If all goes well, Akinyi Okoth, a single, 32-year-old Manhattan woman,
will come home from a lengthy vacation later this summer with the breasts
she has long wanted. Like a quarter of a million U.S. women each year,
Okoth plans to have her breasts enlarged with implants. She's always
felt unfairly shortchanged when it comes to her breast size, she says,
pointing out that her sisters are well-endowed. Besides, she thinks
clothes look better on bustier women. "I feel good about myself, but
I think breast implants will make me look better and change the way
I think and act," says the information technology professional. The
Food and Drug Administration may still be considering whether silicone
gel implants — like saline implants — are safe for general use in augmentation,
but for Okoth, it's a moot point. She's made up her mind to obtain what
nature itself didn't create. Her determination underscores a point that
has often been overlooked in the debate over the safety of silicone
implants, pulled from the market 13 years ago: U.S. women want augmentation,
silicone or no silicone. Even as public health officials, breast manufacturers
and anti-implant activists have been warring over the risks of silicone
implants, more women than ever are paying the price — and taking the
risk — to have perkier or bigger breasts. Sometimes the changes are
subtle, noticed primarily by the woman herself. Often they're obvious,
meant to be noticed by almost everyone. In any case, augmentation no
longer carries the stigma it once had.