ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the specific, clinical dynamics of facial filling surgeries for HIV-positive persons. It describes the research, to trace the development of the HIV metabolic syndrome diagnosis. The chapter also explores men's own beliefs about the cause and consequences of their condition and their rationale for seeking surgery. It highlights the ways in which many men accept the medical frame, at least in so far as it permits them to go forward with the surgery, but also how they graft different discourses onto this fundamentally medicalized HIV discourse. The chapter points to how these same competing narratives pose difficulties for those advocating for change, including public funding for surgeries, on behalf of people with HIV metabolic disorder. It suggests that the ancillary medicalization of the HIV lipoatrophic face tipped the understanding of the nature and value of facial filling surgery away from perceived frivolous acquiescence to beauty and toward a perceived serious return to normal in cosmetic/plastic surgery debates.
