or assumption comes out of like a defensiveness about like your own insecurities, you know? Yeah. Also the way that we identify, like for me, being a woman in my mid-40s, like what sort of feminism am I going to like embrace for myself? What do I want to demonstrate for my kids? What are the judgments that I'm bringing to other people's choices? Or what am I withholding from myself because I think it would seem like I was too something if I pursued, I don't know, like if I just got my eyebrows better shaped more regularly, like why do I have shame about thinking that might be important? As you're saying that, what's ridiculous is I do get my eyebrows done regularly and I have bangs. So like you can't even see them. But still, I'm like, I don't know when they look really shaggy. I just don't like it. Well, good for you. That really does open up your face when your eyebrows are shaped. Yes, it does. Great. Let's listen to the episode. And if you like it, which I'm sure you will, then listen to the rest of Death, Sex, and Money anywhere you get your podcasts. How do you feel about the way you look? And how do you feel about whether you should do something to change it? What a question. For the last several months, we have been asking you, our listeners, to tell us stories about your beauty interventions, what you've decided to invest time and money in, like plastic surgery, elaborate skincare routines, fillers, Botox, things to look younger or hotter or quote unquote healthier. Or maybe you're one of those listeners who is clear that big interventions are a bridge too far for you. Plastic surgery, no. And also you've decided taking GLP-1s or using hair dye means participating in cultural ideals that you would rather reject. But what do you feel about teeth straightening or even that nice thick face cream at the drugstore? When you're deciding to make an investment for your looks, which part is for you, and which part is trying to control how the rest of us treat you? Conventionally attractive people make more money and are treated better by teachers and law enforcement. And we live in a time where social media's broad reach is narrowing what we consider beautiful. In our Slate Plus episode this week, we get into social media even more. I talked to a researcher who's a dermatologist and a medical anthropologist who is studying the proliferation of skincare routine videos on TikTok made by and for kids, some as young as seven years old. Let's start with your stories about your appearance and how some of you pay to manipulate it. We heard from a lot of you about a push and pull of feeling like improving your looks was a frivolous pursuit, and also that looking a certain way felt core to some of the most important things in your life, your romantic relationships, your work, and feeling desired and worthy. I'd like to think of myself as a person with depth, a person who values intelligence and kindness and, you know, doing the right thing. And yet sometimes I worry that my appearance and the doors that my appearance have opened, those are going to close if I don't continue to look this particular way. This is Death, Sex, and Money. The show from Slate about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more. I'm Anna Sale. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. Over the last several months, we've been asking you to tell us stories about how you think about looking good. It all started with a glycolic peel and went downhill from there. Some of you told us you had a hunch that being more attractive would make your life better. I can't help but feel that if everything were exactly the same, but I had a lot of either self-confidence about the way I currently look or if I just looked better, that, you know, maybe things would be even better in my life and career. If I'm being very honest with you, I'm worried that I'm ugly again. That sounds so superficial, but I'm worried that I'm society's standards of ugly. Because I know what it's like when I just do a little bit more. And the looks and the notices and the treatment that I get. Some of you said you were actively leaning away from your outward appearance. I'm never going to fit society's ideals, so why try? I'm not a young, thin, white woman. I never will be that. So trying to fit in anybody's box, it feels futile to me. I've been walking around with ridiculous-looking eyebrows for a few weeks now just because I've been too lazy. And I think there is a freedom in that. And many of you feel caught in the middle. wondering about whether to intervene to improve your appearance and what that would say about you and your values. As somebody who's also part of a DIY punk scene, I feel like somebody who's very anti these mainstream demands of people as they age. So I have this kind of dialogue going on in my head of how to approach aging moving forward, whether I maybe give in a little bit to some of this external pressure or just augment myself in ways that feel comfortable versus just, yeah, shirking it all off and aging naturally. So I typically go to the gym three to five days a week, but it's getting harder to just maintain those levels of strength and, you know, my body and toneness and things like that. And one of the things I'm contemplating is going on TRT or testosterone replacement therapy. And essentially, it's weighing out the consequences of potentially impacting my ability to have children. You know, it's been something of weighing out, you know, do I want to potentially risk that, you know, long term desire of being a father and having a family versus, you know, the vanity and looks. The idea of getting fillers feels like kind of crossing a bridge. I would be embarrassed to tell somebody that I had fillers. It feels very vain. But also I'm curious about how it would impact my appearance. So we'll see. I still, I am like very in the moment of deciding that right now. Let me put this a little closer. Is the audio better now? This is great. