The expansion of the cosmetic surgery exalting the culture of the body raises questions about the extreme nature of contemporary society: how does the shift from a socially attributed corporeity to a subjectively appropriated corporeity take place? In order to understand the subjective autonomy of the subjects and to decipher the cognitive processes on which the effectiveness of the normative context is based, 264 magazines were examined and 40 interviews were analyzed. The juxtaposition of these methodological data reveals a clear distinction between the “surgery of appearance” and the “surgery of being.” While the first aims at embellishment, reflecting the impact of the models of collective aesthetics, the second is concerned with normality.