Shazzer4400 - I too have thought the body mods via surgery we do in this country have a parallel to FGM in other parts of the world. Here women do it to themselves, pressured from without and within to conform to the acceptable female form.

The horrendous FGM done forcibly to girls in Africa and elsewhere is also done to make those girls more acceptable for marriage - again to conform to the idea of what is the acceptable female form.

I don't understand why women fall for this. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think attention from men is worth cutting up my body. And frankly, are the men who prefer this artificiality worth it at all?

Don't get mad with me men - I DO like you! And I know that most men aren't demanding this. But if you ever stared at say, Pam Anderson with her well known fake boobies with admiration - women around you noticed you like fake. It is hard not to notice, you know?

It is easier to get this kind of crap done than to get your tubes tied. I had to go to a psychologist for evaluation before my doctor would consider it! I do know women who have had a lot barbie surgeries and none of them have had to undergo psych eval first!

It is weird.

I know that sounds so . . . extreme . . . but all these body modifications that women undergo to conform to an increasingly narrow definition of "what a desirable woman must look like", come from porn.

Please don't think I am anti-porn, I am not. But everything from boob jobs, pube sheering, and now trimmed, injected, lipo-d, and stitched up vulva/vaginas come from images of porn.

It is just so ubiquitous anymore, that these images are available to all so easily. An older woman dealing with aging, young women dealing with "am I attractive" issues, and girls who are forming their ideas of what women look like.

Women in Porn are the ultimate desired female - on a purely base level. It used to be that images of what a desired woman looked like, people got from the movies. And there was more variety then. Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe for instance. The Desired Woman always had a pretty face but at least the body types had variety. Now we see so much of one type of body. Only inevitable that the Desired Woman image is more narrowly defined. And even down to what our labia "should" look like!

I am curious as to why this is. Is it really just the availability of porn redefining the image? Europe has plenty and this plastic surgery to make woman look a certain way doesn't seem to have a hold there as it does here, and in USA-lite (Austrailia).

I wonder if it does have something to do with the seeking of equality in society. It seems the closer women in this country get to achieving par and intellectual acceptance, the more pressure, from within and without, there is to present an image of Desired Woman.

Think back a week or so - that article about the HOT Geek Girls? What's the point of being smart and having a good job if you aren't the object of wacking off material, right?

Sorry if I sound so cynical. I truly do not understand why women are willing to make themself into some created idea of woman. And I don't understand why men seem so happy to go along and support these surgeries (Support by their favourable response that is.) And unfortunately, I am seeing more and more women around me, young and old, embrassing these stupidities.

Perhaps all those young impressional things out there looking to Keira Knightley as a role model will see her defiant acceptance of her breasts even under pressure to conform her titties to The Official Shape for Females?

I mean, that is more impressive in this day and age of the boob job, than the fact she is 23 and skinny.

The study of bra wearing and cancer rates is flawed IMO.

Women who wear bras more often are more likely to be doing so out of comfort. Women with large breasts are more likely to feel some comfort from a good bra. It is not the size of the (natural) breast that has a correlation to cancer rates, but the amount of fatty tissue. More fatty tissue IS related to an increased breast cancer rates.

The study would be better if they studied thin women with small breasts who wear bras. But I doubt you'd find any "small" woman wanting to wear a bra to bed!

Cancer does strike anyone though. Plenty of smaller breasts get cancer - just that there is a higher rate with more fatty tissue.