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The Great Boob Bust
The sagging economy has triggered a sharp decline in the number of women getting breast implants. Maura Moynihan on why a smaller cup size is good for America.
Is there a causal pathway linking the simultaneous collapse of Wall Street, the Republican Party, and the porn boob? Plastic surgery, last year's growth industry, has shrunk as fast as News Corp. stock.
The coverage in the downturn of plastic surgery is filled with alarm and concern over falling profits. Doctors speak of turning business around; it's just a temporary drop in consumer confidence; when people get back on their financial feet, they'll be coming in for nips and tucks.
I have yet to read an article anywhere that suggests that a reallocation of income, from boob jobs to, say, food, might be a return to sanity.
A reallocation of income, from boob jobs to, say, food, might be a return to sanity.
In the Bush years, the plastic surgery bubble seemed a sure sign of madness bound to burst. Parents purchasing breast implants for their teenage daughters, husbands buying surgery gift cards for their wives, actresses and models documenting hospital pilgrimages on TV, boob blogs. Rear ends were lifted while Iraq burned, the deficit soared, and the polar ice caps melted.
Americans have the lowest rate of savings of any populace in the developed world, hovering around zero percent. Yet the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported in 2007 that American consumers spent more than $12 billion on cosmetic surgery.
But now the society reports a 62 percent overall decrease in cosmetic surgery from 2007 to 2008. Business has plunged in regions with the largest home foreclosures, from Florida to Southern California. Forget about Ohio. Until the financial crisis hit, the theory and practice of cosmetic surgery encountered virtually no impediments from medical or mental health professionals, or media enablers.
The most popular cosmetic surgical procedure in the United States is the boob job. It’s as American as a football cheerleader. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that the number of breast augmentations in the US increased 657 percent from 1992 to 2003. There is a difference between a padded bra and silicone implants—the padded bra can be safely removed after it has served its purpose; the "porn boob" has rendered the bra meretricious, obsolete. As I recall, it all started in the '80s.
In that decade, Ronald Reagan's new conservatives attacked abortion clinics, crushed the Equal Rights Amendment, and sought to restore the traditional subordination of women within the patriarchy. In the 1980s nude models began brazenly to display "porn boobs"—grotesquely swollen, enlarged breasts, instant triggers of pre-Viagra era male lust. Model and talent agencies advised hopeful ingénues to get implants, to achieve the "Barbie Body." The solution to female physical inadequacy provided by the medical/scientific/engineering establishment, the supreme authority in our industrial society, was achieved by surgical alteration as a means to salvation, by the omnipotent, omniscient man in the white coat wielding a knife, who would to transform the flesh to deliver the soul to safety and power, and, yes, yes, yes, love.
I've watched in puzzlement as friends and neighbors, women with advanced degrees, stock portfolios, great legs and hair, women one assumed had transcended much anxiety and fear about sexual appeal and self-esteem, using discretionary income or taking out bank loans to get breast implants, tummy tucks, and eye lifts. After enduring the excruciating pain of surgery and a long and perilous recovery period, the results are often strange and painful, and too often there are complications, illness, and even disfigurement.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Maura Moynihan is the founding director of Friends of Moynihan Station. She lives in New York City.
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Maura Moynihan is the founding director of Friends of Moynihan Station. She lives in New York City.
Jeez, Galbraith's book certainly describes how our Free Market has us in The Matrix.
You speak the truth. It's about time someone called the cosmetic surgery industry a bunch of. . . dare I say it? Boobs!
No less the victims of pocketbook who now walk about like a bunch of bleached blondes, already inflated for a water landing.
All elective surgery is down anywhere from 20-50%. I was speaking to an analyst who follows it recently and he said the only elective segment he has seen that is up this year is laser tattoo removal. That will be a growth industry for many years to come.
We can only hope that the cosmetic surgery and medical "beauty" industry will come crashing down. As someone with friends in the "business" I've heard first hand about the insane lengths people will go to (maxing out numerous credit cards, taking out "beauty loans" [no one talking about default rates on these] in order to afford their regular Botox, microblahblah chemical whatevers. It's all such a waste of talent (think of the USEFUL things these MDs could be doing with their minds and expertise), a waste of resources, and all for what? Americans are just pathetic. Maybe this economic crisis will help people revisit what really matters in life, and it isn't the size of one's fake boobs or ersatz youth.
Succinctly put! So true. A good read.The pharmaceutical industry are a bunch of crooks. There were too many people with more money than they knew what to do with. Hopefully we will now start to focus on what is important in life.We might even buy an American car.
I like small boob and i can not lie!!
I have often wondered how it will be years from now to see nursing homes populated with thousands of old women, lying in bed with sagging skin everywhere but with perky boobs looking ever skyward. Talk about being in a Twilight Zone!
What the legions of old women with expressionless masks that sort of resemble faces really look like are a bunch of old bags who have had a LOT of work done. After a while they get that overly alert look or the squinty eyes which don't seem to open all the way both of which scream "plastic surgery victim". The next step in the search for the impossible is into the land of the downright scary, not-of-this-earth appearance of someone like Priscilla Presley who took a perfectly lovely face and totally trashed it. What all this really accomplishes is a mystery which I cannot begin to fathom.
As for fake boobs, it says a lot about the male mentality when they don't even care that they're fake just that they're grotesquely huge. Talk about twisted! I would think that at 70 & 80 years old it would be way past time to outgrow one's breast hangups and focus on something more meaningful in life.
The women who mutilate themselves in pursuit of some demented ideal of what passes for "beauty" need some serious therapy. Excepting, of course, those who need reconstruction for medical conditions like breast cancer. Otherwise, what the hell is so bad about just being yourself.
