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Welcome back to Learning Curve, a column where we unpack the complicated experience of accepting your own body in a world that doesn't seem to want you to. In this edition, Nicola examines her combative relationship with plastic surgery—which changed drastically after she went under the knife herself.
Plastic surgery and I have never really gotten along. Even at my job here at Allure, where we cover cosmetic procedures extensively, she and I have kept our distance, smiling stiffly at each other from across the room when we make accidental eye contact but never bothering to actually talk to each other. What is there to say? I just always thought she was a little fake, you know?
Truthfully, I’ve pretty much always held the belief that plastic surgery is a cheat code people use to like their own bodies, and that it’s unfeminist to use that cheat code under circumstances that aren’t medically necessary. Undergoing elective surgery is expensive and painful, but it’s easier than embracing your so-called flaws, isn’t it? The plastic surgery industrial complex only serves to enforce the unrealistic beauty standard that makes the general masses feel like our bodies are unattractive or unworthy.
That’s what I believed, anyway, until I wound up tits out on an operating table, sinking into anesthesia-induced sleep so a plastic surgeon could make my breasts smaller and perkier. That’s right: I, a body-image columnist who preaches self-acceptance for a living, just got a boob job. Did I “cheat,” by my own standard? Yes. But I can’t deny how much it’s changed my body image—and more importantly, my day-to-day life—for the better.
Through getting a procedure I never thought I’d want or need, I’ve come to realize I wasn’t anti-plastic surgery because I had worked at having a good body image and wished others would do the same. Turns out, much of my attitude was actually coming from deep-seated insecurity, not just about what I look like but who I am and what I’ve been through.
Historically, I’d never spared much thought to my breasts. They’d been a little asymmetric since puberty, something I have in common with the vast majority of people with boobs. Though I didn’t like their lack of perkiness, they were relatively small in a way I appreciated. Through my late teens and most of my 20s, they ultimately remained the same… but by the time I hit 30, that mild asymmetry had taken a turn for the extreme—as in a two-cup-difference extreme.
My C cups had somehow evolved into one B cup and one D cup. It must have happened gradually, but it hit me very suddenly one day last spring when my boyfriend, concerned, asked if I thought my bigger breast (lefty) was still growing. The asymmetry had advanced enough during our year-and-a-half-long relationship for him to worry about my health. Thankfully, my gynecologist confirmed shortly thereafter that there was nothing to worry about. The severe asymmetry, she said, was likely the result of major weight fluctuation, which checks: I went up a couple of dress sizes during the pandemic and went down a few after the fact, all the unintentional result of my ever-changing mental state.
It was only at that point that I started coming to terms with the fact that the unevenness of my breasts had been making me self-conscious for a long time, and not just in the “I don’t feel beautiful” kind of way. They had begun to sag rather drastically, too—I expected my breasts to lose a little height as I entered my 30s, but I didn’t anticipate that I would constantly feel the painful sensation of my skin stretching past its limit as if my nipples were trying to make a Shawshank Redemption-style escape through the floor. Especially on the left side.
I knew if I wanted guaranteed relief from this problem, plastic surgery was my best and only bet. I grit my teeth for months over whether or not having evenly sized breasts was worth betraying my beliefs about body acceptance, but eventually my physical discomfort won out. I hesitantly booked a consultation with Melissa Doft, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon here in New York City. I’d previously met her through work and had seen her less-is-more approach and gentle bedside manner first-hand. I wanted to avoid having the male gaze or any kind of beauty standard thrust upon my breasts by my surgeon, and I felt safe already knowing that she doesn’t play like that.
I’ve been inside my fair share of dermatology and cosmetic surgery firms, but I’m usually there in a professional capacity, dressed in something sharp and ready to discuss a new product or the year’s biggest trends. So facing a mirror in one of Dr. Doft’s patient rooms in a wide-open surgical gown and talking about my own body felt very wrong at first. My anxiety told me I was taking an extreme measure to solve a vain problem, but my struggles were quickly validated by Dr. Doft, who instantly took note of the impacts my uneven breasts had on my lifestyle. On a sweltering August day, I’d arrived at the consultation dripping in sweat from wearing a baggy, long-sleeved denim jumpsuit, one of my few outfits I felt comfortable being perceived in. “You’re only 30, you should be traipsing around in something skimpy,” she joked. A weight instantly lifted off of me as I realized how much I agreed; I was tired of hiding, but I didn’t have to force myself to live that way anymore.
She presented me with a buffet of surgical options, some of which mortified me a little (implants or transferring fat from my stomach, for example). In the end, we agreed on her performing a breast reduction on the left and a lift on both sides, which would even out my cup sizes, eliminate the uncomfortable sagging, and hopefully prevent further asymmetry down the line. I booked the procedure for January. Now, shit was real.
In the six months between the consultation and the surgery, I flip-flopped daily from being excited to feeling guilty for betraying my morals. At home, I dominated conversations with my boyfriend by waxing poetic about how the surgery would improve my life, perhaps subconsciously trying to convince him I wasn’t doing this for vanity’s sake. At some point, he said, “You don’t have to justify this to me. It would be OK if you did this simply because you wanted to.” I realized I hadn’t been trying to justify my choice to him at all—I was trying to justify it to myself out of self-judgment. Somewhere deep down there, I felt shame about the choice I was making.
