English Version | Beauty is pain

This could be one of those popular sayings that reflects the peculiarities of the English culture. However, it is possible to find similar expressions in several languages, from the Portuguese "sofrer para bem parecer" to the Spanish "para presumir hay que sufrir." Finding pleasure in pain seems like a contradiction, but it reflects the long-standing relationship that the female sex has with beauty.

I don't know if I was even 14 when I went out for the first time in high heels. It was Carnival, and I decided to take advantage of that to fulfill one of my biggest teenage dreams. (For context: Since I was a child I always told my mother that it didn't matter to me what profession I would have, as long as that work involved the daily use of high heels). Since the way to school was bumpy, counting an eventful bus ride, I put on my sneakers and only changed shoes before the bell for the first class. But I didn't do it alone, of course. I would never have had the courage to carry out such alien behavior without the support of my group of friends, in a joint act that subtly turned into a height competition: "My heels are 12 centimeters, and yours?" When you're a teenager, size matters. Now, we can skip some crucial details of this day, which shaped my personality in its own way (namely the obvious jokes I was subjected to), to reach the conclusion that led me to tell this story: it was a horrible experience - and I loved it. A few hours later, I could no longer walk without letting out a sigh. I came home with blisters, sore heels, toes screaming for help... And I loved every second of the experience.

Ask any woman and you will hear a story identical to this one. It may not be with high heels, but with a waxing session that was so painful that it made that Summer the happiest of all. Or with a certain beauty treatment "that only hurt a little bit" but was worth it because of the results. For centuries the female sex has been subjected to suffering for a greater good, that of beauty, and not even the advance of technology seems to have countered this. Anyone who says so is because they have never tried an electric hair removal machine. But let's take a quick trip back in time to see how pain and beauty have long gone hand in hand. In ancient Rome, the lighter a woman's skin was, the higher the status she was accorded by society. But staying out of the sun was not enough. White powders were applied all over the face, often composed of harmful minerals, which today are known to be the cause of death for many women. In the Middle Ages, a beauty practice was introduced that, to the dismise of many of us, has survived to the passing of the centuries. We are talking about tweezing eyebrows. This painful technique that, when performed on the male sex, makes us wonder why armies still put them at the front of the battle. Starting in the 16th century, pain tolerance increased with the constant presence of corsets, that evil piece of clothing that taught women to live with 30% less oxygen in the brain - something that only got worse with the introduction of voluminous wigs at the French court of Louis XIV. At least this time, men suffered with us. The years went by, and with them came (and disappeared) new instruments of torture in the name of beauty. Eyebrows have become smaller, pants tighter, and needles prominent in beauty treatments. Some people even keep them on the shelf in the bathroom, for a ritual of "micro needling" whose prefix fools no one (it's not because it's "micro" that it doesn't hurt).

Evidence is not lacking, but justification is. Why do women so easily subject themselves to pain? Beyoncé tried to answer in 2013, with her single Pretty Hurts ("Perfection is a disease of the nation"). Many sang it, but few assimilated its message. If, for a moment, we take beauty out of the equation, it is not difficult to find other situations in which women are forced to overcome their pain without causing disturbance to those around them. They do it at least once a month, for decades of their lives, every time a part of their uterus slowly crumbles into lumps of blood. Yes, it is as painful as it sounds, and for some women it is even crippling. It has happened since the dawn of humanity - if Eve existed, she menstruated - and yet few have taken the time to alleviate the suffering it causes. Even fewer were those who questioned society's view of menstruation. It is seen as something dirty, ugly, impure, that should be hidden, especially from males, when, in fact, it is the proof of a power, the power to generate a life. Is there anything more beautiful than this?

With such a trivial, yet powerful example, one answers countless questions that define contemporary archetypes of beauty. Why do women shave? Why do they undergo cosmetic operations with long and painful recoveries? Why do they find happiness in the pain of wearing a pair of high heels? Some people feel they have to, that they have no choice but to conform to the standards that were communicated to them before they even learned to read and write. And that communication doesn't have to be through words. No one comes up to a child and tells them, "When you grow up, you'll have to wax your eyebrows every week." But you do it, probably unconsciously, through your actions. Through the little comments, "If you don't lose weight, they'll make fun of you at school." From the representations in popular culture, such as Carrie Bradshaw's relationship in Sex and the City with her Manolo Blahnik shoes. Collectively, we aspire to a common ideal of beauty, no matter how hard we try to escape it, and the road to it is painful, not only physically, but above all on a psychological level. 

“Ain't got no doctor, or pill that can take the pain away / The pain's inside, and nobody frees you from your body / It's the soul, it's the soul that needs surgery." We turn once again to Beyoncé's wise words in Pretty Hurts to talk about a kind of suffering that, being also connected to beauty, plays out in different ways. Sometimes it is a matter of pros and cons. The physical pain that might come from a cosmetic intervention is nothing compared to the emotional pain of looking in the mirror every day and seeing a feature that bothers you. This is not to say that enduring the physical suffering can magically eliminate the psychological one, but in many cases it helps to alleviate it. We talk a lot about self-love, about accepting so-called unique features, embracing them with the same empathy with which we compliment a friend. However, in a time dominated by filters and comparisons, where our image is more public than ever, exposure to stereotypes of beauty and ideals of perfection, which shape the relationship that each person has with his or her body, increases. And no one is safe from this, not even people who, at first glance, seem to embody the physical characteristics that many aspire to have.

Although it is an issue that now affects the general population, celebrities were the first victims of this culture of objectification. Constantly exposed to public pressure, they play a key role in the propagation of beauty archetypes, which can range from body types to makeup trends. Take the case of Kim Kardashian, the celebruty that many consider responsible for the spread of a type of plastic surgery, the BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift), which consists in the transfusion of the patient's own fat to the buttocks area. Despite being a normalized practice in the cosmetic world, performing it can bring serious risks, such as heart problems, blood clots, or fat embolisms, and in the most serious cases can even be a cause of death. In 2022, Kardashian made headlines again when she jokingly said that she wouldn't mind "eating poop" if it made her look younger. We know that celebrities are subject to daily scrutiny of their bodies, but we must not forget that in the same way, their actions impact what society expects a woman to be willing to do in the name of beauty. To objectify a body is to suppress all the humanity that is inherent in it. It is to prioritize a silhouette over a feeling. It is a source of constant psychological dissatisfaction, which no treatment, no matter how much physical suffering it entails, will be able to alleviate. In the words of Queen B, it is the soul that needs surgery.

After weighing all the problems, there is yet to see in which situations it is justified to feel pain in the name of beauty. Each person will have an individual, non-transferable answer. However, it is possible to observe a common thread that guides such thoughts, and it lies at the core of the motivations. When these are not related to society's expectations, when they are not the result of stereotyping, when they don't put the health of the human being at risk, suffering takes on a different meaning. It is a rite of passage, a sacrifice in the name of a greater good, an assumption of power that promotes the control of the narrative. It's being able to say, "I did it for me." It was for me that, at 14, I went to school in high heels. It was because of the confidence I felt, the empowerment that took over my body, and that was nothing compared to the blisters on my feet at the end of a day of achievements. If that was suffering, I felt nothing.

Originally translated from The Pleasure Issue, published May 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.