While we're on the subject of plastic surgery...

An Iranian superiority complex (an affliction noted amongst some of our commenters lately) discussed in The New Republic:

I also observed, rather surprisingly, a large number of women and men with nose bandages walking the streets. In fact, before I had arrived, Ziba and two of her male cousins had put their noses under the knife. Cosmetic surgery is commonplace in Iran, where the number of nose jobs performed each year is about the highest in the world.

As Azadeh Moaveni notes in Lipstick Jihad, “To live in Tehran and not surgically enhance something would be like going to a designer sample sale and walking out empty handed.” Interestingly, the nose bandage is a status symbol in Tehran and some even wear a nose bandage purely for social credit, when really no operation had been performed.

Why the Iranian obsession with appearance? In the case of nose jobs, there’s a fairly straightforward answer: Since the Revolution, in 1979, ...


... the face has been the only part of the female body others could see, so fixating on it makes sense. But an emphasis on beauty also has deep historical roots in Iran.

As one local told me, “Traditionally, Iranians believed that by taming and beautifying ‘rough,’ ’savage,’ and ‘uncontrolled’ nature, it would lead to a higher level of godliness and spirituality. The word ‘paradise‘ comes from the ancient Farsi for ‘garden‘ and is a symbol of this consciousness.”

Indeed, a popular Persian carpet motif is a microcosm of this: It is a bird’s eye view of a garden–walls around the edges, a fountain in the middle–a symbol of perfection brought into the house. Another Arab friend of mine had a cruder, but related thought about why Iranians obsess over appearance. “They have a superiority complex,” he said–in other words, beauty is a way to show that they’re a superior, more civilized people.