7 Plastic Surgeries That Are Both Ghoulish And Unnecessary

7 Limb Lengthening

Are you short? Do you hate being short? Then there's a wonderful solution for you: Deal with it like an adult, you big baby! (Or little baby. Whatever.) Alternatively, you could do what one Jon-Stewart-sized gentleman from New York did and pay a doctor to extend your limbs with a new procedure that looks straight out of a Saw movie.

For some reason, only a select few doctors in the U.S. are willing to carry out these "limb-lengthening" operations, wherein a person's leg bones are repeatedly broken, pulled apart, and then held in place by a system of metal contraptions while the bones slowly grow back, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. Maybe it's because every part of that last sentence sounds like the exact opposite of what doctors do, but we're not sure. Naturally, this this can be a godsend for those born with dwarfism or limb irregularities. However, there are also plenty of regular-sized people who consider a relatively minor body image issue reason enough to line up for the opportunity to reenact Joe Theismann's last professional football game over and over. All of that, just to be able to reach the top shelf of the pantry without stretching.

It can take months of surgeries, along with a lengthy period of tortuous rehabilitative therapy, before the process is complete. And if you think that sounds painful, wait until you hear about the $85,000 price tag. But if you're unable or unwilling to pay through the nose for a little more leg, you could always travel to a country where regulations are a little less ... regulation-y. But be prepared to deal with few potential side effects, like not being able to ever walk again. Which is clearly still better than living life as some 5' 7'' freak, even if people like that do wind up making a good living in popular action movie franchises.

6 Ball Ironing (Or, Lasering The Wrinkles Off Your Ballsack)

If you own a scrotum, or have been in the vicinity of one at some point, you might have noticed that the ugly bastards tend to be kinda wrinkly. That's one of the unavoidable facts of life ... is what a complete chump would say. Real men demand a dickbag smoother than a baby dolphin, and are willing to pay good money to achieve it. Note: We can't show you photos of the actual procedures for this entry, so we'll have to use the closest analogues available:

While the word "scrotoplasty" might sound like a throwaway South Park joke (or maybe a plot point from one of the racier Golden Girls episodes), it's a real term that covers a number of fun-filled, testicle-related operations of the reparative, reconstructive, and transformative varieties. However, the one that occupies us today is purely cosmetic -- it's called "scrotal lift surgery," but it's best known as "ball ironing" and/or "tackle tightening." There's really no way to describe it mildly, so go ahead and sit down or something before this next part. OK, here it goes: It involves a doctor frying the wrinkles off your nads with a fucking laser.

You have to pay extra if you want the laser operator to do the accent.

And it's not a one-time thing; you have to keep going back for another beanbag assault every four weeks if you want to maintain the sleekness of your nethers. And for the love of God, you better hope everything goes right, or the entire works might wind up fried, thus rendering you unable to have any children to pass your impeccable decision-making skills onto. Oh, and there's reportedly also the possibility that you could ejaculate into your bladder, among a long list of other nightmare scenarios.

"It's as if millions of sperm cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced."

In case it's not as obvious as the balls on your face, experts have advised that "the drawbacks aren't worth the potential benefits." Nonetheless, the operation is apparently quite popular, due in no small part to the wit and wisdom of one George Clooney, after he joked in a 2013 interview that "I never fixed my eyes, but I spent more money to stretch the skin of my testicles. I did not like the wrinkles." At least, we think he was joking, since he made the exact same claim back in 2008. Aaaaand now we're all imagining what Clooney's ballsack looks like, so let's move on.

5 Dimpleplasty

Much like a beauty mark, a slight gap between the teeth, or an ass the size of a Volkswagen Touareg, many find dimples to be a highly attractive bodily accoutrement. One might suppose this naturally-occurring depression on a person's giggly cheeks would only come about through a lucky roll of the genetic dice, but there are a few doctors out there who would be more than happy to create dimples for you. That, or make it look like you narrowly survived a nail gun attack. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

A "Dimpleplasty" (is there any word you can't add "plasty" to?) is essentially letting a doctor mangle your cheeks (ever so subtly) in order to become more desirable in the manner of that notorious sexpot Shirley Temple. Some women have it done to acquire "more angularity to their face," with the goal of making people think they've lost weight. We're not sure how putting extra creases on your body is supposed to accomplish that, but at least one recipient was quite confident that the decision would give her "a little more of a remember-able smile."

The procedure works by calculating the "sweet spot where the skin will naturally give us permission to fold in a little bit," and then abusing that permission to make a cut inside your mouth. The internal scar in your cheek will heal over time, leaving you with a more Mario-Lopez-esque look when you smile, if Mario Lopez had been shot through the face.

4 Thigh Gap Surgery

A thigh gap is that gap between a woman's thighs that we arbitrarily decided tells you whether or not she is fit and attractive, because there is no windsock too ridiculous for the world of unhealthy/unrealistic body standards. Well, thanks to the miracle of fat-lopping science, you can totally pay doctors to carve a thigh gap into your legs like they're whittling a canoe.

Also known as "coolsculpting" (presumably because the multiple puncture wounds inflicted during the process result in such a pleasantly "cool" draft on your muscle tissue), this procedure is intended to make the recipient feel slimmer. For one 24-year-old nursing student, another reason is that "her thighs rub together and are uncomfortable." And what better way to get around uncomfortable chafing than sawing the flesh off of your legs? After her "sculpting," during which a fat-annihilating laser was inserted into her flesh to rotate "over a thousand times a minute," she awoke and immediately broke down in tears, stating that "emotionally, it feels amazing." Financially, not so much, since it costs around $4,000.

