They're weird, vulgar and men don't even like them. So why do 26,000 British women a year disfigure themselves with breast enlargements?



The first time I saw a pair of surgically enhanced breasts with my own eyes was around eight or nine years ago, in the changing rooms of the gym at a private members' club where a friend had taken me for a workout. I remember it distinctly. I was getting undressed, nervously, as I don't like disrobing in front of strangers; and there was another woman, a few feet away, topless, with oddly firm, projectile breasts pointing skywards.

My first reaction was shock. Two very weird, alien body parts, brazenly displayed right in front of me. They didn't look real or natural in the slightest. They looked like what they were: breasts that had been bought and paid for. Not soft and slightly saggy, like a thirtysomething embonpoint should be; but plastic, hard-looking and aggressively perfect. I felt like I'd been slapped in the face.



Unapologetically false: The surgically 'enhanced' Victoria Beckham, Pamela Anderson and Jordan

They announced aspiration. They said: 'I'm considerably richer than you', and 'I'm considerably more attractive than you', and even 'Money well spent'. There was an unmistakable air of conspicuous consumption in this woman's light golden tan and bizarrely pert orbs. I felt instantly sickened, and turned away.

I put it down to our surroundings. This was, after all, an overtly moneyed members' club. I told myself it was precisely these types of people - rich, successful, conventionally attractive - who had such things 'done'.

This woman's fake, tanned bosom seemed to symbolise a jet-set lifestyle: a vulgar, ostentatious and knowing signifier of social status.

It galvanised my opinion, anyway. I didn't like what I'd seen, and would never have it done myself.

But I'd always assumed men liked them. Don't all men like big, voluptuous, bountiful breasts? But that, perhaps, was where I went wrong.

A few years later, a boyfriend told me an apocryphal story about how the Los Angeles pornography industry was importing Russian and Eastern European actresses with real breasts, because the video directors in LA were fed up with the way their American counterparts' silicone breasts didn't move and bounce with the same sensual jiggle.

Even so, I'd brushed that aside, still convinced that the average man would rather fondle a burgeoning cup that had been surgically enhanced than a modest A, or even B- sized, pillow.



Fake breasts have lost their shock value: Pamela Anderson

And so it was with great relief that this month I read in GQ magazine an impassioned polemic - Fear Of Fake Breasts, by the novelist Tony Parsons. Parsons's argument runs as follows: fake breasts are 'like plastic fruit' - good to look at, but not to touch.

'They are not there to be fondled, kissed or felt; they are there to be admired, discussed, lusted after and photographed. The moment they are touched - and I mean in the heat of passion, rather than out of curiosity or in the interests of scientific research - then the spell is broken.

'And this is true of all fake breasts, no matter how much money has been spent on this act of female selfmutilation.'

The scales fell from my eyes. I'd always considered my problem with fake breasts to be just that: a problem with me. I wasn't post-feminist enough; I wasn't post-modern enough. I was still entranced by those early feminist texts I'd read aged 16 - The Female Eunuch, The Women's Room - books that railed against women's representation in society as doll-like male fantasy figures.

In particular, I hated the idea of women undergoing general anaesthetic, and thus risking life and limb, to adhere to some ideal of pneumatic, Barbie-like 'perfection'.

So for me it's been truly liberating to find that men (whom I had assumed might sanction or applaud any degree of painful female body modification if it titillates their sexual peccadilloes) feel the same way, too.



Has she gone false? Jessica Simpson

In fact, on several dates recently, I've found that many modern sensitive male souls are hardly the body fascists of yore. Men like women of all shapes and sizes. Contrary to what women themselves think about their bodies, some men find small breasts sexy; others actively prefer 'overweight' size 16s over 'perfect' size 10s.

What's more, many men find the supposed mammarial perfection of Jordan/Katie Price far more objectionable than women do. As an archetype of what men might like, the beach-ball sized, unapologetically false look insults their taste and intelligence.

All of which begs the question: if they're so horrible, and men don't really like them, why on earth are thousands of woman going under the knife? As Parsons says: 'Why aren't there armies of thinking women protesting about the grotesquely booming trade in bogus breasts?'

He may be wrong on this point. Some women clearly do find breast enlargement procedures as needless as he does.

'Breast surgery has become just another part of the beauty regime - like applying make-up - and it's unnecessary and unpleasant,' says the writer Joan Smith. 'It's treated the same as getting a haircut. It's become normalised. I think any woman considering breast surgery for cosmetic reasons should spend a month in Darfur and then decide if body image is a really important issue.'



Former Cosmopolitan editor Marcelle D'argy Smith agrees. 'Fake breasts have become inescapable, but I think the main reason why women do it is to please men. They're trying to fulfil a male fantasy.



'It might make women feel more confident - but it is, ultimately, for men.'



Like me, broadcaster Joan Bakewell finds the synthetic look repellent. 'Fake breasts simply look false. They lack any kind of beauty, or the softness associated with real breasts. Implants look like two oranges stuffed in your top.'



These are just a few voices of dissent. But, generally, women aren't shouting loudly enough. Yes, we may not like plastic breasts, but there is no denying they play an increasingly prominent role in our society. Since that first shocking encounter of mine nearly a decade ago, surgically enhanced breasts - or at least images of them - are everywhere.



From Jordan to Victoria Beckham, Jodie Marsh to Pamela Anderson, fake breasts have lost their shock value. Brigitte Nielsen even had her breast silicone drained live on television last week.



Every series of Big Brother has a requisite pair. Lisa is this year's model, purchased by her boyfriend, Mario. There's been speculation that Britney, Nicole Richie, Jessica Simpson and Kelly Rowland have had them.



