NYTimes : Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plastic Surgery

Full article here.

Yet Another “News” Report about MyFreeImplants.com

… which sounds more like a commercial promoting the site… leaving out all discussions of potential side effects and additional costs…

My favorite quote:

The website was a testosterone-, alcohol-fuelled idea hatched by two Bay Area buddies at this bachelor’s party in Las Vegas.

Sigh.

A key fact this “news” report unfortunately left out:

Breast implants can last anywhere from a few years to a few decades, with most making it ten to fifteen years without problems. The younger the patient, however, the more likely she will need additional surgeries over the course of her life. A woman who gets breasts implants at eighteen and wants to keep them for life may have to have surgery twice a decade for the next six decades.

Source: Alex Kuczynski – “Beauty Junkies”

Breasts. Then and Now.

The number of breast augmentations performed in the United States has skyrocketed in the past two decades. Statistics from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show the following:

Number of breast augmentations performed in 1992 : 32,607

Number of breast augmentations performed in 2007 : 399,440

That’s an increase of 1225% !

As Naomi Wolf explains in The Beauty Myth,

Culture screens breasts with impeccable thoroughness, almost never representing those that are soft, or asymmetrical, or drooping, or mature, or that have gone through the changes of pregnancy. Looking at breasts in culture one would have little idea that real breasts come in as many shapes and variations as there are women. [...] Since beauty censorship keeps women in profound darkness about other women’s real bodies, it is able to make virtually any woman feel that her breasts alone are too soft or low or sagging or small or big or weird or wrong.”

This sense of shame and inadequacy fuels the cosmetic surgery industry. As Wolf explains in her book,

“Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly.”

For pictures (and stories) of real breasts, visit this site: 007b.com (NSFW, obviously)