urocyon

I really need to get new glasses. The ones I'm wearing now are several years out of date, with several big scratches as well as diabetes thrown in for extra prescription-changing fun. My sunglasses are from the prescription before that, and are making me dizzy and headachy with basically no depth perception. I think the regular ones have been helping the migraines along recently. Sounds like time to take advantage of a 2-for-1 deal at Specsavers, eh?

The thing is, my relationship with eyeglasses and trying to choose new frames is more complicated than it ought to be. I really, really dislike trying to find frames that might just about work. Similar to Margaret Cho's observations, "My skull is such – that is a memorable phrase isn’t it and worth repeating – my skull is such that a normal pair of glasses will not fit my head...The anger that I have right now is directed toward those who make, design and market glasses, which are probably essential to all people at one time or another, specifically not for – a skull like mine – if you will – a skull as such. So fuck all y’all."

I am not Asian. Still, I am tempted to give the more reasonable migration hypotheses some credence, since pretty much my whole skull seems to be "wrong"-shaped in the same ways. Yep, it's the skull that's wrong.


Could Thayendanegea/"Joseph Brant" have kept up a pair of glasses to save his life? He had enough to deal with already. It may be very different and lower-level stuff, but so do I. There's a somewhat eerie resemblance going.

Nobody in my family can keep a pair of glasses up, what with the low nose bridges and big, flat faces with high cheekbones. Nary a soul. And most of us wear them.

( Persistent fun with glasses. And, finally, enter Asian Fit frames--Asianness optional! )

Still, I am really honked off that something as basic as suitable glasses frames for non-European faces are still so hard to find, and you have to pay extra to get them. If you are in the very limited geographical areas where they are even available at this point, without paying $700 for Japanese designer frames--which may or may not be suitable for your own non-European (i.e., typical of most of the world) features. It pisses me off that I have very little chance of finding frames that fit where I am living now, when I need new glasses.

I know that a lot of people of African descent have exactly the same trouble with glasses and noses. So, out of curiosity, I tried to find out if anybody had thought to cater to that particular market--roughly 12.3% of the 2000 US population, besides those whose ancestors "passed" but who still have characteristically African nose shapes. (Like a number of my relatives, actually.) That would make economic sense, right? Hell, there's a substantial untapped non-European market here in the UK, some with "low" (as compared to whose?) nose bridges. Could certain ideologies be trumping even enlightened self-interest here?

Not too surprisingly, I couldn't find anything. Nada.

The closest I ran across was frames designed for people with Down Syndrome, which is good in itself, but not really what I was looking for. The designer's patent application, which I ran across initially, points out: "There have heretofore been no eyeglass frames made specifically for people with Down syndrome according to research which has been done on this topic, and likewise no eyeglass frames for people with similar facial characteristics* and for those with a depressed nasal bridge or low set noses including those individuals of African descent and Asian descent. About 87% of children with Down syndrome require glasses."

Unfortunately, I can well imagine that, attitudes still being what they are, not many other people with "low" noses are buying these. They are also mainly available through online ordering, without trying them on. This strikes me as a serious accessibility issue.

Appallingly, searching on terms like "African nose bridge eyewear" (or "glasses"), I kept getting results with individual Black people talking about not being able to keep their glasses up, designs surface styled to appeal to, say, hip hop aesthetics--and ones shilling rhinoplasty. Try it, if you want boiling blood.

Never mind the rather large potential market for glasses that fit, apparently you can get shit injected into your bridge "(so the glasses will not slide down on the nose)". Ack. "People who could greatly benefit from a non-surgical rhinoplasty are people who would typically get nasal implants to augment their noses, such as Asians, African-American, or Hispanic patients."

That's a pretty big part of the population, just looking at the US (and neglecting us non-Hispanic Indian types). "Typically", I would prefer to be able to buy usable, suitably designed assistive devices so that I can see, rather than to "augment" my nose into a state some people find more acceptable. But, maybe that's just me.

If making money is the main goal**, why might I think there's more profit to be made overall from necessary products people can use than from "ethnic rhinoplasty" ("Anyone who seeks a new shape for the nose and who has nasal features typical of their ethnic group is a candidate")? Interesting what products and services are deemed necessary.

Gah.

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* Like me, apparently; Carrie Buck came from a similar Tutelo background, and that photo looked like we could have been sisters. Gotta love the attitudes that produced the "Mongoloid" label! ('But there’s more! The man for whom Down Syndrome is named, John Langdon Down, claimed in 1866 that the facial characteristics of people with Trisomy 21 represented a genetic regression, because Caucasians should not have “Asian” facial features.'--excellent piece, meloukhia!)

I had basically no nose bridge as a kid. Not only is that generally treated as a highly unattractive characteristic, but throw in some nasty stereotypes, and such features still get people diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome--"due to a bias in diagnosis that occurs because of a lack of knowledge of the regular morphological features of Native Americans", Asians, and apparently an awful lot of adoptees from the former Soviet Union. Indeed, "a flattened midfacial area" is only "flattened" in comparison to some expected state (reasonable or otherwise), and that description reflects the idea that there really is something wrong with our skulls.

So, yeah, the glasses frames aggravation is only a fairly piddling symptom.

** And I'm not saying that's a good thing, at all. It sure does get used as an excuse a lot, though it breaks down kinda quickly under scrutiny in many cases.

No wonder I was so grouchy and sound-sensitive yesterday; I had a migraine coming on. The smoke helped trigger it. It's much better now. Until I just looked it up, I had no idea that mood changes in advance of the pain were a common prodromal thing.

That would explain a lot, especially during periods when I've had frequent migraines/cluster headaches (including the majority dismissed as "sinus" headaches!).

Actually, the little bit of research was reassuring: maybe triptans will work, after all. When I asked the GP about it before, I was told that since I don't get auras, they were unlikely to help. As it turns out, the prodrome is more important there.

Apologies for the rantiness!