Essentially, it's liposuction (although there seem to be dubious non-surgical versions out there as well), only more focused than the garden variety.

Despite the likelihood of waking up with "skin irregularities and unnatural-looking legs," thigh gap surgery is reportedly a "craze" right now, and not just among those involved in the endangered reptile smuggling trade. Again, it seems that we can blame a celebrity for instigating this nonsense. After Beyonce reportedly Photoshopped the shit out of a picture to enlarge the space between her legs, women worldwide began showing up at clinics to demand that offending lipids be removed from the vicinity of their own egregiously thighbound taints. If only we could get Kim Kardashian or someone to Photoshop her boobs into the shape of third world debt relief and peace in the Middle East.

3 Eyelash Implants

Long, fluttery eyelashes are considered the height of elegant beauty, because who among us doesn't find giraffes to be powerfully erotic? There are already plenty of products on the market to give these appendages a synthetic boost. But imagine your embarrassment should someone walk up and rip them off like a bad toupee, thus revealing to the world your underhanded chicanery. Luckily, thanks in part to trailblazing bald men who decided they would rather have a headful of body hair than look like George Costanza, you can now get hair plugs on your fucking eyelids.

For a mere $6,000, you can pay a cosmetic surgeon to borrow some hair follicles from your head and graft them to your upper eyelid. It works like a charm, with one minor drawback: After the hair "takes root," it keeps growing. And growing. And growing until, should you fail to keep the lashes under control with constant bushwhacking, you conceivably wind up with a clump of facial ropes like the freaking Predator.

You'll also have to "train" your new implants by forcing the hairs to curl until they learn to do it naturally, so that your eyelashes don't end up splaying straight out like a brood of escaping spiders.

Now, it's true that some people require this surgery after having undergone some kind of trauma or battling a disease. However, some doctors are perfectly willing take any random jackhole's money so that you may "achieve an esthetic enhancement of existing eyelashes" -- a phrase here meaning "make your eyelashes look like tiny flexing octopuses.

2 Calf Muscle Reduction

For some, the downside to staying in shape is the unwanted presence of all those unsightly, disgusting muscles invading your body. Perfectly healthy calf muscles especially are so ... eww. But thank goodness there are some professionals who, presumably right after wiping the caviar off their chins with a copy of the Hippocratic Oath, are more than willing to carve that leg meat right the hell out of there.

If removing perfectly healthy muscle tissue for the purpose of making your legs look more slender sounds like a dubious proposition, then please get your ass to sensitivity training, you monster. Studies show that "mental distress" over having an abundance of calf can lead to such things as "avoidance of certain social activities" and "hide their legs in pants." Luckily, relief from this distress is available in the form of calf reduction surgery, which consists of having "the muscles bluntly freed and pulled through two incisions of 5-cm length in the hollow of the knee and above the Achilles' tendon." Nope, nothing distressing there.

While there are certain conditions, like muscular hypertrophy, which would make this procedure perfectly understandable, the before and after photos available suggest that most patients are in the "muscles are so gross" category. So if you're unhappy about the fact that your legs look like you've been putting in a good 30 minutes on the elliptical machine every lunch hour (even if that's exactly what the fuck you've been doing), maybe a "partial calf resection" is the answer to your dreams -- should that dream be to look like you have the legs of a Dickensian street orphan with mercury poisoning.

1 OrbiShape Surgery: Built-In Push Up Bras

Bras are a wonderful technology, but they're not perfect. One day, time and gravity are going to take their toll on your joggling pontoons, and you're inevitably going to be mistaken for a mule for a bocci ball smuggling ring. But what if there was a way to avoid the middleman entirely and defy Newton's bullshit theory? What if we could put a bra ... inside the boobs?

As it turns out, we're already doing that. The OrbiShape Breast Supporting System is essentially an internal bra, which sounds like some cool sci-fi shit until you hear the gross details. It involves taking hardened silicone cups and surgically inserting them under the breast tissue. The cups are then hoisted into place with silk straps, and then the whole structure is anchored into place via titanium screws in your rib cage. So it's less Back To The Future Part II and more "getting kidnapped by a serial killer."

The procedure has already been approved in the European Union, and is waiting to pass FDA muster in the United States. According to the chief operating officer of Orbix Medical, the company that came up with the device, you should "think of it as a hammock that sits underneath your breast to keep it supported, or like the bottom part of an underwire bra." While this comparison doesn't really take into account that hammocks usually aren't forced into your thoracic cavity via a series of incisions, at least Orbishaping can keep your dairy pillows in fighting trim for up to 10 years, whereas other implant procedures can start to migrate south within a matter of months. So maybe it's worth it, as long as you don't mind explaining to the occasional TSA agent that the airport metal detector was set off by the tiny boob pedestals drilled into your skeleton.

E. Reid Ross also endures grievous trauma to his frank and beans over at Man Cave Daily. Feel free to follow him on Twitter here.

Also be sure to check out 5 Doctors Who Just Gave The World's Worst Medical Advice and 6 Plastic Surgeries For Men That Prove Humanity Is Doomed.

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