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. I'm so happy to talk to you. Yeah. I'm so happy to talk to you. Okay. So we are recording, but before we kind of launch in, I just want to talk about a few things about how we're making this episode. How do you want us to identify you? Do you want us to use- Asher. Asher? Asher. Yeah. So A-S-H-E-R. Yes. And can we say where you live? Yeah. New York City? Yes. And can we say what age you are? Yes. Okay. You can also say that I'm beautiful, which is the truth. You are? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Asher lives in Manhattan with two roommates. He works as a data scientist at a consulting firm, and it's a job that pays pretty well. And he can work remotely, which has been important when healing from plastic surgery. When Asher reached out to us, he was three months out from getting work done on his face, liposuction on his cheeks, and a chin implant. You know, I'm 35 now. Last couple of years, it was kind of looking like puffier and puffier. And with the implant, it gives a more angular version of your face. It looks a bit more masculine. Which of those two would you say was the more predominant thing? I don't want to look, I want to look more masculine and I want to look young. I don't, I don't, I wouldn't use the word young. Actually, men secretly kind of want to look a little bit older. Okay. But I looked at my dad, and I looked at him carefully, and I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. We are going to sail in a different direction than this. Asher's father is Indian. His mother is Portuguese. And Asher lived in Trinidad until he was seven years old. And he said that culture was more open about plastic surgery. His mom and stepdad both have had facelifts. But now Asher has had more plastic surgery than anyone in his family. I wrote it all down for you, Anna, okay? I made sure to go through all of my receipts. I went through all the documents because I have it stored. And I was like, let me see. And I looked at the total. I was like, god damn. LASIK eye surgery, 4,000. Rhinoplasty, otoplasty, liposuction, all-in-one, 98.50. Rhinoplasty revision, that was free, medically necessary. Brazilian butt lift, $14,500. Face, chin implant, jaw liposuction, fat grafts into the lips and cheeks, $11,248. Eyebrow transplant, $2,800. So in total, it's about $43,000. How have you paid for that? On a credit card? Did you finance with the doctor's offices? Cash? So most of them I saved up in unpaid cash. All of these I had wanted for 20 years since I was a teenager. The reason I decided to do it in my 30s was twofold. One, you don't make any good decision in your 20s, ever. Ever. And two, I didn't have the money for it. So even my tattoos, I've got them after I was 30. So do you really want them? If you really want them at 30, you'll be fine. At 20, I don't know. My sister has tattoos on her arms, on her neck. I was like, good luck getting a job, honey. But if you wait till 30, your life philosophy is you won't have any regrets. Yeah, 30s, why not? Asher got his first major plastic surgery outside of the U.S. in Turkey. Then a few years later, he got the BBL, Brazilian butt lift, at a Park Avenue doctor in Manhattan with good reviews. It's a notoriously dangerous surgery, but Asher deemed it worth the risk. Yeah, so I had what we don't clinically call this, but in common parlance, we say you have a long back. You mean you had a flat butt? I'm really tall. So it's very rare you'll see a guy who is six foot five with a nice butt. OK, if you look at a guy who's at the gym, who's five nine, it's fucking unfair. OK, it's just not fair. Like God just God just just preferred them over me. OK, like I had to work for this. So when you say a good butt, tell me what it looks like. So exactly what you would think of. It has a little bit of curvature at the top. There's some volume and it doesn't look outrageous. Right. Do you care if it clear to people who see you that you had cosmetic procedures No This is for me This is not for anybody else But you not self that somebody might know like oh no job Oh, I tell people all the time. I'm like, I've got, listen, the amount of money I paid for this, you're going to find out about it. You're going to know. I am going to tell you right away. I'm like, I had it done. I saved up a lot of money for it. Nobody, listen, Anna, nobody buys a Ferrari to keep it parked in a garage, okay? Some beauty interventions have made you feel good, you told us. People do say, I can't believe you're the age you are. And I'm very open about it. And they're shocked. Lately, I've been getting these laser facials, which are not cheap. They are like $250 a pop, and you have to get them like every 10 days. But I'm like, I think this kid's looking better maybe than it ever has. Sometimes changes to your appearance can make you feel closer to who you feel you really are. I ended up transitioning and identifying as a non-binary genderqueer person. Started presenting more masculine, more androgynous. So I did make some investments and changes in how I looked and how I presented myself. I got tattoos, which were very expensive and very beautiful, and have me showing off my body in a completely different way than before. Or these interventions can help you stay close to a part you don't want to change. One of the things that I do is I take finasteride, which is meant to help you grow and sustain your hair. I noticed that I was losing some of my hair after I had gotten a really bad haircut and I saw a bald spot on the top of my head. And at the behest of my girlfriend, after many days of anxiety and panic, I finally booked an appointment with a dermatologist and got prescribed medication. I would like to have hair on my head by the time I get married and by the time I have a kid or two so I'm not really looking to lose it anytime soon and also I don't want to lose my hair because I do enjoy going to the barber and getting my hair cut I constantly joke around with