Shower thought about braces?

[GloomyPalaver]

In the couple of days after my braces were applied, I was so annoyed at the state of my mouth: My gums were sore, the insides of my mouth were raw, I was lisping, and I can't eat regular food. The pain led me to wonder, is this worth it and why did I even get braces in the first place?

If I take the perspective of an alien observing humans on earth throughout time, the concept of braces would probably be just as normal to them as foot binding (China), body mods (various countries), using corsets (England), or teeth sharpening (Mayan). All of these procedures aim to change the natural shape of the body through external intervention to suit the beauty standards of the current era. In modern times, all of these procedures are thought to be draconian and serve a beauty standard which is eccentric at best, and grotesque at worst. As modern people, we may think the beauty standards of other cultures to be irrelevant, like no one cares if you have small dainty feet, horns coming out of your head, a caricature for a body, or sharp teeth, we just want to know if you have a nice smile. We normalize brutal procedures like the extraction of non-problematic teeth, and bonding teeth to wires, all in the name of a great smile. If a kid shows up in class next day with 4 missing teeth and braces, it's not big deal.

To find the answer to my question, perhaps I should turn to how people are socialized. The concept of a nice smile has many implicit meanings attached to it. Often, people erroneously assume that someone with a nice smile means that they are nicer, more hygienic, more professional, more trustworthy, more outgoing, wealthier, or more successful than someone with crooked teeth. But the only thing that straight teeth explicitly indicates is that the person underwent orthodontic treatment. The amount of unfounded positive assumptions which can be made about a person based on their straight teeth is ridiculous, but it's working and it is normalized at this point in time in society. What is interesting to me is, all these beliefs surrounding straight teeth in modern society can just as easily be swapped out for one of the mentioned concepts of beauty which many people deem 'strange' and 'unnecessary'.

What I am describing to you is ethnocentrism; subjecting other cultures to the standards of our culture. We don't truly understand the significance of certain practices found in other cultures because we are not members of that culture. Of course we understand why ye olde Chinese ladies bound their feet (The emperor's daughter had freakishly small feet. To make her feel better, the emperor announced that small feet will be in vogue), but we will never consider it to be beautiful by our own standards.

As time passes and trends change, maybe the 'aliens' I speak of are humans of the future. Perhaps they may look back on orthodontics with disdain similar to how we look view older/different cultural practices. In the classrooms of the future, future students may wonder why we were obsessed with straight teeth, because CLEARLY the best thing you can do for yourself now is to erase your fingerprints and create a custom one. It only takes 2 years and many painful laser treatments to implement. No big deal.

*Disclaimer, I'm totally not bashing on braces, as I'm currently wearing braces as well! I was just thinking about the concept of cosmetic procedures and how it may seem normal for us, but odd to others.

[Beckett]

Except you're forgetting one thing...a huge number of people aren't doing this just for cosmetic reasons, or some invented cultural standard of "beauty". It's because their teeth have grown improperly, in the wrong place, or the wrong direction, and straightening them out is primarily for the health of the teeth and mouth, not just for looking pretty.

It's not always about caving to artificial cultural standards of what's beautiful.

[SinkFullOfDinner]

Beckett

Um....[delete really snarky comment; insert mildly snarky comment] I'll bet that those ol' Mayans would have jumped at the chance to have straight teeth so they could eat their maize-on-the-cob better. Sometimes, technology simply improves quality of life. And if braces didn't impress them, I could just show them my fireplace app on my phone and freak their asses out. They'd either consider me a god who controls fire, or start to throw me in a volcano until I fired up the "Guardians of the Galaxy" soundtrack and brought them to their knees .

[gooslumps12]

I wouldn't compare braces to something like foot-binding because it's voluntary.

[FlowerPower]

You actually do make a good point and it's something that came up amongst friends when I first expressed frustration at being told I would need jaw surgery to fix my open bite. (Second ortho told me I didn't so I went with him and now have braces!) Anyways, it's such an expensive procedure and insurance also considers it cosmetic in many cases so I was really sad to think I may never have nice teeth since I just couldn't afford it. My friends were telling me, what is a bad smile? What are bad teeth. In fact, in many cultures braces aren't as prominent and teeth that aren't perfectly straight are considered normal. Of course, you also have people that need braces for health reasons. I would consider myself one of those since I couldn't eat properly, but by far, open bites tend to be a minority which is why I think most orthos (in the west at least) opt for surgery without finding other ways to fix it. It just doesn't happen enough for them to want to study other fixes. But I do think the trend of braces is heavily cultural. I've met so many people that say they judge others by the look of their teeth. I think that alone drives many people to get braces, appearances, not even health. That also sucks since dental here in the US is so expensive and many people can't afford it so they're being judged for something out of their control.

[AndyB]

give braces time to do their job. the final results are more than satisfying (of course with proper dental care).