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

29:14Like, older women are invisible. Older people are invisible, but particularly older women are invisible. And so I think that if there's any like 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.

30:01I 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 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.

30:50I 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 with it 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 OK 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.

31:54Coming 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.

32:33There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. An unexpected diagnosis, the sudden end of a relationship, the loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist, and my new book, The Other Side of Change, Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, is all about how we navigate these inflection points. The Other Side of Change pairs singular, real-life stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives, not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be?

33:16I'm thrilled to share that Booklist gave The Other Side of Change one of its coveted starred reviews, saying, quote, It's impossible not to be moved. The Other Side of Change is out now. Get your copy today, wherever you like to buy books.

33:35How do you introduce yourself? Mistress Dana. Mm-hmm. 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.

34:23What 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's enough experience that I'm I'm not going to injure them that I know what I'm doing they want that um feeling of I have authority over them so there's 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.

35:11And 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 the dynamics going to be like between you? How can you tell what they expect from you and how you're going to sort of assert that? And this is where it's a misnomer for most people. In this industry, it's not about me trying to make sure that they have their wish fulfillment or 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.

36:02And 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 dyeing my hair until late 20s.

36:51It'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.

37:39Go 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. And there's really not much left in the imagination. And I'm out there strutting around.

38:10This 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?

38:55I 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?

39:41And 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.

40:27What 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.

41:16Yes. 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.

42:06Like 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-sited comments of, God, look how good you look there.

42:56And 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.

43:52It'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.

44:42And 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.

45:50They 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, baby, 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?

46:34One 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.

47:18Molly 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.

47:53It'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.

48:32I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Vincent Cunningham. I'm Alex Schwartz, and we are Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. Guys, what do we do on the show every week? We look into the startling maw of our culture and try to figure something out. That's right. We take something that's going on in the culture now. Maybe it's a movie. Maybe it's a book. Maybe it's just kind of a trend. And we expand it across culture as kind of a pattern or a template. Join us on Critics at Large from The New Yorker. New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.

49:05Nick 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.

49:44And 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.

50:34Oh, 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.

51:28I convinced this drug dealer to drive me to L.A., probably because he was sick of me. And he's like, OK, 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.

52:08right? Kathy is her name. And she, 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, 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.

53:02How 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.

53:55Here 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? Oh, what? 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.

54:28We 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.

55:15Walker 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? Um, pretty much, well, I think, because I've gone, they're all spaced out about a year, so probably 2021.

56:08So I broached the subject with Walker of lipo, and he, 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.

56:53It 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.

57:41I 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. And, 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 that was the way you had that conversation. We could use this money for something else. uh 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 do 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 um 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 I wanted to get the night before I thought I should cancel this is to ask me for a divorce.

59:17Like, 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. um but do you do you link it to that those what we were talking about before about what you were were kind of confronting in recovery about like your worth is connected to yes 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 as 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.

1:00:43You 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 never really goes, wait, it never goes away.

1:01:40You know, 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, Like, well, even if he said something like, because 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.

1:02:19And 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.

1:03:11And 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.

1:03:57Maybe 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.

1:04:44And this isn't the way to fix it. But they could now. I think they could now. And I would listen.

1:04:58That'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.

1:05:43And 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.

1:06:25We 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. I'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 Dominicans love to play Domino's on the street, she's like, everybody was talking about you, your butt looks so good.

1:07:06I was so, I could not believe it. I'm Anna Sale, and this is Death, Sex, and Money from Slate.

1:07:30I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Vincent Cunningham. I'm Alex Schwartz, and we are Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. Guys, what do we do on the show every week? We look into the startling maw of our culture and try to figure something out. That's right. We take something that's going on in the culture now. Maybe it's a movie. Maybe it's a book. Maybe it's just kind of a trend. And we expand it across culture as kind of a pattern or a template. Join us on Critics at Large from The New Yorker. New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.