Beach Culture & Boob Jobs in Rio de Janeiro

The beaches here in Rio are separated for gays, for families, for poor people from the slums, for rich people, for beautiful people but it is very democratic, you can go where you want if you are comfortable. But, if you want to be with your own kind, there is a beach for you.

At the apex of Copacabana Beach and Ipanema Beach, there is an outdoor gym, where great hulking tan man, bedecked in tatoos, tans, and bulging muscles, lift bar belled weights made of concrete that was tamped into various sized plastic bucket molds. They help one another get into position on the horizontal concrete slab. There are no women present at this`gym. They work out inside gyms. All in Rio want to look their best or so I am told for they spend so much time nearly naked at the beach.

I´m also told that 70% of the women on the beach have had boob jobs. They start IN THEIR TEENS! If a family has extra money, that is often what a young girl requests for her birthday (beginning at $14,000). The “Brazilian Butt Lift`invented here, will come much later, as will the face lifts, Botox injections and on and on. The men are not exempt. They get work done on themselves too (esp their faces) nearly as much as the women and it is growing all the time.

As a woman, I wonder about these sisters of mine- wonder about their true motivation behind so much cutting and inserting and changing. I long to talk with them and hear their innermost feelings.

I did get to sit in on an interview, however, with the leading plastic surgeon here in Rio (and there are 700 JUST in Rio!) at a press conference, the only woman in a group of men journalists and I had to sit right next to him.

It was difficult not to feel scrutinized only a foot or two from his discerning gaze. I´`m sure he could quickly size me up in a mere glance, where I could use some ´`work`; although I try to stay in reasonable shape; not for vanity reasons but so I can move through the world doing outdoor sports without being in pain – gravity is naturally at work on my body. My boobs are `´big enough“ and I keep the girls hoisted high, thereby creating 1/2 inch dents in my shoulders- nothing a little surgery would`not fix . As I crossed and uncrossed my legs, I wondered if he caught sight of the loose skin above my knees that might benefit from a `nip and tuck.“

Well, I studied him too. And for a man of 50, he had a remarkably smooth babyface- not a crow~s foot at his eye corners (maybe he rarely smiles, although he should do a lot of smiling considering the remarkable money he rakes in). His lips were full and volumptous too and I imagined him looking into his bathroom vanity mirror and thinking, Ì could use a little shot here above my upper lip,`etc.

I listend for awhile until I could hold my tongue no longer and asked, `´Âs a man, do you really find a woman with fake boobs as attractive as one whose breasts are the real thing?`And he said, `My wife has implants and to tell you the truth, I find myself forgetting that they are not real, (`in the midst of burying his face into all that silicone?) I heard of one rich Rio man (a pilot) who insists that all his girlfriends get boob jobs if they want to continue dating him. He has generously paid for the surgery of three woman so far.

One journalist asked our surgeon friend if he ever does any work pro bono, say for mascetectomy patients and he said, no never. Somehow, I am not surprised. And then I asked him, finally, ´Don~t you think we´re giving our girls the wrong message about their self worth if she needs her mother~s consent to get fake boobs at 17 and her mother agrees?

And he replied, Ì only give a young girl breast implants if she definitely needs them. Some girls definitely need them and should have them. Some girls are flat and look like boys.`´

(I believe they would have the same amount of milk ducts however, which is what I think their main purpose is for.)

And then our dear doctor adds, Ánd once I give them implants at 17, I HAVE THEM for life. They will continue coming to me for work for years afterwards.`´

What could I possibly reply to that? Maybe cry.