Plastic surgery we can believe in

This is absolutely the best print ad of the year. Without a doubt, the best!

Assuming, of course, that you define "the best" as "the most shameless and outlandish (and therefore hilarious) effort to cash in on Obama's election."

The ad below appears in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine today. You can click for, uh, a larger image, but I'll quote the relevant text, which the ad places strategically on top of the woman's right breast:

The Ultimate You
With 2008 coming to a close, the main theme of the new year is change. President-Elect Barack Obama ran a successful campaign with the promise of change, and Americans seem ready to embrace it, despite an uncertain economy. With Americans becoming increasingly thriftier, and not spending as much money on themselves, you might think an amazing transformation with the help of plastic surgery is an unattainable luxury. However, watching your finances does not mean that you have to sacrifice your appearance. Many of our featured physicians have tailored some of their services toward affordability, as well as offering financing so that even in these shaky financial times you can still become the "Ultimate You" and feel fantastic about yourself.

The ad copy then discusses the clinic and actually continues on for another page, but this is all you need to see.





I've even created the appropriate poster for it.

Click here to read more . . .

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Here's my pedantic musing of the day: How many times do you have to write about the same subject before you have to stop referring to it as a "frontier"? Four? Six? One and a half? I ask because plastic surgery of the genitalia, female division, is a booming industry, while keen observers will note that the automakers insist on flying to Washington on their private jets to demand a taxpayer bailout.

In any event, the latest on the subject (and I don't mean the auto bailout) comes from Time (via HotAir). Time's article, of course, doesn't play the plastic surgery story completely straight; it's too easy a subject for joking, as I can personally attest.

On the youth sex-education website Scarleteen.com, dozens of teenage girls can be found commiserating about their labia. "i REALLY h8 mine! They hang really REALLY low and r SO long!" reads one comment. Meanwhile, on MakeMeHeal.com, a consumer site that sells special bras and other gear for women recovering from plastic surgery, women of all ages submit photos of their nether regions and ask for feedback on whether they should get nipped and tucked down there. Welcome to the strange new world of female genital cosmetic surgery, where body insecurity issues are fueling a small but growing Western market for such procedures as labiaplasty, clitoral un-hooding, G-spot augmentation and hymen reconstruction, a.k.a. "revirginization."

Although I personally wouldn't participate in a protest -- even if they agreed not to make me wear the costume -- I can understand what motivates these people:

Appalled at the popularity of so-called designer vaginas, a grass-roots organization called the New View Campaign staged its first-ever protest on Monday outside New York City's Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery. Two dozen women — ranging in age from teenagers to, ahem, sexagenarians — handed out index cards and held up orange poster boards with the message "No Two Alike," while two members of the group donned giant cloth vulva costumes.

This whole subject is really sad for what it says about our culture, as I've remarked before. But at least Time does stop to acknowledge that it's also a troubling issue for the women's mental health.

And the article closes with what I'd say is pretty good advice. To paraphrase: If you're thinking of this surgery because your boyfriend made a negative remark about your anatomy, you might think about surgically removing the boyfriend.

Previous entries in this vein are collected here.

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Tuesday night mini-linkfest

A short mini-linkfest tonight.

1. Headline of the day: "Fake penis under attack for staying limp." (via BOTWT)

2. Quotation of the day from the same link: "It's easy to think that it's pretty strange to approve prosthetics that can't get erect, because that is after all what penises do - get erections."

3. How to hide your booze at the stadium.

4. Speaking of booze, here's a beer that uses gene technology and might extend your life.

5. And on the subject of inventions, here's a device for the kid in all of us: a gizmo that makes and throws snowballs.

Click here to read more . . .

Best of Pillage Idiot - VI

Mrs. Attila and I are off celebrating our upcoming 25th anniversary. Here are some blasts from the past. I hope you'll enjoy them a second time.