my girlfriend and I always tell her that the relationship between a man and his barber is one of the most intimate relationships that a person can have and I'm not ready to give that up I got lip filler to, you know, to bring back my old lips. And once I did that, I was like, oh, there I am. A listener we're calling Caroline first got lip fillers and Botox after her marriage ended. She and her ex-husband had three kids together, and she was in her 40s when she asked him for a divorce. I felt like I was dying in my marriage. Like that whole, I just felt like I was dying. I felt like a dead person walking. And finally, I just was like, okay, we got to be done so that I can feel, I mean, I didn't say exactly this, but so I can feel alive again. And part of that was that I wanted to feel sexually attractive. I wanted to feel desired. So it's all really connected for me. And so when you started doing fillers and Botox, was it something that you would do, you'd wait a few months, you'd go back and do again? Like how long, how many times did you do each of those things? I Botox I was doing every four months or so and filler I think I did filler three times over like a two and a half year period or something like that and then I also did this thing called PDO threads. They numb your face and they basically, uh, like somehow funnel in these, it looks like fishing line with little barbs on it. So they get it in the right place and then they pull and your cheek literally just goes like it just, um, it lifts. Yeah. Oh, and that was I the first time I did that that was amazing um it's been over a year since I've done it I think the last time I got anything done was in January of 2025 yeah so it's all faded away now what changed because I filed for bankruptcy like two weeks ago oh uh-huh can't afford it And it really makes me very sad. And when you look in the mirror, like, what do you do you look at what what's it like to see these procedures that can really change the way you look but are temporary come to an end? I've been kind of sad about it, honestly. it's pretty I mean I knew that eventually I would just sort of have to accept time but I don't know that I was ready that's so interesting how you put that for any aging person we all know that at some point we're going to have to confront age. And you gave yourself kind of a grace period to sort of go back in time with some interventions. Yeah, I think that I haven't thought about it that way, but I think that that really is kind of what I did. I kind of let myself have a few years of... I was a little bit resentful and sad that I wasted those years when I was younger and hotter, married to someone who didn't care about that sort of thing. And I felt really invisible. And I wanted that time back. So, sorry, I'm such a nose runner. Anyway, I wanted that time back. And so, yes, when I got divorced, I think I definitely splurged and gifted myself some of that time. And I think, you know, I'm in a very loving relationship now for just over a year. And I do feel desired. And I don't think it's contingent on Botox. so I don't think I'm at any risk of losing this relationship if I stop doing these procedures um I I just yeah I don't want to give that part of me up I kind of liken it to like painting your house you do one room and then after you're done with one room looks all like shiny and new, and then you step into the next room and you're like, oh, this is looking a little shabby. Refresh this. And by the time you're done, you're like back to the first room. And it's like, yeah. Jiang lives in the Bay Area and describes herself as middle-aged. She works in tech. And unlike Caroline, she can afford to do anything she wants to her face. She sometimes gets weekly expensive facials and regular injectables. Other times, she doesn't. I go in cycles. And here's what I mean by that. And this is part of the struggle. I have used like Creme de la Mer and Augustin Espotter, which are two crazy expensive like creams and regimens. And then I will start to think more about kind of like the cosmetic industrial complex and like what it's doing to women. And then I will stop all of that and buy like oil of Olay or something at the drugstore. So it just depends what cycle. Where you are in the shame, the shame indulgence graph. That's exactly right. Ji-young's parents moved to the United States shortly before Ji-young was born from Korea and brought with them clear ideas about how to take care of your skin. My mom, anytime she would go out, even for a walk, she would be like covered head to toe in like a hat. And it didn't matter, you know, if it was 80 degrees outside, right? A hat, you know, kind of like her sleeves. so when I would go out with my friends, she'd be like, take a hat, take a hat. Was it primarily about protecting your skin from sun damage? Was it also about protecting it, keeping it fair? It was more about keeping it fair, quite honestly, more than like melanoma concerns or anything. I see. It was just a beauty ideal. You work in the tech industry now. I do. So where, what's it feel like when you go to work, when you look at your peers, your coworkers? Are you in a sort of tech company where there's a premium on being a young person? I am at a startup, right? So there's kind of, I mean, there's many kinds of tech. There's like tech tech, big tech, and then there's like startup tech. And tech tech usually tends to have a bigger generation, you know, multi-generations more represented. They're just larger numbers. They're kind of older, established companies, etc. Whereas the startup environment is very different, right? I mean, you see all these headlines of 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds, you know. So I am in the startup world and I have been for a while. I just keep getting drawn to this. And as I continue to go along in my career, for sure, there's an added sense of you look around and I'm a lot older than a lot of these people. I mean, sometimes this is like