This title explains how looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's world. The demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and how we judge ourselves as good or bad, success or failure. The book explores how the beauty ideal has become more dominant, demanding, and global than ever before. It argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. As this becomes the norm, more is required of us, and the beauty ideal is harder to resist. The author demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.