To think that the West is seriously fucked up on the bosom front?

[Hullygully]

Bags of poison sewn into our infant feeding parts.

How fucked up is that?

'breast reduction is usually done because the weight of the breast is causing the woman physical discomfort.'

Not necessarily - people often have this done because their breasts look better afterwards. People with very large breasts often feel the nipples are not in the position they would like.

'If your appearance deviates in a very obvious way from what is considered normal, then this can be hard to deal with mentally.'

Firstly, what is normal? Secondly, it's ok to want to change yourself because other people make you feel bad, but not because the way you look to yourself makes you feel bad and causes you psychological stress? If other people make you feel bad, go ahead and change yourself. But if you yourself feel bad about how you look, you need to get a grip. Something tells me you'd still be saying 'get a grip' if it was, say a woman's dh who made her feel bad about how her boobs look. Some of the points made on this thread smack of hypocrisy.........

The main function of breasts is to feed our babies yet there is no doubt in the West they generally serve a sexual purpose too, for the woman and her partner. It has struck me that women who have BA's may be getting such a hard time because ultimately with larger breasts, that may be seen as 'competition' by other women. There, I've said it.

spareusthecutter

i think you are refusing to understand or appreciate what people who disagree with you are saying, for whatever reason

But I have no respect for you after that last comment

utterly vaccuous (IMO)

I suppose the difference between a breast reduction and a breast augmentation is that if you have large and therefore noticeable breasts, you'd get loads of stick all the time. Men feel like they can comment on your appearance all the time anyway and if you have really big breasts, that would be even more of a problem. You are reduced to being a pair of breasts. If you have small breasts, it's not that likely that, once you leave school, anyone besides your partner would even notice them particularly.

It's all part of our fucked up culture, though, where we feel we have to look a certain way and where men are free to comment on our bodies in the street and where other women can pick holes in our appearance.

I don't thihnk the competition point works. Most men don't prefer hard silicone unnatural breasts and as a natural 32DD (no enhancement) that woudl not be my objection. I think my looks are 0.005% of who I am as I have a good career and a wide life. Women who define themselves by their looks need re-education and therapy and not implants. It's like foot binding in old China. Weird. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Perhaps this will be a wake up call to women who do this kind of thing to their bodies.

Am i missing something? Surely the key difference between augmentation and rhinoplasty/reduction, is that you are willingly shoving a foreign object into your body, which may rupture and leak throughout your body, or at best require going through further major surgery every 15 years.

Bonkers.

Totally bonkers.
So, all going well, what happens when they get past their 'sell by date' and th person can't afford to have them removed and/or replaced?

It's quite rude to refer to people as bonkers just because you can't understand their pov. I don't actually agree with Spareusthecutters either - I can see why people have general objections to plastic surgery, but I see it another way. In terms of what men like, I was always under the impression that they didn't like implants but since I had mine I found the opposite to be true - but maybe men are into the woman they're into and on that basis they would like your breasts whatever they were like whether you had implants or not.

ClaraSage - when you have the operation you need to take into account the fact that the implants will need replacement in the future and plan accordingly.

You can see it in womens faces, as they get older all those lifts and plumps and botoxes shift and they end up looking like freaks. No doubt the same will happen to the breasts.

Not all women who have botox end up looking like freaks. For years everyone has been saying how much better Kylie Minogue looks than when she was 20 and in Neighbours. The reason is she's had various work done, but the work is very good so you cannot put your finger on what exactly has changed. That's what good surgery and a balanced approach to non-surgical procedures is about, or should be about. The ones who look awful have had badly undertaken work or too much.

Sorry, but i really do see it as bonkers.

I am VERY likely to lose my breasts to cancer and the thought of fucking around with them for vanity makes me very

IMO Kylie looks awful.
She's totally overdone the botox.

I'm sorry to hear that LeCrisp :( and I do see that there are certain perspectives people have on their own lives and other peoples which makes them think about what really matters or what should.

People do all sorts of things in the name of 'vanity' though don't they? But actually I can take on board that spending in excess of £4000 on an operation to alter your bodyis quite extreme.

LadyBeagle - I haven't seen her recently but I mean around the time she released Spinning Around.

I am very pleased to see that there is still PARD.

Well done

Thanks Perception - and you are right, we all have different perspectives on what (should) matter/s.

I just wish there was a way to help those who are very uncomfortable with parts of their bodies, without resorting to shoving foreign objects in which have a history of leakage/needing replacement.

I would like to live in a world where we are all human beings and we are all valued for who we are and the contribution we are able to make, and we all accept that we all age and die, and we accept the different stages that we will go through, and those stages are valued for the qualitites that each has.

So that women do not feel they need to look a certain way when young, and then endeavour to stay looking young, because youth is what society values.
And neither to they feel that there is a desirable "look", whatever it may be, that they must spend time and money and have surgery trying to achieve, in the mythical pursuit of happiness based on physicality.

Let us live comfortably in our own skins and save the world instead.

That is my thought for the day, week, year and century.

Peace and love.

Kylie's around 45. What happens when she's 75? How can you grow old gracefully when your face is frozen into chunks of rubbery flesh with thin papery skin draped over the top of it?

Kylie was beautiful when she was 20. How weird to say that she wasn't as beautiful then as she is now. Wake up ladies. I remember my friend's auntie used to have 'falsies'. No surgery, you just slipped them into your bra.

Sorry to hear about your cancer Crisp - all the best to you x.

Spend it - thanks for your thoughts - i don't actually have cancer, but my risk of getting it has been assessed as rather stratosphetic high due to family history. I am lucky that i am on a good screening programme and am very thankful for that.

Hully - I think what you say is sensible. Ultimately though vanity is linked to insecurity and also I think that if you are considered attractive and you are told that by everyone growing up and beyond, you begin to believe (rightly or wrongly) that your looks are an important asset which you need to preserve.

I think having cosmetic surgery is bonkers because in the past 2 years I have had 2 major operations and therefore cannot relate to people who have these ops and proceedures when they are not actually ill!

I haven't got a spare hour to read the whole thread so sorry if I repeat something.

I don't give a shit what other ladies want to do with their bosoms. I don't want to wage political war in the inside of anyone's bra. Have implants, have natural boobs, have a tattoo of another nipple next to the one you've already got, whatever. I don't appreciate anyone elses concern about what I want to do with mine. I'll worry about my own norks, thanks.

I don't want boobs off the telly. My dream boobs are my own boobs about ten years ago, before I put on and lost a bunch of weight and before breastfeeding. You wanna know why? Yeah, they looked pretty perky back then but that isn't it. These saggy old chest ball bags of mine used to have feelings. I used to like having them squeezed and so on. Not any more. I can't feel a damn thing.

That makes me sad. I liked them having a sexual purpose in life. That sexuality had nothing to do with culture. It had to do with me thinking, "that's rather pleasant" when I first got a boyfriend with wandering hands.

Maybe next year I'll fancy blowing some cash on restoring my chest again. I don't like being able to fold over enough loose skin to hide my nipple. ME. It's ME who doesn't like that. Not shitting society. I'm not so empty headed that I'm incapable of making rational decisions about my own chest while standing next to a poster of a large breasted lady.

To summarize - piss off my tits!

It will be interesting to see how much feeling you find there is in bags of silicone.

If I'm going to have tits that are dead to the world anyway, they might as well not get stuck under my husband when he rolls over in bed.

Do some pecs exercises and save the money!