their first job. They got recruited right out of college. And so I think overall, the way startup cultures are kind of like bred and what's championed and what's valued, you know, youth is high on that list. Where are you today as we're talking in the cycle of shame and feeling okay about making appointments to go in and get different services? Yeah, less and less shame, I will say. And that's just like generally about everything as I get older, right? But I do want to say, you know, when you get compliments for how you look, like, it's almost like you want, you get that hit. And that becomes very seductive. So I think what feeds into that is, oh, well, I've got to continue being seen like this, right? And this thing about how women are not seen as they get older, right? Like older women are invisible. Older people are invisible, but particularly older women are invisible. And so I think that if there's any little hook that kind of still hangs on me, especially being in tech, is that I don't want to be invisible. The number of people who are doing Botox and other injectables like fillers is growing. It's becoming less common to see wrinkles on TV, not to mention imperfect teeth, ones that aren't totally lined up and bright white. And the narrower and shinier that our Dominic aesthetic gets, the more certain perceived imperfections connote otherness, like not having enough money or being left behind. I feel like a lot of my friends are like getting Botox and stuff, kind of scooting into the anti-aging universe. And for me, I'm still struggling with hormonal acne, something that I feel like none of my friends are really, you know, concerned about. In the last year, I have been told that I need to have severe orthodontics, so braces, when I've previously always been complimented on my teeth, and it can't be Invisalign, and I need elastics in my braces, and around $10,000 Australian for that to happen. I should note that I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is a condition that affects all my collagen, you're born with it. I was only recently diagnosed about two years ago, but the teeth make sense in regards to that. I've also experienced in the last year, I changed my birth control and had the most horrendous acne of all time, but also manifested in basically, and I don't know if this was the Ehlers-Danlos, but like my hair growing in within itself on my face. And I have gone from a really, oh God, I'm going to cry, a really confident, outgoing person to someone who questions if they look okay to go to the supermarket. But it is honestly insane that I, at 35, am now experiencing this and I feel like I'm back to below basics of how to accept my body. Coming up, what happens when you take a stand against beauty interventions and get pushback from your family, and how it feels to be a child who got lots of compliments for how cute and beautiful you are, and then you grow up and they go away. I started to really have to reconcile with, oh, you've put a lot of emphasis on looks and I'm not sure how that's going to serve you or how you're going to untangle that. Good luck. And that's sort of when the addiction to alcohol and drugs kind of really, you know, took off. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. every Friday I take you behind the scenes at literary hub chatting with staff writers and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world find us now anywhere you get your podcasts How do you introduce yourself? Mistress Dana. And what's the term you use for what you practice, what your work is? Professional dominatrix. Dana Ferrant got into kink in her 30s, but she always kept it separate from her professional life. It wasn't until she got divorced and turned 50 that she decided to pursue a new career. It's always scary to start a new job, especially when you're a little older. There's that feeling of, can I really do this? Both from yourself and reflected back at you from younger peers. But that is not what Dana found. I've been more aware of the age piece in stepping into the dungeon because the age is a bonus, not a negative. What age do you think it is most advantageous that you appear for your clients Really somewhere you know 45 to 55 People want to know that there enough experience that I not going to injure them that I know what I doing They want that feeling of I have authority over them. So there's a bit of that power dynamics that comes in automatically just in if I'm older than them, they feel that immediately. I know professional dominatrix who are still working up into their 80s. It's not, it is a profession that you can get into. Well, clearly I'm getting into it at an older age. And it's not a negative to be working in your 60s and 70s. And will you just describe for me how you sense that? Like, take me into an initial interaction with a client who's trying to figure out who you are, how, what the dynamics going to be like between you? How do you, how can you tell what they expect from you and how you're going to sort of assert that? And this is, this is where it's, it's a misnomer for most people in this industry. It's not about me trying to make sure that they, you know, have their, their wish fulfillment or, you know, that I'm making sure that they're really happy. It's actually the opposite in the power dynamics, which is what they're actually seeking. They're seeking to surrender, to let go of control. And so in order to optimally do that, we need to make sure that it's not about them. The session takes into consideration what they like, what they don't like. But when they come in for a session, I'm deciding what's going to happen. I'm in charge. Dana didn't always feel in charge of her own life. She grew up in a religious community where most of her life was mapped out, from what she believed to how to spend her free time to how she should look. I wouldn't allow myself to dye my hair because that would be too much following the world trends and not looking godly