There’s no denying it. Breasts are big business. Fifty years after its debut, the boob job is the most-requested cosmetic surgical procedure in the United States, proving that half a century later, its popularity is still at its peak.
BY Nicole Catanese PHOTOGRAPHY by Darryl Patterson
Back in the spring of 1962, Timmie Jean Lindsey, a 30-yearold divorcee and single mother of six, walked into Houston’s Jefferson Davis Hospital to get a tattoo removed from her breast. “Back then, finding someone who could do that sort of thing wasn’t easy,” recalls Lindsey, now 82. Once her young plastic surgeon was done using dermabrasion to wipe away her otherwise permanent inscription, he approached her with a brand new idea. The surgeon, Dr. Frank Gerow, suggested that she try a cutting-edge procedure that he had just developed: silicone breast implants…
“I never even thought about having that type of surgery,” insists Lindsey. “The only thing that ever bothered me was how much my ears protruded. breasts? In 2011, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), more than 307,000 breast augmentations were done in the United States alone—an increase of 45-percent since 2000. Clients ranged from suburban soccer mom to 20- and 30-something executives, not just aspiring actresses and topless dancers. For the sixth year, it’s the country’s topranked cosmetic surgery—ahead of liposuction, nose jobs, and eyelid lifts…
“These statistics illustrate that some women seek to increase their breast size solely because they think it will make them more attractive,” says Susan Krauss Whitbourne, PhD. Whitbourne is a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and the author of Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders…
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