Plastic Surgery Niches and Breast Anxiety

The New York Times ran an interesting article about plastic surgery cultural niches in the New York area (thanks for posting the link, Tara). According to several surgeons, some of whom believe themselves to be "sort of amateur sociologists," they can tell what "job" the patient will want done by their ethnic background. The piece is full of egregious essentialisms and generalizations (made by patients and doctors alike) such as Latinas define themselves with their bodies, We always have curves," and Asians always want the double eye-lid surgery, not because of "assimilation," but simply due to the fact that "one of the traits of beauty os to have large eyes."

It's fascinating how the article reads the apparent enhancement of "racial traits" (Latinas want more butt, White women want less) not as a way of accepting the box one has been put in, but as a kind of belated, and well-deserved, pride in being who you are. Following the logic of the piece, by Sam Dolnick, it's clear that we have reach a stage in which women have finally accepted their ethnicity and, apart for Asians and some Russians I suppose, are happy to accentuate their "own" features, instead of trying to approximate a White beauty standard.

Another interesting point is a Dr. Elena Ocher, a Russian immigrant, who attributes the rise on Russian women's request for breast implants to Americanization, not Russian culture and wonders wgt America is always been so much into breasts, "What is this fixation?" The cliche goes that in America it's all about big breasts, whereas in Latin culture it's all about the ass. I'm sure there could be some great Freudian analysis about anality and orality to be developed on this. My first inkling is to align the fixation with the breast with a kind of (American) child that is, perhaps, less certain of having ever actually "had" the breast. At the risk of committing some egregious generalization myself, it would seem like the comparatively overwhelming presence, and expression, of maternal affect in Latin culture may lead to less anxiety concerning the breast.