enough. I didn't really start dying my hair until late 20s. It's interesting that the way that you describe that at a period of when it sounds like you were dealing with a lot, figuring out who you were, how to heal from some things, that it was out of that time when you started thinking about how you wanted to take care of your appearance and started putting in more effort. Is that right? Yeah, I think there was a shift of being allowed internally to spend the money, spend the time, do these kinds of things that up until then I had pushed off as like, oh, that's so frivolous, it's shallow. So, you know, the person who was helping me in the last four or five years, she was always encouraging me to, you know, wear something sexy. Go out because that's a way to push the thoughts out that it's not okay to dress sexy or that something bad's going to happen if I go like this. So, yes, now I have no problem. I can go out in a pair of short shorts and a little tank top. There's really not much left in the imagination, and I'm out there strutting around. This topic is very timely for me, as I feel like I'm in the age where people are getting, you know, they have enough money now. My peers to have plastic surgery or Botox. I don't do any of that, but what I have made the decision and the reason I'm submitting this voice memo is that I recently decided to stop coloring my hair. And that has totally changed the way I perceive myself to move through the world. Yeah, I really want to hold strong with this one. So it is, it looks like your hair is gray. I would say on your driver's license, I would say gray if I were picking your hair color. Is that what you say? I mean, I think it's probably, if we're going to break it down percentage wise, I'd say I'm probably 40 to 60. Like 40, that's probably generous. I'm probably 60% gray, maybe I'm 40% brown. Alexandra is 38 now. She started going gray in her early 20s. She'd always dyed her hair, but stopped during pregnancy a few years ago. I paused hair color, and then I resumed for a little bit, and then I paused again when I got pregnant again a couple years later, and then I just never took it back up. And I've gotten a lot of feedback on that. From whom? I mean, like, everybody. Like, family members, right? And then also just strangers that like meet you. And after, you know, you say an initial, it's never like, oh my gosh, you have gray hair. But after you maybe break the ice with a different conversation, they maybe have a comment on your hair. Always women, never men. And it's usually in the context of like, I wish I could do that. Oh, so they look at you and they go, I wish I was that brave. Exactly. Exactly. I want to know a little bit more about what you are reacting against. And it might not be the case, but I wonder if you could tell me more about the women in your family who are older than you. What was their approach to when their hair and their face and their appearance, they started to look older? Yeah, yeah. To give you an informed answer to that question, let me just back up a titch and say I have two maternal figures in my life, one of which is 13 years older than me. That's my stepmother. And then one of which is my maternal mother. And she is 30 years older than my stepmom. Okay. Yeah. So there's quite a big age gap between these two people. I probably am more of the ethos of my maternal mother of like she's very Berkeley in the 70s, hippie, you know, English teacher. And then. I see the linen, the flowing fabric. Exactly. Exactly. You have the picture. And then my stepmom is a Pilates instructor. She routinely gets like these Dracula facial things where I see her face and it's just like puffy. I'm like, what happened? And she's like, I had a facial. I'm like, okay, great. Like subscribes to all the things to stay looking young and attractive. And so I guess I've had competing conversations about this topic my whole life. I guess fundamentally at the very core of it is I don't want to have to conform to somebody else's standards. And I think it's we've been sold a bill of goods in this day and age of female appearance that it needs to keep up with a certain trend or be a certain way or youth equals beauty like that, like youth equals being wanted. And I guess I just don't want to have to keep up with that thought process. So on the idea of feeling wanted, you're in a relationship, right? You're married to a man. I am, yeah. Do you all talk about it? My hair? Yeah. Yeah, quite a bit. How does your husband talk with you about how you feel about your hair and the decisions you're making? He's never been not supportive of my decision. And that double negative is intentional. But it's not something I know that he's totally at peace with because pictures will come up of me like 10 years earlier and he'll have off-sighted comments of, God, look how good you look there. And when you notice that, does it, like, when it registers, do you, like, does it make you sort of go, huh, what's my game plan here for the next 30 years, 40 years, 50 years? Absolutely. Yeah, because it is still so early in the game. And I think it hurts a little bit, I'll be honest. But it also isn't enough to push me the other direction. You know, I'm pretty stubborn. And so it's kind of like, that would suck if that was the deal breaker. But I guess this, you know, isn't right if that's the case. Yeah. So it's constantly a decision I'm making. It's not like, oh, I don't color my hair, period, stop blank. It's constantly something that arises in my decision-making process. And sometimes I'm swayed to do it for whatever reason. And then I usually, well, I always remember kind of and feel at the core that the reasons I don't want to do it. And I'll also add to those reasons that I have two daughters and this is genetic and I want them to see, I want them to see this, you know, and to see it be okay. And if they want to make a different choice, that's all right. But at least they have a model, you know. Did your mother go gray in her 20s and 30s? Yes. Yes. It's interesting to me how you described the maternal figures in your life. And how core this decision about how you wear your hair, it raises this question of what sort of woman am I? Yes. Like a very core to identity. Yeah. Which I get. But it's interesting how it feels like being pushed to color your hair feels like they're not seeing you for how you are, is how it feels. