Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) is a popular term used to inform laypeople about buttock augmentation through autologous fat transfer primarily to aid in marketing efforts. It is a surgical technique performed under general anesthesia to aesthetically enhance the appearance of the buttocks through the addition of fat grafts obtained from another area of the body where it is in excess. The main purpose is enhancing and reshaping the buttocks or repairing defects and deformities in the region, and improving their contour, size, and texture. Body contouring procedures have been increasingly sought after by people wishing to slim or reshape different areas of their body. They are aimed at achieving better aesthetics. From a historical perspective, performing fat injection into the gluteal region was first reported in 1966, and this evolved with time into the core of today’s BBL surgery. Since the mid-2010s, the procedure has taken off and is considered one of the top surgical trends in aesthetic plastic surgery at present.
Aging, body weight fluctuation, pregnancy, and hormonal influence lead to selective deposition of adipose tissue in different body parts, leading to a disproportionate frame or shapes, causing an inferior image and body perceptions, loss of self-confidence, and depression. So, people often seek cosmetic procedures to improve body aesthetics and comfort. Patients from the male and female sexes and the transgender group are found to opt for BBL to correct lax and drooping buttocks and achieve a fuller and higher curvature. Plastic surgeons in large numbers performed BBL procedures in different states of the US, indicating that this form of body augmentation is sought out by individuals across different geographical areas and those having diverse cultures within countries. Within the above context, it is significant to research whether carrying out a BBL procedure that enhances aesthetics only has an influence on body image and aesthetics. In Turkey, this issue gains additional significance as body ideals might differ from the societies in which these studies were performed.
Body Image and Aesthetics: Theoretical Framework
Body image has been associated with self-acceptance and individuation, allowing individuals to reflect their internal features through physical characteristics. Burdened by these definitions, the concept has become an issue on the agenda of fields of study such as sociology, psychology, semiotics, aesthetics, anthropology, philosophy, and the history of art in terms of cultural studies. There are many aesthetic standards in different cultures and times of social life. However, with the modern eye’s “admiration of beauty,” aesthetic interest in aesthetic preoccupations, aesthetic judgment, and aesthetic theorizing plays a role in shaping the standards of beauty. It reflects an interest in aesthetics, semiotics, and theories of the history of art, dependent on judgments.
There are many ways to advocate for self-esteem. The practice of care, beauty, or having aesthetic concerns about the body can reflect the importance of self-esteem in a neoliberal society. In Turkey, the pursuit of beauty and care has become so widespread as a social trend that a person can refer to it as one of the symbols of success or even a necessary engagement. Hence, it is believed that it is necessary to understand the conceptualization of the body, aesthetics, and the ascetic ideal purely from Turkish society, both to read the probable changes in the aesthetic realm and to assess and explore developments in the field of the neoliberal economy in Turkey. There are concepts that reveal how to understand the “body-aesthetics work-look-art-surgery process” that we have worked on; they enable us to express aesthetic change and, from this point of view, to read the determinants that reflect Turkish society. These are beauty and aesthetics. We define beauty or body aesthetics from two main perspectives: personal view and social view. The beauty of an individual—a person’s aesthetic according to their own—and the physical, sexual, and spiritual aspects, considered as a natural or aesthetic appearance, are revealed through certain changes in the art of medicine.
The Popularity of Brazilian Butt Lifts in Turkey
The Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) is extremely popular in Turkey, and Istanbul has been touted as a destination for plastic surgery, with the BBL second on their list. With a population of over 83 million and boasting the “youngest and the most curiosity-driven” population in Europe, Turkey has its own plastic surgery market. Body image holds a place in the social normalization of everyday practices. The increasing consumption of plastic surgery in Turkey can be associated with Turkey’s historical relationship with countries that attract large numbers of patients traveling for cosmetic surgery in Turkey, among others. Turkey has accelerated its development in tandem with the international migration network framework for rerouting “medical tourists” into the country. In Turkey, the medical tourism industry is a multi-billion Euro trade.
Impact of Brazilian Butt Lifts on Body Image and Aesthetics in Turkish Society
This section examines BBLs from the perspective of medical anthropology, as a bodily technology that has been introduced into Turkish society. Individuals considering BBLs similarly describe the possible effects of looking better as feeling better, and increased self-esteem is one of the main reasons for undergoing BBLs. Most BBL candidates are women who, while they describe the social acceptance of their physique, also talk about how they feel dowdy or sloppy because of it. As the results show, BBL modifies not only the body image of women but also the image they want to have of themselves. Five women with BBL who were interviewed approximately two years after the surgery confirm this notion. They say they feel ‘better’ and ‘more confident’ after their BBL surgery.
During interviews, all the participants explore the ways in which their families, friends, and colleagues look at their bodies in an attempt to understand whether their surgical intervention can be recognized or legitimized. None of the participants are disrespected, stigmatized, or alienated because they underwent aesthetic surgery and altered the way they look; in contrast, their bodies contribute to their identity and acceptability. Yet being accepted in one’s immediate surroundings does not entirely counter the problem of stigmatization. While a body characterized as ‘good-looking’ or simply ‘looking better’ is a subjective and personal valuation, beauty is not solely determined by inherent physical qualities but rather is a social construct serving as a cultural yardstick that signals status. As numerous feminist and sociological studies have shown, Western individualistic cultural patterns generally judge women and girls by their physical appearance. As a result, the pressure to be beautiful and slim is sometimes described as a form of tyranny. At the same time, a woman’s beauty takes on special meanings in Turkey where femininity is assessed according to her voluptuous body shape. BBL can be understood as a technique that informs the body in order to embed an image in someone’s body consciousness.
Conclusion and Implications for Practice
This study examined the impact of Brazilian Butt Lift procedures on body image and aesthetics through the responses of participants from a public opinion survey. The findings revealed that BBL procedures have a significant association with improving body image satisfaction and perceived attractiveness, along with a decrease in the desire to improve appearance via other methods. This preliminary exploratory study suggests that BBL creates positive effects on some aspects of mental health and social perception in the Turkish social and cultural context. We concluded that, similar to the rest of the world, social media plays an important role in the desire for the BBL procedure in Turkey. A sophisticated understanding of beauty is fundamental to identifying the motivations and psychological consequences in patients undergoing cosmetic surgery. As a clinical observation, potential side effects of surgical intervention on reduced psychological well-being need consideration. Well-informed consent about the realities of cosmetic surgery is clearly important, ensuring all possible physical and psychological complications are considered. Those who come to understand the true nature of body image suffer less from the daily irrational fear of body size and shape. Normalization of BBL and regulation of ethical practices are suggested. There is a clear need for public awareness of BBL complications to be heightened in order to increase cautious consideration of risks. Cosmetic surgery practitioners should be aware of the long-term effects of BBL on mental health and societal norms. Consequently, patients should be informed about the association between limited health standards, a perfectionist society, and desires due to influential advertisements. Offering multidisciplinary help for better mental outcomes in appearance dissatisfaction, consultations with plastic surgeons and mental health providers should be improved to address the results caused by physical appearance.