Bigger boobs certainly doesn't bestow upon the boobette any qualities that would make her a better human being so what then is the point? (No pun intended!)
Normally I like just about anything to do with breasts, however this is just depressing.
Another odd thing is that surgically-enlarged breasts have changed our perception of what a "sexy" breast looks like -- they have cleavage above and below, and sit like a round ball high on the chest, not like real breasts which rest against the body when not lifted by a bra. Hey, fans of the bounce -- do fake ones bounce?
Two points: 1. Breast augmentation nee "boob jobs" are NOT the"most popular surgical procedure" in the US. Among cosmetic surgeries, rhinoplasty ("nose job) is the most popular. Among non-cosmetic surgeries, the most common is hysterectomy (according to the US Government Health Dept). 2. Boob jobs are NOT a "Republican" issue or a "Democrat" issue, but a self-esteem issue. Teach women to love their bodies, and they will stop getting boob jobs!
Aren't fake boobs one of the few products we still produce?Shouldn't we all be getting boob jobs to spur the economy?
George W. presided over the nicest boobs in Washington, and look what it got him!!
I always think it would be so interesting to see what would happen in the field of plastic surgery on men if their private parts were visible to the world like women's breasts are. Why is it that men get to hide their parts inside their pants while women's breasts are on display for people to see? Most women who have boob jobs have some insecurity complex and they think that "larger breasts will make them feel better about themselves." Give me a break. If that's what makes you feel better about yourself, that is pathetic. I have a feeling that if women couldn't use their breasts on first glance as social currency (because, let's admit, that most boob jobs are going to that exact end) the industry wouldn't be so, well, plump.
Boob Jobs, nice what wrong with a woman wanting to look sexier, what everyone thinks there more to life than subjugating self to some preacher. That said, a lot of women surgery do look bad, but well done jobs are nice to look at. Some people do take it to the extreme but as a man I don't see the problem not much different from all the dumb stuff people do every day, not including the whole Organic Food vs GM or my religion is better than yours.
Actually with job market bad you better have more than just a college degree if you want to hold on to your job or get on. Psychology shows that no matter what people believe nature trumps it all. Or should we do the whole muslim put a blanket over women so we don't have to look at them.
To leftyrite:
Perhaps not the "nicest" but certainly the biggest.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
The Beauty Myth by Noami Wolf sheds some light on this issue...
Here's a different perspective to these comments:
Technology...medical advancements...they've taken the world far. Aids is being managed in a new and aggressive fashion, cervical cancer has a vaccine! The Internet is making us smarter (hopefully) and more aware of this global world. Information, medical technology is at your fingertips. The world is bursting with ideas, with solutions and forward motion.
If If you felt particularly uncomfortable with wrinkles, why wouldn't you do something about it if you could? There are plenty of amazing interventions these days that don't result in the wind-blown look of face lifts. There are fillers and other injections that can soften an aging face. At littel risk and with less cost than surgery.
It's okay to prolong your life with medicine or medical interventions, but it's not okay to prolong your life with the same? You're all faithful members of the "aging gracefully" club? Like my mother's parents---who wouldn't let her buy an Elvis Presley album--you are dating yourselves. You are fooling yourselves. You are stodgy and unfamiliar with a world that is changing.
One day, no one is going to look or feel old. That's where technology and knowledge is going and growing. We are eating better (a few of us--at least those who are going to last), we are looking better, exercising more and evolving in terms of human health. If my muscles can be more suple from yoga when I'm 60 and my face be smoothed of lines and my body be healthier from my tofu and salad, then good for me! Damn good for me!!! I don't have to be my mother. Life offers us a better chance with every generation. You better believe I'm going to take advantage of it.
Sorry.. I meant to write"face' instead of life in that paragraph.
x
Another book describing the early boob explosion is The Last Days of the Late Great State of California. I sometimes work at the University of Florida campus, The girls bodies are so strange. Instead of a few girls with tiny bodies and big boobs (they do exist naturally), they are everywhere. One girl died getting a boob job last year. The students also have cars that I, as a working adult, could never afford.
Wow. It appears now that even tits can be turned into a political issue by over-educated blowhards who fancy themselves talented writers. I've gone through my share of trampy boob-girls and let me tell you that they were fairly evenly spread (no pun intended) between conservatives and liberals. The issue of women being displeased with their bust size has nothing to do with political persuasion. The sagging (again, no pun intended) of the elective surgery market is in line with the rest of the economy. Women aren't getting new "funbags" because they can't afford them, simple as that. It doesn't surprise me, however, that the ultra-liberal, urban-dwelling, literati of NYC (who look down upon "average" woman from their lofty ideological perches anyways) would jump on the opportunity to rail against the practices of the great unwashed masses (finally, no pun intended).
Censorship......it's the new black.
The usual breast implant is grotesque - like the culture that created it. I've always called it the pinball boom - the comic book tit. The cartoon bosom familiar to adolescent males of the 50's and 60's. It's amazing to me how many people of both sexes find this attractive.
The Objectivist idea that people always act in their own self interest is absurd on its face. People do what other people do. Advertisers have known this for decades. It's time we become Citizens before Consumers. I'm not sure how this transformation will occur but I believe it is crucial to our nation's survival.
I find no calm, generous acknowledgment of the theraputic role of implants in post-surgical construction for breast cancer survivors in the author's article or the majority of comments posted. During the same years you articulated, doctors were making heroic strides in early detection and less invasive treatments that increasingly prevent the physical and psychological disfigurement our Mothers were accustomed to. Many women, both Republican and Democrat as our friendly LtCol would point out, gratefully embrace this technology as part of their holistic healing and recovery.For further information on this subject, I would refer readers to Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Avon Foundation, and to friends and family members who are courageously battling this disease.
Thank you.
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