From personal experience I'll offer a resounding 'no'.

I don't think people pay nearly enough attention to the opposite phenomenon related to society's breast obsession. Perhaps this phenomenon is restricted to some extent to more affluent societies where women can successfully pursue professional careers. Speaking as a younger female academic with large breasts, this feature can be quite alienating in the professional context. I, and probably many other large-breasted professional women, feel the need to strive to minimize the largeness of our breasts in order to be taken seriously – by both men and other women! Having large breasts can become a source of shame in this context. The stereotype that drives this is conversely related to the one that can drive small breasted women to feel inadequate in other contexts. Instead of “small breasted women aren’t sexy and desirable” it’s “large breasted women are sex fiends who constantly desire sexual attention”.

Women like Catalina shouldn’t feel like she needs to enhance the appearance of her breasts to be valued and women like me shouldn’t feel like we need to minimize the appearance of our breasts to be respected. If we as a society could get over our breast obsession, women might be able feel comfortable with their breasts no matter what their size and no matter the context of our interactions with other people.

It's one thing to question whether breast size makes a difference in the U.S. and other countries where there are good jobs to be had, where women can GET these jobs, and credentials are more important than appearance. It also helps that the sex ratio is not wildly out of whack (the surplus of women is largely in the over-65 age group and they're not out looking for work).

Colombia, it appears, has a similar scenario to many of the former Soviet republics: high unemployment plus a big sex-ratio imbalance producing a "two girls for every boy" scenario. Here, breast size counts because opportunities are so scarce. It's notable that Catalina didn't try waitressing or telemarketing or retail sales to get money for her boob job - her only options were prostitution or attaching herself to a gangster.

This is the real tragedy of Sin Tetas, not that a woman is driven to get a boob job because she thinks it will improve her life - but that economic opportunities are so scarce. Colombia's economy is a mess. That's what is so sad.

Reuters reports that the horrors suffered by the would-be teen prostitute are based on a true story, and represent the real-life circumstances of many young women in a country torn by a guerrilla civil war and a thriving illegal drug trade.

By the way, why aren't more Democrats hammering on Kerry to get us out of our failed Plan for Colombia?

If his Plan had worked, there wouldn't be a thriving illegal drug trade to fuel the violence and treachery Catalina experiences in "Sin Tetas."

How long does a Plan have to fail before it's abandoned?

I think the drama we're living in now should be called "Sin Ideas."

Ten or fifteen years ago, one of network TV magazines aired a segment about a coastal South American country (Brazil, if I remember correctly) where the elective cosmetic surgery most requested by woman was breast REDUCTION.

Until all natural body shapes are accepted as such, it seems that the ideal breast size is somewhat a matter of where and when one happens to live. Not to mention the influences of age and gravity and media trending.

The US isn't so different. I came from a rather impoverished area of the US where jobs where for men and too many women had to compete for too few jobs. Of course the men were in charge of who got hired. And you better believe that the jobs went to the better looking candidates. Even in waitressing. The money making shifts went to the attractive girls while the homely girls got the dead shifts. It's the same all over the world. I've always thought that the large breast thing was the western equivalent of the burqua. In Islamic societies, men control women by telling them to cover up or else. In the west, it is demanded that women have large breasts or become invisible. Pay attention to the network news. Most of the women who make it that far are blonds are immitation blonds. Being a blond gets you attention by men, which will get you promoted.

Columbia is a place where Cops and Judges get murdered pretty routinely.

The murder rate in general is sky high.

The best seeming route to make money is the illegal drug trade, which is a business that rewards male-centric values like risk taking and violence.

This is all the result of American drug policy.

It is small wonder that this state of affairs is harmful to women. Women thrive in growing and advanced economies where they are likely ot find real economic opportunity and free themselves from dependence on men. Then they are more free to engage in consensual relationships without the crushing pressure that comes with needing a man to survive.

We Americans, by our unending drug consumption and unwillingness to admit it, have created today's Columbia in the same way that our meat consumption habits created feed-lot cattle ranches.

If we could actually bring ourselves to care about foriegn people we would realize that our drug policy is as failed a policy as Prohibition in the 20's if not more so. Then we would fix it.

This is not an instance where we can say, "Look at those poor people in foriegn lands, their culture is so backward and strange. Why can't they just be more like us?" They can't become "like us" until we change our own behaviors and policies.

This TV show is just another illustration of our failed drug policy. Once we see it that way, we can start to learn what we can do about it.

I'm reminded of the movie Singles, from the early 90's, in which Bridget Fonda is driven to get breast augmentation to impress a wannabe rocker played by Matt Dillon. Her character is sympathetic, but poignant, and a little pathetic that she is considering surgery to impress a guy who's pretty much a loser (although handsome, being Matt Dillon). Matt Dillon's character, while large-breast-obsessed, is played for laughs, and made to look like an idiot for not appreciating the beautiful Bridget. The character who comes across the best is the plastic surgeon, played by Bill Paxton, who finds Bridget very attractive and keeps trying to talk her out of the surgery, or at least into a more reasonable cup size than the double-Ds she's aiming for. So it is possible to portray the issue with sympathy, yet spoofing it.

Again, I haven't seen "Sin Tetas," but it sounds like her life is hardly one to aspire to, and that her desperation is the main message. If the message is, "plastic surgery is a desperate act, reflecting a desperate situation," then how can that be wrong?

Lastly, if I had had breast augmentation, I'd probably have to slit my wrists now that my imaginary boyfriend Owen Wilson is going out with A-cupper Kate Hudson. I'm jealous enough as it is.