These days, it seems as if no one knows where real ends and fake begins - and that goes for representation of curves in photography, too.

This week, Keira Knightley made a stand against the tyranny of the unnatural bosom when she prevented the makers of her new film, The Duchess, from 'airbrushing' bigger cups on to her naturally flat chest.

Naturally flat: Keira Knightley

What happens in the world of celebrity now has ramifications for any young woman who watches TV or opens a magazine.



Last year, 26,000 British women went under the knife in the pursuit of bigger breasts, and only 6,497 of those procedures were registered by BAAPS (the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons).



But breast augmentation was still the most popular cosmetic surgical procedure recorded by BAAPS - up 6 per cent from the previous year.



And then there are the ordinary housewives or girls-next-door checking in for their fifth or sixth op, as explored on the recent BBC3 documentary, Addicted To Boob Jobs.



'One woman on the show had had five operations,' recalls presenter Louise Roe.



'Three were cosmetic and two were reconstructive. One of the cosmetic operations went wrong and the implant leaked, so she had to have two reconstructive operations after that.



'A lot of the women were very scarred from all the surgery. There was one lady in particular whose boobs didn't even look like boobs any more.'



And like some of the celebrities, a minority of patients have become psychologically addicted to having their breasts altered and end up having multiple operations.



Breast augmentation, it should be remembered, isn't like going for a blood test. It is a two-hour general-anaesthetic-and-all operation, with all the usual risks of organ failure and cardiac arrest.



After a successful procedure, drainage tubes are placed in the incision for several days to help eliminate excess fluid. The chest is wrapped in gauze for a week, and the patient is advised to minimise arm movements to prevent separation of muscle and tissue around the implants.



The enhanced breasts will still droop with age, and implants have a lifespan of around 16 years, so, depending on the woman's age, will need replacing.



Then there's the cost. Although prices have become more ' competitive', the guide price for breast implants at Transform, a national chain of cosmetic surgery clinics, costs £3,950 for the round, silicone type.



Teardrop shapes are more expensive. 'Glamour model' sizes are pricier still, since they have to be manufactured specially.



The fallout from the less successful procedures can be catastrophic. Even the best surgeons admit that risks include lumpy-bumpy appearance, indentations, mismatched breasts, infection, loss of sensation, formation of calcium around implant, bleeding, blood clots, skin loss and implant rupture or leakage.



The advent of the casual, lunchhour op - this week, Sarah Cox, a 27-year-old beauty therapist from West Bromwich, proudly showed off the results of her injectible boob 'jab' in one paper - hardly seems to offer a better prognosis.



Why any person would risk so much because a B cup 'just wasn't big enough' seems a triumph of folly over reason.



Consultant plastic surgeon and BAAPS member Patrick Mallucci is indignant about the exposure of breast implants in the media. He claims that many women in the celebrity spotlight have implants through vanity and the desperate search for fame - which he, like me, finds deeply problematic.

Jodie Marsh recently got a 'double-G' cup boost

However, he reckons that the majority of his patients are women with mastectomies seeking reconstructive surgery, women who've been born with unnaturally flat chests, and women whose breasts have been 'devastated' post-pregnancy.



'Very few of my patients are the glamour model types we see in the media,' says Mallucci. 'I tell them to go to somebody else if they say they want to be like Jordan.'



Mallucci points out that very extreme augmentations - such as those chosen by Katie Price, Pamela Anderson and glamour model Jodie Marsh (who recently got a 'double-G cup' boost) - can ravage the human body and lead a patient on a rocky road towards further corrective operations. 'Big implants cause drooping over time; they stretch the skin and squash the breast tissue.



'Women who've had them will definitely need more operations over time - which will, in turn, cause more scarring.'



Despite Mallucci's protestations that the majority of women are not having implants for reasons of vanity, the message conveyed by celebrity magazines is that a boob op has been the answer for women who've felt dissatisfied with a B cup and wanted a 'little boost' - to a double D, or more.



I have no issue with the woman who has had a mastectomy; or the woman whose breasts, abnormally, did not develop at puberty. What I have a problem with is believing that it is acceptable for consumers to treat themselves to new breasts as they might a new handbag.



The proof, if further were needed, of this dangerously casual attitude to potentially life-threatening surgery are the numerous ads in the back of glossy magazines and on platform-side advertising on London's Tube.



Companies such as Transform and the Harley Medical Group present the acquisition of fake breasts as being a consumer choice comparable to the purchase of a new car or a sofa, with pay-by-instalment price plans to boot. And that, in my view, is simply grotesque.



So I take heart from Tony Parsons and his 'Fear of Fake Breasts'. If only there were also men out there who would rail against all the other elements of the culture of pornography that seem to have invaded and pervade our everyday lives and beauty predilections - the orange tans, Hollywood bikini waxes and bleach-blonde extensions.



But women, too, need to stop aspiring to the fake silhouette. Women want new breasts for a variety of reasons, but those in their 30s and 40s who have augmentations because their bosom was slightly sagging are attempting to turn back the clock.



Surely, like facial wrinkles, we need to learn to love the slight imperfections that ageing bestows? These are signs that our bodies have travelled and worked and experienced emotions, not scars or disfigurements that should be erased.



If Parsons is right, then men aren't half as critical of our bodies as women might imagine they are. And while male approbation is the last reason women should avoid cosmetic procedures, we need to start loving ourselves a little more - and stop worshipping dumb-assed celebrities who mutilate their breasts in the name of vanity.

(c) The Independent 2008