Today is plastic surgery day, because, you know, you always want to be on the frontiers of plastic surgery by reading Pillage Idiot. And because, when we get home later today, I doubt I'll have time to check in.

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Frontiers of plastic surgery

More frontiers in plastic surgery

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Frontiers of plastic surgery

New hobby for Thai women

Click here to read more . . .

Not enough and too much

Don't blame me for mentioning this plastic-surgery stuff. Blame ABC News (which assigned it to its "ABC News Medical Unit"). And Fark.

Before you click on the first link, read all the way through. Here's the key paragraph from the ABC News report:

"Every night I was taking three extra-strength Tylenol because my back was hurting so bad, and by the middle of the night I'd be sore again," she recalls. "I wasn't sleeping because I was hurting so badly. And in the morning I had to get two children together and get myself ready for work. And I'd get to work, and by two my back hurt so badly I could barely sit at my desk and work."

This is the way ABC News tries to make a serious story out of all of this. And I hope you'll excuse the gratuitous photo that ABC News has placed strategically near the top of the first page.

Oh, yeah, in order to get my flurry of Google hits, two words: Sheyla Hershey. They happen to be the first two words of the ABC News article, so it turns out even the big guys are trying to suck in traffic.

UPDATE: Oh, my! I just read this, and that last line is awful. I didn't mean it that way. Really. The big guys are folks like ABC News, and suck in traffic means writing about things that will pull in links and hits from search engines.

Click here to read more . . .

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Everyone once in a while, a story emerges that contains the four basic food groups: plastic surgery, male member mutilation, an exotic foreign culture, and pizza. Sadly, however, this story contains only the first three.

I told Soccer Dad (who sent the story to me) that I wasn't going to use it, but I feel I owe a duty to mankind -- or what was at one point in its life mankind -- to spread the word, because obviously I have a wider circulation than Reuters, from which the story originates.

What I mean by "what was at one point in its life mankind" is this: If you're Thai, and were born with male organs, but you're a member of the so-called "third sex," you may well want what is delightfully referred to as "cosmetic castration," especially if you want to appear in the type of transvestite beauty pageant I wrote about nearly three years ago. But the fact that you want it doesn't mean the authorities want you to have it.

Thailand's health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics on Wednesday from castrating would-be "ladyboys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change.

If you don't know much about Thailand, consider this: If Britain is world famous for haute cuisine and dentistry, and France is famous for snails, white flags, and body odor, then surely Thailand must be famous for something. And it is.

The tolerance shown towards the "third sex," as it is often referred to, has led to the country becoming a world leader in sex-change surgery.

Way to go, Thailand! Aim for that gold medal!

The problem with a ban, of course, is that if castration is outlawed, only outlaws will be castrated. Especially because the ban is so hard to enforce. A senior official admitted that "policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation and easy to conduct in secret." Not to mention the inevitable black market in cosmetically removed testicles.

Which is why I'd also advise you not to eat in a Thai restaurant while you're visiting. Mm-mmm!

UPDATE (4/4): After feeling a little doubtful about this on reflection, I did a search this morning. If I'm being punked, then a lot of others are, too.

Click here to read more . . .

New hobby for Thai women

A lot of my readers have been complaining that I haven't been keeping them up to date on the latest news in mutilated male members.

Let me just say, "I hear you."

From Thailand, there's an AFP video report (via Ace) that I find very troubling. A British Thai(?)-accented woman, reporting from Thailand, says this: "Penis slashing by Thai women is so common that Thai surgeons have become world-renowned specialists when it comes to penis reattachments."

You really should check out the video, which, I'm sorry to report, doesn't always load. [Try using Firefox.] A Thai surgeon is interviewed, and although his English is hard to understand, Breitbart.tv quotes him thus: "Sometimes they chop into pieces. In those cases we cannot put it back."

You'll be relieved to know, however, that the surgeon says there'll still hope: "But we build a new one for the patient." He says that the best chance of success is when the detachment occurred within 6 hours. The member is complete, "but we cannot guarantee function."

