The tragic proof breast implants are nothing more than self-harm
Yes, she’s a shameless self publicist. But Katie Price’s scars from ELEVEN ops are...
WITH a size ten figure, legs that — if not endless — were certainly not stumpy, olive skin and eyes that could give Bambi a run for his money, I should have been happy with my appearance.
And yet, in my early 20s, I agonised over something about my body, or rather, the lack of something: a bosom.
My 34A breasts had seemed perfect in the Sixties, when Twiggy was the model everyone wanted to look like and waif-like Audrey Hepburn her sophisticated film counterpart. Until I was 18, I didn’t even own a bra to burn.
But when I started working in glossy magazines — and dipped my toe into the glamorous London dating scene — my embonpoint suddenly felt a little lacklustre.
This was largely thanks to the men in my life. There was the short-lived lover who was a surgeon (of the ear, nose and throat variety, mind) who assessed me dispassionately, as though I were a patient, and suggested I might like to be introduced to a friend of his who did boob jobs. I dumped him that same day.
There was a longer-term lover, too, who admitted he’d always been a breast man until he met me — I believe he never really recovered from the disappointment of my less-than-buxom figure.
It was little wonder, then, that I started regarding my measly cup size with distaste, took to padded bras and read avidly of the growing popularity of breast implants in the U.S. Fortunately for me, breast implants in Britain were still a rarity. And it was the late Seventies by then; feminism had taught me that if a man didn’t think my other assets — mental as well as physical — outweighed the size of my breasts, then probably he was the wrong partner for me.
These cruel comments perhaps sparked my crusade, on being appointed editor of Cosmopolitan in 1985, to ban the adverts for cosmetic surgery that appeared in the back of the magazine.
My strong argument was that young women in their 20s should not be encouraged to feel even less satisfied with their bodies than they already were. The publisher agreed. I was cock-a-hoop at this small victory.
Though I felt a little like King Canute trying to hold back the tide as the decade wore on and breast surgery was coming to be seen by young women as a consumer choice as trivial as buying a new handbag or dyeing their hair, I felt thoroughly vindicated in my campaign against breast ‘enhancements’ when I saw the pictures of Katie Price — formerly known as glamour model Jordan — whose breasts are riven with scars. The thick lump of tissue between her breasts is a result of an estimated 11 ops that have taken her from a 32B to a huge GG and back to a (probable) D, and have involved four nipple re-attachments, which must have been as eye-watering as they sound. I was also filled with gratitude that my own years of insecurity came before breast implants were as easily available on the British High Street as IT bags and fake tan. For it’s not just Ms Price — who has made millions cashing in on breasts that have a life story all of their own — whose body is covered with scars as a result of her quest for the ‘perfect’ body. It’s estimated that as many as ten million women worldwide have had breast enhancements, with 25,000 British women going under the knife every year in pursuit of a bigger bosom. In this they are following the example not just of Katie Price, but of countless other celebrities — from Victoria Beckham to actresses Pamela Anderson and Demi Moore — who have made pumped-up, stuck-on bosoms so common. We’ve become immune to the sight of them, peeking over the top
of couture dresses, spilling out of expensive bikinis in exclusive resorts and filling out the sportswear of yummy mummies.
At the other end of the scale, you can’t move for reality TV stars showing off their implants in bodycon dresses and plunging tops — however misshapen they have become.
One look at Katie Price’s distorted chest reveals that breast implants are no guarantee of a perfect bosom.
Implants can become ‘encapsulated’, where the body reacts to the foreign object inserted into the breast by forming hard tissue around it and squeezing it — causing a badly wonky boob at best, a life-threatening ruptured implant at worst.
Boob jobs are presented as simple surgery with minimal scarring and virtually no downside by those who promote them.
Unless, of course, you factor in loss of sensation and the possibility that you might not be able to breastfeed, as well as the fact that implants last on average about ten years and will eventually need to be replaced.
This means another operation under general anaesthetic, with all the risks it entails, and another £4,700 for the clinic, thank you very much.
Then there’s the possibility of rupture, which is more likely if you are athletic. In other words, the more exercise you do, the less shelf-life for your implant — so watch out if you enjoy keeping fit.
If that weren’t enough to put you off, there’s the not-so-small business of breast implants making it harder to screen for breast cancer.
I’ve had enough ops of the noncosmetic variety, more than Katie Price, I reckon — ranging from an emergency C-section to abdominal surgery and the removal of my spleen — to know that operations are no picnic. All surgery is risky, breast surgery included.
If any more evidence were needed that women have been sold a pup when it comes to breast implants, we should look no further than the PIP scandal.
In 2010 it was revealed 300,000 women worldwide had received faulty implants made from a silicone filler that had double the rupture rate of other implants.
In 2012, thousands of women had implants removed and the demand for breast augmentation reduced.
YeT it seems women have short memories when it comes to the pursuit of the perfect body. For by 2015, the latest year for which statistics are available, cosmetic breast surgery was on the up again.
Tellingly, the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons found women’s breast augmentations increased by 12 per cent in 2015 — while breast reductions increased by 13 per cent. While some will have reduced their naturally large breasts, many cases are of women having breast implants removed.
I’m sure the first recipient of a false bosom — mother-of-six Timmie Jean Lindsey, who lay down on the operating table in Texas to go from a B to a C cup — could have had no idea she was setting a trend that would prove so pervasive. But the rise of the breast implant was due to something of a perfect storm.
The boob job started to become available to the women of Britain in the late Seventies and early eighties, via the swanky doctor’s offices of Harley Street, at the same time as bodyconsciousness began to trap women in its iron grip.
The California cult of fitness took Britain by storm in 1982, with the release of Jane Fonda’s first workout video (she later admitted to having breast implants).
And while we were all going for the burn, private cosmetic surgeons saw a great opportunity to lure us into the operating theatre, promising sex appeal and eternal happiness at the tip of their knives.
By the time Katie Price came along in the Nineties, working as a Page 3 girl and adopting the pseudonym Jordan, pole dancing and glamour modelling were seen as being synonymous with freedom rather than exploitation.
Seduced by the notion of pornography being liberating for both sexes, and encouraged by increasingly explicit music videos on MTV, looking like a porn star became the name of the game.
But you can’t look like a porn star unless you have the boobs for it — thus breast augmentations soared accordingly, and haven’t stopped rising.
It’s a modern tragedy that we no longer see our bodies holistically — as living, breathing, integrated entities that perform miraculous, myriad functions on a daily basis — but rather as a series of separate parts that can be replaced or exchanged at will.
Our bodies have become mere playthings to alter as we please.
Meanwhile, the new buzzword in breast surgery is ‘slimplants’. These are subtler, smaller implants that don’t look fake. Actress Kate Hudson and pop star Taylor Swift are alleged to have had them inserted.
But when it comes to surgery, it’s not size that matters. Because fashions in implant size can only encourage more of the kind of surgical see-sawing that has disfigured Katie Price. The proponents of surgery will continue to insist it’s all a matter of choice. And ignore the potential price.
Tellingly, Victoria Beckham — who sported a discreet 34A cup when The Spice Girls first came to fame in 1996, yet boasted a pair of DD cups that jutted out like scary weapons of mass destruction a decade later — is back to where she was before, with an elegant, small bosom.
This is an indication that, as far as the world of high fashion is concerned, big breasts are more chav than chic.
But this is all rather besides the point. When it comes to breast operations, what some women insist is self-empowerment strikes me more as self-harm.