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, why do I need to do that? I mean, for you? Is it for you? or because you're embarrassed to have a friend or a spouse with gray hair? I mean, what is the encouragement from? This is what I think about a lot, too, how I'm being closely watched by two little girls as I dabble with beauty interventions and investments. They notice for whom or what I put makeup on for when I cover grays. They'll alert me when, Mom, you need to shave your legs. I want them to find fun and freedom in how they present to the world. Also, to be real about what it's like to live in a woman's body that also lives in a society. This is a balance. And you know, comments from grown-ups about how you're supposed to look, they can get trapped in memory on a loop. My mother worked for a plastic surgeon's office. And when I was 16 years old, she said to me, Jamie, wouldn't it be nice if we could just get you a surgery and take out that little bump in the middle of your nose? One of my mom's former friends, I remember her saying, oh my gosh, look how big your stomach is. Are you pregnant? I literally didn't know where babies came from at the time. I have memories of being told to shave my armpits by my grandmother to help with body odor. and of another patient at a physical therapy clinic talking over my head to my physical therapist about my wolf legs. But family culture can only influence so much, especially when there are so many other ways we are told or shown how you ought to look to be desired. In this week's Slate Plus episode, I talked to a dermatologist who is also a medical anthropologist, Dr. Molly Hales. She recently co-authored a study where she pretended to be a 13-year-old girl on TikTok to see what the algorithm would serve her. Turns out a lot of young kids are doing skincare routines and doing them badly. She's kind of doing this instructional format. So it was like a how-to video with her full skincare regimen. And it had just one product after the other that she's holding up and just gushing about how great it is and then putting it on her skin. Her skin is turning dark, you know, pinker and pinker. And by the end, she looks into the camera and she says, like, here's how this looks. It's so glowy. I love it. But if anyone can tell me how to get it to stop burning, that would be greatly appreciated because it actually really hurts a lot. My conversation with Dr. Molly Hales is in the Slate Plus feed this week. If you are not already getting these special episodes, sign up for Slate Plus on the Death, Sex, and Money show page on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or just go to slate.com slash dsmplus. After the break, more of your stories about beauty interventions. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. Nick Dote lives in Los Angeles, California now, but he grew up in the Bay Area. As a kid, he was told he was beautiful and he loved it. He set out to be an actor, and at first, he was on a glide path that got all the parts he wanted when he was starting out in shows near his hometown. Then he moved to New York. I remember it very clearly. It was a callback for Jersey Boys on Broadway, which was a huge deal. But I was so entitled and my perspective was so off prior, you know, a big fish in a small pond coming from, you know, the San Francisco Bay Area where I got pretty much all the parts I wanted. And then when I didn't get that and I thought, oh, the whole plan might not work. Like the whole A plus B equals C is maybe debunked. And that was terrifying to me. Uh-huh. Do you feel like you won out to somebody who was hotter? Hmm. Interesting. No, but I think it's really complicated because I think there's also internalized homophobia with this for men, gay men in theater, especially that when we're playing lead roles or masculine presenting roles that, and I'm saying all this because I was a 25 year old twink, right? Like a pretty boy. So I don't think that he was hotter. However, he might have been more masculine. Oh, that's interesting. So it was sort of like I feel you grew up being told you were a handsome boy and then a handsome young man. And then there was a complicating factor of like, but are you a handsome man in the right way to present and be successful in your chosen field? Right. Are you going to take this to the bank? Are you going to be able to cash this in? As Nick struggled, as an actor, and with how he presented as a man, he was using drugs and alcohol. It became a problem. And then a full-blown addiction. I landed in rehab you know inpatient rehab when I was 34 So that whole like the last six months you know my really rock bottom where you know I ended up in a meth cabin in the woods and ended up convincing, you know, my parents weren't speaking to me. I convinced this drug dealer to drive me to LA, probably because he was sick of me. And he's like, okay, sure. And it took a couple more months in this crazy sort of like, you know, using my looks and my body to get, you know, men in the Hollywood Hills to sort of like, Uber me from party to party, and I was always in a blackout. And then I ended up in the hospital. And then from there, they put me into this government-run, really, like, scrappy, ragtag rehab where the woman who owns it, or runs it, rather, is just this no-nonsense kind of, like, you know, 35 years of sobriety herself, just, like, can see through it all, right? Kathy is her name. And she's sort of the reason I'm sober. She would not allow us. We couldn't work out. We couldn't talk about it. We couldn't. I was