The female reporter maintains, throughout, her neutral reporter's voice, but you can just tell she's enjoying it: "In this male dominated society, women have few options to assert their rights." She interviews a psychiatrist psychotherapist who says that jilted lovers might kill, "but to kill is not enough for Thai women."

[Also: I forgot to mention that at the end of the video is a scene of a market, in which a woman hesitantly reaches for a bunch of bananas. As George Carlin would say, You don't have to be Fellini to figure that out.]

Not totally related, but close enough: Rebecca Gomez, on Fox Business, interviews a plastic surgeon, Gary Alter, who apparently has a TV show called Dr. 90210. (Alter, by the way, is a classic name for a plastic surgeon.) She asks him what the craziest procedure he's had on his show is. The transcript, courtesy of Portfolio.com's Mixed Media (via HotAir):

REBECCA GOMEZ: What is the craziest procedure that you've had on your show so far?

DR. GARY ALTER: Well, on the show, probably it's a man who had a buried -- or hidden -- penis.

GOMEZ: Where was it hiding?

ALTER: Well, it was hiding in his pubic fat...

GOMEZ: Come on!

ALTER: And in his scrotal sack. And he was 49 years old -- never had intercourse.

GOMEZ: No way!

Dr. Alter, of course, was the only guy who knew how to handle this. (Although he doesn't say how the man was able to urinate, which strikes me as a major life activity.)

Gomez and Alter go on to discuss labiaplasty, and Gomez says that if you want to get plastic surgery, you have to "do your homework." She adds: "I mean, it's like stock picking. You gotta do your homework."

Click here to read more . . .

Sunday linkfest

Man, I've got a whole bunch of links burning a hole in my pocket, and I just don't feel like writing an entire post about any of 'em. So here's my linkfest. Hope you enjoy these.

1. A "Mom Job"? Oy. You'll be pleased to know that even mothers of college-aged children are having this plastic surgery. "'I had been thin all my life until I had my son and then I got this pooch of overhanging fat on my abdomen that you can’t get rid of,' Ms. Birkland, 39, said. 'And your breasts become deflated sacks.'" Mind you, this is a woman with a 20-year-old son. She was about 19 when he was born, and now she's concerned with her looks -- and blaming him? I shouldn't be surprised about her. Get this line: "There is more pressure on mothers today to look young and sexy than on previous generations, she added. 'I don’t think it was an issue for my mother; your husband loved you no matter what,' said Ms. Birkland, who recently remarried." Personal to Ms. Birkland's new husband: If that's what she thinks, ditch her now; she'll only get "worse" looking.

2. An observatory on the roof of your house? Cool. "'The reason why people don’t use their telescopes is they are such a pain to haul out and set up,' said John Spack, 50, a certified public accountant who had a domed observatory built on top of an addition to his house in Chicago last year. 'Now, if I want to get up at 3 a.m. and look at something, I just open the shutter.'"

3. "Pro-semites" on JDate? When, some years ago, Irving Kristol said, "the danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them," he was right on the money. It turns out that something like 11% of members of JDate aren't Jewish but are interested in meeting Jews. Pollster Mark Penn writes in a new book "that 'the number one reason they [people he calls "pro-Semites"] gave for desiring a Jewish spouse was a sense of strong values, with nearly a third also admitting they were drawn to money, looks or a sense that Jews "treat their spouses better."'"

4. Vegans dating regular vegetarians. As a former "vegetarian" who actually ate dairy, eggs, and even fish, and the father of a former vegan who was actually serious about it until he had a revelation (that vegans are morons, or something like that) and is now a proud carnivore, I have to admit this line tickled me: "'I'm in a relationship with a murderer,' bemoans Carl, one of many vegans who wrote in to the 'Vegan Freak' podcast for romantic advice." My son was never like that when he was a vegan.

