Botox and fillers are awesome—let’s stop pretending otherwise I look better now than I did six years ago. "Enhancements" can dramatically improve women's lives, because that is what looking good does for you.

No, seriously. It’s time we came clean about this. Hulk Hogan may have saved the nation from Gawker, but he used to be somewhat known as the wrestler who would improbably link his aging, yet incredibly strong and powerful body to “eating your vitamins.”

The puritanism of certain segments of feminism on Botox and filler knows no boundaries. Women have a right to do what they like with their own bodies — unless it’s to make them beautiful.

The fact is that botox and filler, used judiciously, like plastic surgery, can dramatically improve women’s lives — because that is what looking good does for you.

I know this, as I was a classic ugly duckling story growing up. Until I was 16, a chronic reading habit led me to wear coke-bottle glasses and I coupled this with a hideous perm. It was pretty bad, and I got bullied a lot and had no boyfriends, ever.

Not until I hit 16 and could wear contact lenses did my life change, and thereafter, it changed overnight. For the better.

Contrary to fake feminist trumpeting, not all faces and not all bodies are beautiful. Maybe we wish they were, but they are not. When I went from ugly to pretty, my life went from lame to great.

In later life, I went through another duckling stage. I put on too much weight, I was depressed, I wore my glasses for comfort, and I did not respect myself. It showed.

When in the end I took control and started working out, things improved. Taking care of my features was just another part of that. Good looks matter to women, because they matter to men.

Those who are against this are against biology. Men are more visual creatures than women are; women are rarely aroused or attracted by mere looks, taken on their own. They require them to be married to a personality they find attractive. Playgirl magazine was read by gay men, not straight women.

And, alas, women do not age as well as men do. Men retain their fertility and therefore their looks for a lot longer.

In fact, I could make a traditionally feminist case for the science of beauty preservation. In cheating biology of its ability to rob women of their looks so much earlier than men, Botox has handed women a weapon, much like the vacuum cleaner and washing machine heralded women’s emancipation. When she could clean the house faster, the woman of the fifties and early sixties suddenly found she had much more free time. She could care for herself, even go to work.

It is a rare combo of sexism and corrupted feminism that frowns on Botox and filler, and even plastic surgery, calling them extreme. They are no more extreme than hair dye or shaving your legs, when done safely. The same armpit-hair braiding fauxminists that try to push “natural childbirth” on women hate Botox. Yet they do not have a problem with injections for tooth filling. Why is there “natural childbirth” and not “natural dentistry”?

As far as plastic surgery, of which, again, I am a huge proponent, we must acknowledge that there are risks attendant on it which do not attend upon Botox and filler. You can overdo them, yes; and you can go to a quack, and suffer paralysis in the neck muscles. But equally, if you get hair dye in your eyes, you can go blind.

It is sexist and puritanical to dismiss Botox and filler as extreme. It is equally sexist to say that if you don’t use them, you are “growing old gracefully,” as if it were some silly badge of virtue. There is nothing graceful about looking ugly. It is unnatural to depilate our legs and armpits, unnatural to dye our graying hair.

Yet we do it. Only women do this to ourselves. We wax lyrical about our laugh lines — yet have warts removed. Trust me; a decent dermatologist will not use Botox to freeze your face. Articles on the topic are lazy, as though the science had not evolved from the first days of the toxin’s introduction.

Filler, also, is a long way from the much-mocked “trout pout.” I use Juvederm, a temporary substance well-tolerated by the body and absorbed over three months.

The only valid argument against Botox and filler is economical

But Botox and filler are expensive, and place a gulf between women who can afford them and those who cannot, I hear you cry. This is undoubtedly true. Yet, above the poverty line and in the middle classes and up, what women spend disposable income on is a matter for them. You will need to do this four times a year, most likely, and filler is more expensive than Botox; a woman in her mid to late thirties could probably get away with just the former.

But even when I was considerably less well off than I am now, I used Botox and filler. If you start young, say 35, it has a preventative effect — wrinkles of aging will take longer to begin forming. I chose to spend large chunks of disposable income to keep my face closer to what it was in my late twenties.

As a result, I did not buy fashionable clothes, or shoes, or designer handbags. I bought all of that stuff on Ebay or Amazon. I’m all Zappos all the time. It seemed perfectly logical to me to note that heterosexual men care very little about a woman’s clothing, if they notice it at all, and a great deal about her face and body.

In America, there are fewer hang-ups, but they still exist. For example, men who wish to appear younger in their workplace and use botox. Very embarrassing, frankly, how dare they even care?

But honestly, feminists — fauxminists, more properly — should get over their “plastic” fixation. The lot of you dye your hair and shave your legs and armpits; you get anesthetic for tooth surgery; please don’t bore me with your censorious attitude.

I have greatly enjoyed being an attractive woman. I am well aware that this will end in due course, and I will do my best to prolong it, using entirely routine, safe, and effective means. And why not? Senior shouldn’t mean solemn.

I am 44 and get carded. Sorry, sisters, but I’m calling that a win. So if you ask me, with the help of exercise and science, I look better now than I did six years ago. And I’m not sorry about it at all.