begging for a haircut like two months in. Like I still looked the way I did like from the hospital. And I was putting on weight from only eating like donation pastries. Like I was disgusting. And she just knew exactly that that was the issue. And she would not budge. Yeah, Kathy said I have to focus on my insides, not my outsides. Can you just say to me, I want to make sure I'm really getting what Kathy identified and what she helped you identify about the link between your addiction, addictions and how you look. Yeah. How do you understand that? The way I understand it is there's a lot of things that, as you would say in the program, fix feelings. Like how can I fix how I feel, not be present, you know, whatever it is. And I think when you take out the really strong life-shattering substances, you are reaching. And so the way I looked was another way I was wearing a mask. It was another way that I was hiding, not being who I was, people pleasing, wanting to be who you needed me to be. All of those things I never would have really dissected had I not torched my life in that way and met Kathy and these other addicts that helped me understand the mirror of how ridiculous it was to be so concerned. Here I am. Kathy would say, look where you are. You're like worried about a haircut, but what about where your life has taken you? You know, like obviously looking good didn't work for you, you know? Kathy's like, you're worried about a haircut? Right. So her big thing that she would, her catchphrase would always be like, whatever you were obsessing about. Nick, if a haircut, if haircuts worked for you, you'd have an amazing life. We love Kathy. We love Kathy. So sometimes it's very helpful to lose everything because then a comment like that really puts it in perspective. When Nick got out of rehab, he was sober and rebuilding his life. He got a new job and soon met a man, Walker, at an AA meeting. Walker was 10 years younger, 25 to Nick's 35. And within three months of meeting, they moved in together. And seven years later, they married. Nick wrote about his relationship with Walker in a recent essay in New York Magazine. And also about the tensions that have showed up there because of Nick's relationship to his body. For a while, Nick felt secure in his relationship. Walker never cared what size I was, he wrote. He told me I was handsome when I rolled out of bed, sexy in gym shorts, hot even without a tan. For a while, I believed him, he wrote. And then the pandemic hit. And I was heading into my 40s, so the weight wasn't coming off the way that it used to. And I had to, like, maybe like six months in, I had to, instead of all my medium polo shirts that I wore to work, I went online to get some larges, which was, felt like a dagger to my heart. When did you have your first conversation with a physician about some kind of surgical intervention? Pretty much. Well, I think because I've I've gone up. They're all spaced out about a year. So probably 2021. So I broached the subject with Walker of lipo and he's you know, he was like, sure, whatever. And then didn't love those results. A year into the pandemic, Nick got liposuction. It cost just over $20,000. When Nick told Walker playfully, hey, babe, I'm getting my boobs done, Walker's response was cautious. If it's going to make you feel better, I support you, he said. But are you sure this is about your chest? And then the results weren't what Nick wanted. He wrote, the definition I expected never materialized. just a torso that looked oddly smooth, almost melted. So then Nick went back for a revision procedure. It cost another $7,500. When the results still didn't feel perfect, Nick's doctor suggested a tummy tuck. And Nick scheduled it, but waited until two weeks before the surgery to tell his husband. Walker was furious about all the money and all the surgeries and asked Nick if he could cancel. But it was too late. I had already gone back, same surgeon, had already held the date, paid a deposit, because I knew come hell or high water I had to do it. And then I just had to have like an honest adult conversation with Walker. And that was not the right way. And that's why it was so bad, just in that he's like, well, you're going to do it. I mean, you're already doing it. So you had paid the deposit. You had said, I am doing this third surgery. And then you're like, I have to tell my husband. And then he's like, hang on. Sort of ask. Ask slash inform. Yeah, you get it. Yeah, yeah. I also have a husband who I sometimes ask slash inform. Yeah. But it was the way that you came to what is this for, that that conversation between the two of you, and is this worth all this effort, time, money, pain of recovery? It was the money that was the way you had that conversation. We could use this money for something else. I think it was layered because it was also the first time I had heard, I loved your body before. The first time I had heard, what are you doing? You know, you're botching the things I love. Like these sort of like things that come out in a heated conversation that, yeah, it just was, it's like I overstayed my welcome of just positive cheer from the sidelines and got the tough love of like, do you think this is looking better? Like, do you think this is fixing anything kind of a thing? And it was too late. It was, I wanted to, the night before I thought I should cancel, this is going to, he's going to ask me for a divorce. Like, this is going to be bad. And he said no. You know, he drove me, like we patched it up for as best we could the night before. He drove me to the hospital, you know, the surgery place. And, yeah, and then I went to aftercare and ended up in aftercare for like five days. And he saw me there once, but I knew that he was over it. I knew that it was, I had done something, I had crossed the line. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And looking back, when you were scheduling that third surgery, you described kind of like, I want the result that I've been after. You described that as your motivation. But do you link it to that, what we were talking about before, about what you were kind of confronting in recovery, about like your worth is connected to how you look? For sure, because I thought, you know, it's funny, or ironically, the most stress that's ever been put on our relationship is this. But here I am probably three years prior and when I went to ask for the last surgery, thinking this would be in the category of saving my marriage when it was doing the opposite. You know, because I did feel like he chose me because of the way I looked at 35. He chose me because of the way others saw me, the way others complimented me. I had that narrative going. So this really shook all of that because it was the first time I knew that he liked my body, but I didn't realize. Yeah, I just thought it was all improvement, that there was no risk of, you know, like the scar from the tummy tuck. It's like neither of us really understood how intense that would look. you know he described it as a c-section scar which it's not far off and yeah I was a little shocked too like I was so tunnel vision that I thought oh oh wait so it it never really goes wait it never goes away you know like like yeah dude I remember I wished I'd had a warning before my c-section just look at your stomach before because it'll never look like that again right Yeah. Yeah. And just, and I remember my surgeon saying something like, well, even if he said something like, cause I said, I'm uncomfortable even with my partner with my shirt off and I definitely don't want to go to the pool and blah, blah. And he said, well, even if you're still uncomfortable, you know, with like the results of a tummy tuck, at least like your silhouette, you know, in clothing. And I'm thinking like, well, yeah, but with my shirt off too. And I now realize that what he meant was you might not like the scar if your pants go below that. And you also might not like the fact that it's not the belly button you were born with. Uh-huh. You still might not like the way you look when you're naked or with your shirt off. Yeah. Uh-huh. Huh. I want to understand how you think about if you could go back and make different decisions, where you might make different decisions when it comes to these, the interventions, the surgical interventions. Like, how do you think about that choice? The truth is, is that had I known all of the different things, like not just the physical, medical, but the emotional, the mental, I probably wouldn't have started down the path. And I think even though I'm satisfied and glad in a way, it's almost not worth it. Do you know what I mean? And in your relationship now with your husband, like, if there's a day where you're just, like, not feeling hot, like, is that something you'll say to him? Or do you keep that inside? Yeah, we're gay men in L.A. And there isn't a day that goes by where we don't kind of get down on ourselves about it. And it's sad. It is, you know, it is sad. And I think that our job, especially in sobriety, is to take that inventory, you know, and really look at maybe I have to go do something for somebody else. Maybe I need to volunteer. Like, how do I get out of myself, right? I think I ask you because I think it's so interesting that the moment of real sort of rupture was you thinking, I'm doing this to stay attractive in this marriage. And him saying, you're changing in ways that I feel uncomfortable with, that I don't really like. And so I wonder if like that's, if now you can get to that part of the conversation faster. Yeah. Well, I definitely think the positives of those hard conversations is that we can skip to that part. For me, I was so far gone when I was deciding about the surgeries. Nobody could have said to me, this isn't a problem. And this isn't the way to fix it. But they could now. I think they could now. And I would listen. That's Nick Dottay. His essay in New York Magazine is called What Plastic Surgery Couldn't Fix. There's a link to it in our show notes. Thank you to everyone whom we talked to for this episode and everyone who sent in voice memos. This episode was produced by Zoe Aguilé. The rest of the Death, Sex, and Money show team includes Andrew Dunn and Cameron Drews. Daisy Rosario is our senior supervising producer. Nia Lobel is the head of Slate Podcast. Hilary Fry is Slate's editor-in-chief. You can support the production of our show by joining our membership program, Slate Plus. You'll get bonus episodes from us and from other Slate shows like Decoder Ring and How To. And you can listen to all of Slate's podcasts without ads. Subscribe directly from the Death, Sex, and Money show page on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. or visit slate.com slash dsm plus to get access wherever you listen. Our theme music is by the Reverend John DeLure and Steve Lewis. If you are new to our show, welcome. We are glad you're here. Find us and follow us on Instagram at death, sex money. And I write a weekly newsletter. You can sign up to get that at anasale.substack.com. And you can reach us anytime with voice memos, pep talks, questions, or critiques at our email, deathsexmoneyatslate.com. We love hearing from you. One more thing Asher told me, he says when he got that Brazilian butt lift, he noticed increased attention on hookup apps, but he also got attention from unexpected sources. I live on a street where it's kind of common to see the same people. We've lived here 14 years, and this lady that lives two floors above me, she saw me. I usually open the door for her because she's older and she carries, she walks with a grandma cart and she told me that during her recent Domino's game because, you know, Dominicans love to play Domino's on the street. Uh-huh. She's like, everybody was talking about you. Butt looks so good. I was so, I could not believe it. I'm Anna Sale. And this is Death, Sex, and Money from Slate. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.