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Outrage over website that
lets men pay
for breast
implants
Donna Burton, 24, of Balby, is hoping for breast implants after signing up with American-based website 'My Free Implants'. Picture: Marie Caley D2851MC
DONCASTER women’s groups have criticised an “exploitative” website which offers breast implants paid for by men on the internet.
The site invites people to “invest in breasts” where women write about their experiences and how much money they need to pay for the surgery on a ‘fan page’ and men act as their benefactors.
However, Doncaster’s women’s group Platform 51 and human rights organisation Object have both blasted the idea saying it exploits women and makes them feel pressured to pay for the ideal body.
It comes after Balby resident Donna Burton signed up to the American-based website to raise $5,000 (just over £3,000) to enhance her 34A breasts into a DD cup. She has hit back at critics saying she does not feel exploited.
The 24-year-old is using the site - set-up by bachelors - to pay for surgery to pursue a glamour modelling career.
Donna, of Regent Street, signed up by emailing photographs of herself and now writes a daily blog on her fundraising page. She has raised nearly £130 in her first week. She also receives a dollar everytime a man messages her.
“I have always wanted bigger boobs, it’s been a dream of mine for ages and there’s no way I can afford them because I only work part-time and I live at home with my mum,” said the Doncaster Racecourse silver service worker.
“Having bigger boobs will help me get into modelling, there would be no other way I could ever save that amount of money.
“I don’t think it exploits women, people who go on the site know what they are getting into and if anything it’s helping me.
“All of the men who have donated money to me have been really nice, we send messages and make friends out of it which I really like.
“You do get the odd one or two strange men, but I know what I am doing and you can block them so they can’t message you again.”
Dr Sasha Rakoff, of women’s organisation Object, said the idea was verging on pornography.
She said: “This smacks of fairly unethical and exploitative marketing by the cosmetic surgery industry – young women posing in border-line soft porn poses, feeding the ‘need’ that many young women feel to ‘enhance’ their bodies.”
Mandy Willis, assistant director of Platform 51, based in Cleveland Street, said breast implants maybe appropriate with correct consultation, however felt the website could have a negative effect on how women feel about their bodies.
She added: “Platform 51’s main concern would be that for most women this website simply exploits their fears and insecurities in terms of not measuring up to an ideal body type as presented by the media.”
Jay Moore, who came up with the idea of www.myfreeimplants.com alongside friend Jason Grunstra during a bachelor party in Las Vegas, said the reaction to their website has been positive - particularly in the UK.
He said: “Exploiting women, or exploiting men. Donors are 95 per cent men and they’re the ones paying for the surgeries. So the question is who is being exploited by who? The answer is neither.
“We’re dealing with adults who both make their own decision to either use the website for fundraising, or contribute to those funding surgeries. When you have free will, how can you be exploited?”
Dr Tony Baxter, said breast augmentation was considered a cosmetic procedure and therefore was not routinely available on the NHS in Doncaster, only in exceptional circumstances.
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