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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Cosmetic cuckoo

Is breast enhancement guru nutty, or just ahead of the curve?

By: Bartley Kives

20/06/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 1

IF you want to prepare your teenage daughter for university this fall, make sure her breasts are bigger before classes begin.

This ingenious idea comes from a Long Island medical professional on a mission to convince parents bigger boobs are the best way to reward their kids for surviving high school.

"Breast enlargements have become the most popular graduation gift in recent times, even surpassing requests for a car, as young women use the summer vacation period to go under the knife before college," claims a publicity-hound plastic surgeon by the name of Dr. Lloyd Landsman in an email sent to reporters across North America earlier this week.

"No longer are females requesting expensive jewelry, European summer vacations or other trinkets to commemorate the completion of school. They instead wish to fulfil a long-term dream of undergoing a breast augmentation and feeling more self-confident."

Lloyd Landsman, you have your nutty wish: Your name is in a newspaper printed 2,105 kilometres away from your clinic in Farmingdale, N.Y. No doubt this will do wonders for your practice.

Your argument is bound to sway thousands of parents who've been approaching the task of instilling self-confidence in their offspring all wrong.

Thanks to you, the typical graduation-day conversation will undoubtedly go something like this: "Honey, your father and I are extremely proud of you. You achieved straight A's all through your senior year, landed a great scholarship and got accepted into a prestigious pre-med program.

"But your dad and I are kind of concerned about your rack. We're worried you might not be able to attract the shallowest, most wasted dudes at an afternoon kegger or be able to compete in a wet-shirt contest during your spring-break trip to Corpus Christi.

"We love you exactly as you are. We just want to make sure you enjoy the pleasures of unwanted male attention as long as you are young enough to have bad judgment."

Yes, parents are a lot more caring than they were when I was in high school, when a graduation gift meant a trip to Perkins for dessert after the ceremony. But even as I attempt to feign moral outrage, I have to concede the fact cosmetic surgery is a heck of a lot more common now than it was when I was a gawky, Gowan-haired member of the Class of '88 at Garden City Collegiate.

One short generation ago, nose jobs were for accident victims, breast enlargement was an exotic-dancer thing and collagen was produced by soup bones, not injected into skinny lips or flaccid buttocks.

You once had to fly to Los Angeles to see augmented human beings in all their artificially sculpted glory. Now, an hour-long drive to Grand Beach is all it takes to see silicon implants and liposuction-enhanced abdomens on parade.

If cosmetic surgery can become commonplace in Winnipeg, where the climate forces its hardy residents to enshroud themselves in overlapping layers of polyester fleece for seven months out of the year, then there's nowhere left in the developed world that has escaped the medically unnecessary knife.

A quick perusal of the surgical procedures you can procure for the right price reveals a lot more than facelifts and boob jobs. Men can have the size of their breasts reduced. Women can see their breasts become more symmetrical, as opposed to just larger and perkier. And almost anyone can choose from among rhinoplasty, abdominoplasty or otoplasty, the latter being a resculpting of the ears for those who don't think U.S. President Barack Obama is all that hot.

While it's pointless to rail against the alteration of the human form, it is too bad many of the most popular cosmetic procedures are inspired by the beach. In a perfect universe, Winnipeggers would augment themselves to adapt to our own environment and not adhere to a Miami image of perfection.

Instead of hair removal, imagine a fur-implantation procedure that could provide us with extra insulation for the winter months. Arms and legs could be made more leathery to withstand the probing probosces of mosquitoes. A flap of skin could be placed below the chin to capture all the chili, mayo and lettuce that falls out of our fatboy burgers and on to or otherwise-pristine pants.

While that all sounds ridiculous, it wasn't so long ago when the idea of injecting nerve toxin into your face also would have been considered insane.

Perhaps, Long Island's illustrious Lloyd Landsman is not just trying to push your buttons when he suggests you supersize your darling daughter. He might just be ahead of the curve.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 20, 2009 F3

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1 Comments

Posted by: Avid Reader

June 22, 2009 at 1:07 PM

Oh my god. Is this what we have come to? Is this how we have evolved? It makes me very sad thinking about a young girl that truly believes she will be more beautiful if her breasts are bigger. It's not her fault she feels this way -it's society's fault! The billboards, tv, magazines, internet ads. They are brainwashed into believing their body needs to look a particular way in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. If there were no form of media, if we lived the basic way humans use to live, this way of thinking would not exist. Eat healthy, get exercise, work hard, play hard incorporate relaxation time. If you love the life you live, you will live the life of love regardless of what the size of any part of your body is.