Deadly "Butt Lift": How Far Would They Go for a Bigger Booty?

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Translated by Hiherbs 

In the mammalian kingdom, the human buttocks are round and full, which might actually be unrivaled compared to any other species with shapely buttocks.

What does having a curvy bottom mean? It signifies strong lower limbs, providing an advantage in the primal hunt for survival. This might be the most primal driving force behind human attraction to well-shaped buttocks.

In modern society, strong and robust lower limbs may not necessarily offer any survival advantages. However, this inherent preference for curvy buttocks has become an aesthetic culture that has never faded. Some work hard in the gym, shedding countless sweat to achieve this dream. Their determination and perseverance are admirable.

However, some see a curvy bottom as a dream but are unwilling to put in the effort. That's okay too, as modern medicine can help. We've all heard of breast augmentation, but buttock augmentation surgery also exists—just make sure you're not cutting corners. Beauty is a universal demand, regardless of gender or social status. Given the immense demand in the cosmetic surgery market, black-market options often emerge.

Vinetti Vandell’s Buttock Augmentation Journey

In 2006, American woman Vinetti Vandell, driven by her desire for fuller buttocks, impulsively spent $15,000 on black-market surgery for a butt lift and augmentation. Perhaps because of her desperation for a curvier bottom, she didn’t even ask what substances were being injected into her body beforehand.

An unlicensed female doctor injected "soybean oil" into her buttocks. She immediately felt her buttocks harden. Then another person injected silicone, and her buttocks visibly grew, becoming soft and jelly-like.

After the surgery, Vandell's buttocks did become larger, but this size was beyond proportion, looking rather grotesque. She eventually sobered up from her obsession and realized she had been deceived.

In order to warn other women like her, Vandell wrote a book sharing her experience and what she saw in the cosmetic surgery black market, exposing the lies and darkness within. She discovered that the most terrifying thing wasn't just the black market, but how some people’s obsession with beauty had spiraled into madness.

She said that among the black-market clients, there were nurses, police officers, and gospel singers—upstanding professionals who knew the risks of these surgeries but chose this high-risk, cheap route in the pursuit of beauty and social acceptance.

What was even more chilling was that after Vandell’s book was published, some readers not only didn't heed the warning but expressed an interest in the black-market surgeries, pleading for her to tell them where they could get one.

Deaths from Black Market Surgery

In 2011, a transgender woman (male-to-female) in Florida, USA, falsely claimed to be an experienced plastic surgeon and performed cheap buttock surgeries, which led to a woman's death.

The reason was that the filler material she used included powerful glue, cement, and tire repair adhesives. It sounds terrifying, yet she herself had undergone similar surgeries. Most of her clients were also from the transgender community, who were eager to have these feminine physical traits.

Are these people who perform low-cost surgeries for others really bad? Not necessarily, maybe they are just aesthetically kidnapped and at the same time “very stupid and naive”.

According to the routine of ordinary articles, here should be said a few words “like a fuller buttocks is not wrong”, “plastic surgery should look for formal qualification clinics or hospitals” and so on, but these are correct nonsense, things are not so simple. 

In fact, buttock augmentation is similar to breast augmentation, and can be divided into two types of filler materials, buttock augmentation with implants and autologous fat augmentation, and most people will mistakenly think that autologous fat filling is safer and more reliable.

In Latin America, where buttock augmentation is the most popular form of buttock augmentation, Brazil is the most popular country for this procedure, which is also known as “Brazilian Butt Lifts”.

Brazilian Butt Lift Surgery

Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) is a type of surgery that involves liposuction to remove fat from areas like the abdomen or thighs and inject it into the buttocks. This surgery is popular in Latin America, especially in Brazil, and it is known for producing shapely and full buttocks, leaving a thinner waist and legs.However, the risks are significant.

Liposuction itself carries risks like excessive lidocaine anesthesia, and fat injections can cause complications like fat necrosis, cysts, infections, and the most dangerous: fat embolism.

The dangers of a Brazilian butt lift

Fat embolism occurs when free-floating fat enters the bloodstream and blocks pulmonary vessels, which can lead to death. This complication is most severe in Brazilian Butt Lift surgeries.

Specifically, fat embolism requires two critical conditions—venous injury and high-pressure state. Fat injection filling inevitably leads to a high-pressure state, so venous injury becomes the most crucial factor affecting the risk.

Some plastic surgeons may not fully understand the patient's body or may inject fat into the muscle of the buttocks in pursuit of a more dramatic effect, which increases the risk of fat embolism.

Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) surgery itself isn’t inherently problematic, but the process involves many uncontrollable factors, which means the procedure still carries significant risks.

With the growing trend of a more sculpted backside in Western beauty standards, Brazilian Butt Lift surgery has become increasingly popular. In the 1970s and 80s, celebrities, influencers, and aristocrats from around the world flocked to Brazil for the procedure.

Back then, saying "I'm going to Brazil for a holiday" likely meant going to get a Brazilian butt lift. By the 21st century, plastic surgery was no longer a luxury only for the rich and famous. The demand for Brazilian Butt Lifts surged.

3‰ of Mortality rate

In 2014, the number of Brazilian Butt Lifts in the US increased by 36%, and by 2017, approximately 20,300 BBL surgeries were performed. Unfortunately, the number of deaths related to these surgeries also rose.

According to global data on cosmetic surgery, the death rate for Brazilian Butt Lifts is as high as 3 per 1000 surgeries, making it one of the most dangerous procedures in all of plastic surgery.

Despite these risks, countless individuals still take the dangerous path in the pursuit of beauty and sensuality, leading to ongoing tragedies. The most recent case was in December 2020, when model Joselyn Cano, known as the “Mexican Kardashian” for her famous curves, tragically passed away after undergoing another BBL surgery.

Brazilian Butt Lift's Rising Popularity

Things have gotten so far off the beaten path that the Brazilian butt lift can trace its emergence to legendary plastic surgeon Ivo Pitangu, who invented the procedure in the sixties and has a great deal of prestige in the field of plastic surgery.

But Ivo Pitanguy original intention was to help people who were deformed by accidents. He treated many victims of a circus tent fire in Niterói, Brazil, in 1961, injuring hundreds of people, and the experience changed it, and he has been bent on the path of plastic surgery ever since.

He believes that the pain caused by the deformity of the appearance does not come from the appearance itself, but from the confusion brought about by the disharmony between his real image and his self-perception; in other words, although plastic surgery rectifies the appearance, it is the heart that is changed.

Conclusion

From the phenomenon of buttock augmentation surgery, we can find that it is not an aesthetic and cultural problem for people to go into a frenzy in pursuit of a nice buttock, but precisely their psychological deformity, which is embodied in the buttocks in some regions and may be embodied in other parts of the body in other regions.