Asian men do not have plastic surgery. It's strictly for Asian women.

Yes, maybe you once saw a man who must have had at least something done, but he claimed he hadn't and who were you to say otherwise?

Because really, Asian men who've undergone cosmetic surgery simply don't exist. It's like with baby pigeons. You've probably never seen one of them, either, and so obviously they're imaginary.

Until recently, it was all but assumed that Asian cosmetic surgery was performed exclusively on women. Especially in East Asia but also in the United States, most Asian men viewed "beauty surgery" as not just frivolous but effeminate.

Recently, though, those attitudes are said to have evolved, influenced in part by a few highly publicized "rumors" suggesting that a handful of key male celebrities just possibly may have electively gone under the knife.

But when your own experience tells you otherwise, how much of this should you believe?

Korean men, for instance, are said to have registered a 50% percentage jump relative to Korean women during the last five years. Credible? Even if it's true, what's the big deal? Doesn't multiplying zero by 1.5 get you zero and a half?

Not so according to the Korean Association of Clinical Plastic Surgeons. In 2008, men constituted 15% of all cosmetic surgery patients in South Korea.

Much of the new demand, they say, is coming from young men who tend to be interested in advanced procedures to alter facial profile, such as chin augmentation, cheekbone reduction, and, rhinoplasty.

Asian men in their thirties tend to favor a somewhat different set of procedures more emphasizing operations such as hair transplantation and liposuction. While much more conservative, older men, too, have begun to undergo procedures such as injection of BOTOX or dermal fillers, less-invasive treatments that many feel makes it easier for them to establish social and business connections and improve on employment prospects. Okay, but then why are all these male patients nowhere to be found?

Plastic surgeons claim that Asian men keep their desires for physical improvement quite private and tend to do relatively little shopping around. Once they've found a doctor they like, they don't spend months comparing the competition on Internet message boards. And after healing, these same men seem happier than the women and less likely to nit-pick the result or stress over tiny flaws.

Except...if they're really all so happy with their new appearance, why don't you ever run into one at work or at a party willing to talk about it, or if not in person then at least smiling at you from inside a plastic surgeon's website photo gallery?

You never do and you never will because Asian men are universally firm about refusing to allow their before-and-after pictures to be displayed in public. At least that's the excuse offered up from the cosmetic surgeons showing full face frontal nudity in fifty willing Asian women but not a single cropped view from an Asian man.

For now, be content to look around and wonder. After all, it sounds as if these male patients are among us everywhere but going in cognito, just like the invisible baby pigeons not the least bit eager to broadcast their locations and compromise their safety. Sure, they must be out there.

But they're being very quiet.

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