5. Speaking of vegetarians, if you work for Countrywide and you didn't get the memo, W.C. Varones got it for you. Heh!

6. Stupid pickup lines. I did like the final one, which is charmingly cheesy: "Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

7. "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart." Discuss. (via protein wisdom)

8. WTF? I saw this bumper sticker on a car on the highway in Maryland: "God Bless The Whole World / No Exceptions." Yeah, I understand it now: God bless Johnny, and God bless Billy, and God bless Osama. Because, heck, we're no better than any of those guys who are trying to murder us.

9. Here's a concert I'm glad I missed: Beethoven's 9th, redone according to the "aural graffiti" that Gustav Mahler wrote on the score. Tim Page lays the smackdown on Leonard Slatkin: "Somebody should sit Leonard Slatkin down and explain to him, firmly but not without compassion, that Ludwig van Beethoven actually knew what he was doing when he composed his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, and that the work he created needs no enhancement from Gustav Mahler or any of the other musicians who followed in his shadow."

10. Andrew Ferguson in the Weekly Standard has an amusing review of Alan Greenspan's new book: "Alan Shrugged." ("Ayn," Alan would say, overcome by some Randian insight, "upon reading this, one tends to feel exhilarated!")

11. Columbia's newest friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has another insight: Move the damn Jews to Alaska. Seriously. (Via HotAir) He must have been reading the latest dreck from a Jewish writer suffering from Weltschmerz. Can you imagine the Jews in Alaska? All the Jewish geezers would sit around all afternoon saying things like this: "Oy, it's so cold here." "Moses got the desert, but we're stuck in this icebox."

12. And you just can't miss this last one, but don't listen to it at work, unless you can close a door behind you: Don't try that satire s--- in f---in' New Yawk. (Bad language alert.)

Click here to read more . . .

Trends in science in the U.K.

The good news: "Patrick Mallucci spent many hours poring over photos of topless models in lads magazines and tabloid newspapers to formulate his theory."

The conclusion: "In his opinion, the celebrity with the best pair is Caprice - and the woman with the worst is Posh Spice."

The bad news: "Mr Mallucci will prevent his findings at the first international conference on breast enlargement, to be held in London this week." [UPDATE: Just noticed the article says "prevent" his findings, not "present." Hmmmmmm.]

Here's the link, with semi-NSFW photos of the winner and loser. Click at your own risk.

(via HotAir)

Click here to read more . . .

More frontiers of plastic surgery

This is actually more of the same (click on the category link below). It's nothing really new, except that it's not every day that you see a headline at Newsweek's web site that reads: "The Perils of Designer Vaginas" (later amended to "Be Careful Down There").

Key line:

"What we're concerned about is that there is no safety or efficacy data for these procedures," says Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, a member of the committee that issued the statement and the director of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. "There are no studies in peer-reviewed journals that show long-term outcomes." The vast majority of these procedures are not medically indicated, Iglesia says, and women could end up in worse shape than when they started because of complications like severe pain from scarring by lasers used on the vaginal wall, decreased lubrication or incontinence.

Yikes!

Click here to read more . . .

Linkfest

It's been a little while, but now it's time for a linkfest.

1. This one's been lazing around in my in-box for a few days, kind of like your dog, who sleeps about 23/7. Cafe Press has removed G-strings and tee shirts for dogs that had pictures of Buddha on them out of possible offense to the Thais, who are acting more and more like Muslims every day. The article notes that "items depicting Jesus and Shiva remained." What a surprise! (hat tip: fee simple) Image and video at this link.

And in case you were wondering, another article on the subject says that "Top underwear designer Victoria's Secret withdraw [sic] bikinis emblazoned with Buddha images after similar protests in 2004." First they came for Muhammed thongs, and I said nothing. Then they came for Buddha thongs. Well, you get the idea.

