Gentle yet Manly: Xiao xian rou, Male Cosmetic Surgery and Neoliberal Consumer Culture in China

Estimated prevalence of eating disorders in Malaysia based on a diagnostic screen

“…The "flower boy" male body image is characterized by a slim, smooth and toned body with double eye-lids and a high nose bridge (Monocello & Dressler, 2020). Much like attaining a good quality education, taking steps to attain the ideal body appearance is viewed as an investment in one's future as it increases the likelihood of success in important life domains for both men and women (Wen, 2021). For example, Chinese adolescent boys were equally or more likely than girls to consider cosmetic surgery, despite reporting lower levels of facial dissatisfaction (Wang et al, 2021).…”

Say no to the knife!

“…Cross-cultural qualitative study on cosmetic surgery consideration Chapter 4 increasingly interested in cosmetic procedures (e.g., Busby & Fattahi, 2021;ISAPS, 2020). Thus, future research may qualitatively explore the factors that men perceive to impact their cosmetic surgery consideration; the importance of this is further substantiated by a recent study that explored Chinese male beauty trends and the growth of the male cosmetic surgery market in China (Wen, 2021). Future samples may also comprise people of more varied demographic characteristics, for example with respect to age (older and younger samples) and cities of residence.…”

“…All these phenomena signalled that the changing political, economic, and social environments in China brought China's decades of isolation from the world to the end; meanwhile, China's door to cosmetic surgery is wide open (Wen, 2021).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only three prior qualitative studies have included Chinese people, and these involved Chinese female cosmetic surgery patients (Luo, 2013), a general sample of Chinese men (Wen, 2021), and Chinese students living abroad in Japan (Ghotbi & Khalili, 2017). These studies focused on attitudes towards cosmetic surgery in specific contexts, such as undergoing cosmetic surgery in the context of Chinese beauty economy (Luo, 2013), the growth of the cosmetic surgery market for men (Wen, 2021), and comparison to students from other Asian countries (Japan and Korea; Ghotbi & Khalili, 2017). To the best of our knowledge, no studies have qualitatively investigated attitudes towards cosmetic surgery among Dutch people.…”

“…Chapter 1 (Wen, 2021). Further, a cross-cultural qualitative study was carried out in Japan and aimed to explore the similarity and difference of attitudes towards cosmetic surgery among students from different Asian cultural backgrounds (i.e., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; Ghotbi & Khalili, 2017).…”