That was solely a me-thing. When I told my friends and family I was getting a boob job, I was met with nothing but support and excitement, no questions asked. I thought about the couple of other women I know who’ve gotten breast augmentations solely for aesthetic reasons. Though I might have privately thought they were succumbing to a misogynist fantasy, I never thought less of them as humans for doing so, and I still expressed happiness for them. People’s bodies are theirs to do with as they please, even if I don’t always agree with what they choose to do. So why did it feel that much more problematic when it was me going under the knife? It couldn’t just have been all that body positivity I’d written about; something else was bubbling under the surface.
It came to me on a random fall afternoon a couple of months after my consultation. Having just dried off from a shower, I sat naked on the edge of my bed, facing the full-length mirror propped against the wall near my bedroom door. I used my fingers to hold my nipples in a higher position the same way Dr. Doft illustrated my future results to me. I’d do this just about every time I happened to catch myself topless in a mirror, but this particular time I found myself clocking subconscious thought patterns I hadn’t noticed before.
Oh my God, my breasts are going to look like that. They’re going to be normal!
I can’t imagine myself having boobs that I think look and feel good. That’s going to be weird. I’m not the kind of person who has good boobs.
I’m not the kind of person who has a good body. I don’t have a body that makes life easy. Having a “bad” body is part of who I am.
I don’t deserve to have good boobs. I’m not being true to myself if I’m not struggling with my body.
Now’s a good time to mention my other chronic pain, pain that isn’t related to my sagging breasts. If you keep up with this column (thank you!), you know that I’ve struggled with debilitating chronic lower back pain my entire adult life, simply the result of unlucky genetics. I’ve had major spinal surgery. I’ve been in longterm physical therapy five times. I’ve endured every injection and imaging process possible, and only recently did I exhaust my medical options to the point I’ve been forced to accept that I’ll probably always have this pain.
So I am unfortunately used to the feeling of having my bodily autonomy taken from me—by the pain itself, by doctors who tell me there’s nothing they can do or don’t think my pain is much of a problem, by people in everyday life who gloss over my pain because it’s not visible. Its neverendingness sometimes leads me to believe my pain is some kind of karmic retribution for being imperfect.
Sitting there in front of the mirror, I was forced to reckon with the fact that my aversion to plastic surgery wasn’t so much of a feminist outcry, then. In reality, I felt resentful of people who had a problem with their body, whether aesthetic or practical, and were able to just… fix it. I was jealous of the control they were able to take. But now, with my own breast augmentation, I was exercising my own ability to fix a problem with my body, something I’d never been able to do successfully. I was taking some of my autonomy back. I was proving to myself that I do deserve to have a body that works for me.
As I sit here writing this only a week post-op, I’m still in the process of healing physically. Emotionally, I already feel healed. Having my feelings taken seriously by a doctor for once bolstered my confidence in my ability to make choices for myself. I felt hope going into a medical procedure for the first time in years, and I felt unmitigated joy coming out of one (you know, once the anesthesia wore off) for the first time ever. I’m still in some physical pain, but this time I know it’s only temporary—and that enduring it is going to lead to a better future.
Every time I put on a piece of clothing I haven’t worn since The Before Times, I weep all too enthusiastically. There’s no more spillage. No more awkwardly readjusting my stretched-out sports bra every ten seconds because one boob wants to hog the blankets. All the abandoned button-up shirts, low-cut tops, and form-fitting dresses in my closet can be seen again. I can be seen again. I no longer slouch to avoid drawing attention to my chest. Never again will I pull back during sex because it hurts when my breasts bounce too much and I’m worried they look ridiculous. Come the summertime, I will gallop into the ocean with my whole damn spirit without fear of one breast slipping out of my swimsuit.
Are plastic surgery and I ever gonna be besties? No. I still think, in extreme cases, it has the potential to be overused and abused by people with unhealthy mindsets about their own self-worth. I still think the industry as a whole contributes to the demeaning societal assertion that women are only valuable if they’re a specific type of beautiful. I still think the increasing cultural awareness of plastic surgery has spawned a casually inhumane type of public discourse about certain procedures and the people who may or may not get them.
But there’s more nuance to plastic surgery—and people’s reasoning for wanting it—than I was willing to acknowledge. I always appreciated its benefits in special circumstances such as breast cancer survivors or gender affirmation. But seeking plastic surgery for other reasons is valid, too. Even if that reason is simply to make life a little more convenient or to feel a little less self-conscious.
Even though these new breasts of mine are still covered in surgical tape and bruised to all hell, I couldn’t love them more for the new lease on life they’ve already given me. And it never would have happened had I let my traumas continue to dictate what is and isn’t right for me. Maybe now I can be free of that, too.
To hear Nicola read this story, check out Allure’s newsletter, The Beauty Chat.
More from Learning Curve:
- Was Fatphobia the Only Reason I Ever Wanted to Have Long Nails?
- Fine, I’ll Say It: I Hate It When Plus-Size Celebrities Lose Weight
- I Write About Body Acceptance for a Living, But I Hate My Body
Now, watch plastic surgery evolve throughout a century:
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