New York psychotherapist Robi Ludwig attributes the changes in postsurgery priorities to a cultural shift in the way women gauge their desirability. “Maybe in the past sex was a way to affirm one’s appeal. Now it’s done in other ways,” she says. “One’s sexual identity may be less linked with how often I have sex than with who’s looking at me, who finds my body appealing. We live in a culture that says if you are not youthful, you don’t get noticed.”
Sylvia R. Karasu, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, points out that even with surgeries designed to make patients feel sexier, having more sex isn’t the objective. “It’s such a totally self-oriented procedure most of the time,” she says. “It’s not necessarily related to the other people in their lives.”
Of the many doctors polled for this story, only two, Chicago facial plastic surgeon Steven H. Dayan and Beverly Hills facial cosmetic surgeon Robert Kotler, reported recent cases of patients ignoring the no-sex edict. The interesting twist: Both rule breakers were older men with young girlfriends. “He was recently divorced,” Dayan says of his patient. “I did his eyes and face, and then he had liposuction. He came in a week later and he just looked like crap, all blown up and swollen. He said to me, ‘Doc, I have a 27-year-old girl and I can’t disappoint her.’” Kotler’s patient, meanwhile, got hot and heavy just five hours after his facelift and necklift. “He said, ‘I must have forgotten because of the anesthesia,’” Kotler recalls. “Since that episode we strongly recommend against any ‘in-room guests’ the first night after surgery.”
