Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Internet Plastic Surgery Giveaways

Ever hear of “owning a piece of the rock?” Well, the same concept is being applied to plastic surgery.

Back in 2004, Linda Peacegrove, a Swedish model, suffered a personal and professional loss when medical treatments following a thyroid gland surgery left her, well, let’s just say, severely bosom challenged.



So she put up a website, asking for donations toward a breast augmentation. We would love to tell you the name of the now-404 website but it currently redirects to an XXX-explicit Web site you would not want your ten-year-old to see. (Hey, you would not want your 40-year-old husband to see this site!) And the Web site is in Sweden. Enough said?

Anyhow, Linda tossed in the towel when she only received $808 from a tight-fisted public toward the $6000 needed for surgery.

Help a Girl Fill a Sweater!”

The next Internet donation request for plastic surgery came from the United States where a 23-year-old student -- who identifies herself only as “Michel” with a 34A bosom -- bemoaned her lot and asked computer users to “help a girl fill a sweater!” and pass the electronic hat for her breast enhancement fund.

Results? The milk of human kindness never flowed so abundantly!

In about a year, total strangers donated the required $4500. After the procedure, Michel posted tasteful (READ: with clothes) before-and-after pictures on her website as an all-purpose thank you. (We would also love to mention the name of her website but in the last two years, nasty, nasty X-rated ads have been added to this site, too!) However, we have posted pictures of Michel (below) that give you an idea of the, er, full impact that random acts of kindness can achieve.

Michel shows the results wrought by her adoring public:

The bottom picture shows Michel before she started asking for donations. She’s wearing the same top in both pictures.


before


after

You may think a 23-year-old having rejuvenation surgery is pretty unusual. However, somebody as young as Michel having plastic surgery is becoming more of a trend. For a closer look at people in their 20s having plastic surgery, take a look at our CosmeticSurgery.com article, Restylane & Juvederm: New Accessories for 20-Somethings.

(By the way, we did not crop her pictures. Michel may be bold about asking for help but she’s also shy about showing her whole face on the Internet.)

After that, Nicole, another student, then 26, noted Michel’s success and publicly decried her own bony haunches by putting up a now-defunct website. Her purpose? Nicole wanted $6,000 for a buttocks augmentation, declaring her rear end was as thin as a Jenny Craig instructor in Bangladesh during famine. But Nicole called it quits after the milk of human kindness could only squeeze out a paltry $155.

Breast Implants: No Charge!

The latest and largest Internet attempt to draw on the kindness of total strangers is MyFreeImplants.com.

Here’s how it works: Women over 18 post their clothed head-and-body shots along with a two or three line bio and plea for donations while identifying themselves by first name only.

Guys -- known on this site as “benefactors” -- chip in with whatever they can afford. But first, they must shell out for “message credits” priced at $1.20 each. To send the women emails, benefactors pay with the message credits. When the donations beyond message credits are sufficient, the woman has a breast enhancement surgery and then posts thank you notes, along with more-or-less clothed, before-and-after pictures. (They aren’t X-rated but they are also pretty far from PG13!)

Eight women are posted on the home page with the amounts they claim to have raised, from $145 to $5765.

And why would guys make donations to a total stranger? Even if it is a lovely stranger? Who becomes a very well-endowed stranger? Guys being guys, don’t they ask for something tangible in return for their money?

“There are a million different reasons why men donate,” says co-founder Jay Moore, an M.B.A. who helped put up the website as a hobby. “Some expect sexy pictures, others just want to chat, establish a friendship, talk about problems and some are just philanthropists.”
The site claims five million page views monthly.


Rita Rudner

But before contributing anything, it might be a good idea to mention one of comedienne Rita Rudner’s on-point observations about human nature. She said: “Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: A woman with large breasts makes men stupid.”

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