Call me old-fashioned, but I can't understand why anyone would engage in the practices outlined in this article. They all in some way reflect a failure of self-acceptance, and none of them will in any substantial way address that lack of self-acceptance. I have for almost all of my life had problems with self-acceptance and at times near-suicidal levels of self-esteem; but I know that the answer lies within, in changing my mental conditioning. Any so-called medical practitioner who engages in futile attempts to address self-esteem issues by surgery rather than seeking to address the mental issues involved is failing their patient, exacerbating their lack of understanding rather than helping them resolve the underlying problem.

This is ridiculous. Hasn't body modification has been a standard human practise since, oh, the beginning of humanity? Are the egyptians wearing earrings in ancient hieroglyphs the product of a body-hating consumer culture? Are PNG highland tribesman putting bones through their noses to overcome abusive childhoods? There are deep cultural factors at work here that the author completely ignores.

Me too, yet another flaw in my social conditioning! (Sigh.)

Perhaps this is the last great fight against homogenisation - differentiation by mutilation of an otherwise increasingly homogenous society?

A struggle for identify where otherwise we meld into the crowd and differentiated only by a number. Perhaps we have to learn that we are in the end the same - that's it's OK to be so, and to celebrate our beauty and our well being.

I wanted to point out that no one should think that Professor Jeffreys speaks for all feminists.

I strongly disagree with her view, as I've argued at Larvatus Prodeo:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/04/10/feminists-disagree/

I think Prof Jefferey's has an image problem and is faced with the reality of her own stupidity. Just typical of the brain dead, trying to justify their inability to force their bizarre concepts on others.

It appears that she hasn't worked out yet that the human race are just a bunch of enslaved clones, running round trying to make out they are individuals by emulating what others do. Being an individual is within us, its just pure ignorant stupidity to believe that changing how your body looks, will satisfy your inner being. I believe it has the opposite effect.

The men bashers like this professor of political science, (speaks for its self) certainly have nothing to add to society other than confusion and dismemberment. Women dress to please other women and their ego's, men who spend lots of time trying to change their bodies are just the same, gutless and deserving no sympathy for the situation they have created for themselves.

Just seems the prof, is extremely bitter at not being able to have a relevant life and regrets the fact that she lacks understanding and the ability to engage rationally with the community. Anyone that has a degree in politics, actually has a degree in irrational stupidity. As can be seen by her article and the political situation. I don't think Jeffery's a true lesbian, just an inadequate human, not a nice Sheila at all.