Buying and Selling Breasts: Cosmetic Surgery, Beauty Treatments and Risk

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the ways in which women are sold cosmetic surgery, and how they ‘make sense of’ their own participation in this market. It draws on ongoing ethnographic research to explore how a group of young women who have paid for breast augmentation surgery narrate their decision to undergo surgery, the choices they make as consumers of cosmetic surgery, and their experience of having surgery. These narratives are compared with the ways in which breast augmentation surgery is sold to them by the companies and medical professionals involved in the rapidly expanding market for breast augmentation surgery. The paper shows how this particular group of young white working‐class women shift between imagining the breast augmentation operation as a simple beauty treatment and recognizing it as medical surgery, and explores how this shapes their perceptions of the risks and benefits of buying new breasts. It also shows how those who market such procedures manage and manipulate perceptions of the process of breast augmentation surgery and the risks that attend on it in an effort to encourage this form of consumption.

Social Media as a Tool to Educate Plastic Surgeons on Patients’ Concerns Before and After Cosmetic Breast Surgeries

“…Plastic surgeries are viewed by patients as a consumer product, and they expect surgery and outcomes to be flawless [11]. Accordingly, prior to the operation, both patients and surgeons often focus discussions on the expected aesthetic result and less on the procedure, its difficulties and the upcoming recovery process [11,12]. This pattern is evident in our findings.…”

Making the Cut: Mass Media and the Growing Desire for Genital Cosmetic Surgery by Young Women and Girls

“…For some with the confidence, financial means, and peer support, cosmetic surgery is seen as a solution to this internalised and societally governed shame and associated disgust. However, the modification of women's bodies through cosmetic surgery has faced critique from feminist scholars who believe that succumbing to cosmetic surgery positions women as victims of a construction of femininity and beauty standards which exist in our patriarchal society (Taylor, 2012). This has been discussed by scholars such as Jones (2008;p.…”

Markedsføring av kosmetiske inngrep – en kvalitativ analyse

“…De har gransket websider til engelske klinikker og finner at klinikkenes salgsteknikker bryter med det britiske helsedepartementets retningslinjer. Taylor ser i sin studie en tydelig sammenheng mellom markedsføring av inngrep og kvinners egen legitimering av inngrep (6).…”