Nothing inherently wrong with an individual getting veneers or cosmetic surgery, but I really liked this article and its discussion of some of the things that have been on my mind lately as I start to age and reconsider how much I’ve been affected by social ideas around how we’re supposed to look (and as my teeth become slowly more tea-tinted).

“These perfect, inhuman teeth embody a phenomenon that I am calling “hotness creep.” Hotness here is emphatically not about beauty — which is rooted in nature and often results from an unexpectedly pleasing assembly of imperfections — and it’s not about being sexy: messy, raw and alive. Hotness, by this definition, cannot be achieved through regular means, e.g. a combination of genetic luck, fitness and nutrition; hotness here must be bought and rigorously maintained through laborious, expensive and possibly dangerous upkeep“