2. I've been wondering why I've been getting lots of hits lately based on searches for Hillary and plastic surgery. Now I know. (via Hot Air)

3. In case that link isn't stupid enough for you, try this: Another column by Margery Eagan, this time about the wives of Republican candidates for president, with an emphasis on their "ample - and aging - display of decolletage." (also via Hot Air)

4. Speaking of aging, if you think getting older means you can't be a badass dude any more, think again. A guy on a plane starts acting all weird, and a 65-year-old former police commander takes charge, accompanied by a retired U.S. Marine captain of unspecified age. (We can surmise he was not young; the two were referred to as "grandfathers" and he had been married for 42 years, about which more in a second.)

The former police commander:

"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation."

And this is classic. The retired Marine captain's wife of 42 years:

Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

Guys, that's how you know your marriage is a good one. (via Fark)

Click here to read more . . .

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Another installment of "frontiers of plastic surgery." Previous installments here, here, here, and here. Special Egyptian edition here.

This week's top headline is definitely: "Top medical journal blasts 'designer vagina' craze"

And, from that article, this week's top quotation:

"Men, however, do not usually want the size of their genitals reduced for such reasons. Furthermore, they find alternative solutions for any discomfort arising from rubbing or chaffing of the genitals."

I got this from Ace, who seemed to be having a great time with it, topped only by his amusement with Hummelgate.

Click here to read more . . .

Frontiers of plastic surgery in Egypt

In my limited experience learning Talmud, specifically Ketubot, I was never able to get past petach patuach, which essentially means an "open opening." There's an extended discussion about how to deal with situations in which a man marries and claims on the wedding night that his bride is not a virgin as promised. It gets very complicated, as is always the case in the Talmud, but, of course, at no point does the Talmud allow "honor killings." Not even close.

So if your culture does countenance "honor killings," one way of getting around it is to authorize hymenoplasty for women who are not virgins. If necessary, by issuing a fatwa.

CAIRO: Reconstructive hymen surgery for women who lost their virginity before marriage is halal (religiously permissible), said to Aly Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Gomaa, the highest authority with the power to issue a fatwa (religious edict), appeared the popular terrestrial Channel Two’s talk show El Beit Beitek, where he condoned the controversial fatwa, released by Soad Saleh, the ex-dean of the faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University and noted scholar.

Shiekh Khaled El Gindy, an Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Higher Council of Islamic Studies told The Daily Star Egypt that he agrees with the new fatwa.

"Islam never differentiates between men and women, so it is not rational for us to think that God has placed a sign to indicate the virginity of women without having a similar sign to indicate the virginity of men," El Gindy said.

"Any man who is concerned about his prospective wife’s hymen should first provide a proof that he himself is virgin," he added.

El Gindy voiced his full support for Gomaa.

There's something strangely rational about this. On the other hand, maybe it would be easier to issue a fatwa prohibiting "honor killings."

The fatwa has led to much controversy within Al-Azhar and Egyptian society as a whole.

In Upper Egypt honor crimes are still committed. If a woman loses her virginity out of wedlock, she is considered a big shame on everyone and deserves to die.

Well, that may have to wait for another century.

(via Fark)

Click here to read more . . .

Frontiers of plastic surgery

Every once in a while, I feel compelled to bring you another installment of "frontiers of plastic surgery." Previous installments here, here, and here.

There's good news on the plastic-surgery front. Japanese doctors claim that they have successfully used stem cells from human fat to create additional breast tissue for plastic-surgery purposes.

The story is here, accompanied by a possibly SFW photo and a rather earthy headline. But if you want the headline of the month, and perhaps the year, try The Sun tabloid, which is accompanied by a photo that's NSFW. (The quotation of the week, and perhaps the month, is from Michael Zacharia, the president of the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery, who said, "Medical insurance companies just refuse to cover it.")

There's also bad news here. Dr. Zacharia says that "the technique could make the detection of subsequent breast cancer more difficult." Which is clearly not good. It's a bug, not a feature.

So my advice is, Don't be an early adopter. Wait for the kinks to be ironed out.

(hat tip: fee simple)

Click here to read more . . .