By: Lisa Brown
So, you want a booty huh? How badly do you want it? Are you willing to do just about anything to obtain that perfect posterior and body you want? Well, some women are. More and more today, reports have been in the media of women going to the absolute extreme just to obtain those killer curves they see parading around in the latest hip hop video, magazine or just whenever they go out in their daily lives.
Now it’s true that plastic surgery and butt shots have been around for years and are usually performed or administered by professional doctors. These surgeries usually will cost you thousands of dollars. However, lately, a lot of women have found more economically friendly methods of getting what they want for less. Though this may be more economically friendly for your wallet, it’s not necessarily health friendly.
In a recent article posted a few weeks ago from the DailyBeast.com, Lizzie Crocker and Caitlin Dickson explore the world of illegal butt pumping and how it’s not just for transgender people anymore. One of the sources in the article, a woman named Ruby Corado first decided to get the risky procedure done in her 20s back in the 90s. A man named “Jose” took the stage at a club she and her friends were at and said he had the perfect product that could give anyone the same seemingly perfect body as the voluptuous transgendered women at the club.
This was all Corado needed to hear; she soon met up with Jose at a room at the Four Seasons. He told her he was a nurse in Cuba and had worked with plastic surgeons before. He numbed her buttocks with cream and anesthesia before pumping her rear with eight huge needles. Corado said it hurt badly and felt like bubbles going in. A lot of these women are not being careful or asking questions and getting the real facts. They’re just taking these dangerous risks as if their lives depend on it.
It seems a lot of them have body image issues and low self-esteem. So they feel a need to get these procedures done because they feel it will somehow change everything and most of all, grab and hold the attention of men. Lots of women are following this trend, but it seems to be affecting African American women more heavily. A lot of Black women are naturally curvier on the bottom by nature.
Needless to say, there are so many Black men that are into big booties. It’s everywhere, like some widespread infection. Music videos are saturated with images of ultra curvy Black women, with small waists and big, round derrieres protruding out. Their breasts may or may not be big, but they really don’t have
to be, as long as the butt is. This sends a negative message to young girls and women that in order to be considered beautiful or sexy, your body needs to look this certain way.
Kimberley Smedley was arrested, charged and sentenced to 3 years in jail and a $25,000 fine for pumping potentially deadly substances into other women. Smedley claims she only did it to make money for her family as well as help other women with their appearance. She made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing the procedure in hotel rooms around the East Coast in Baltimore. She was using industrial grade silicone, typically used in furniture polish and paint.
Fix-a-Flat, a product used for flat tires on a car has also been used by other women doing these injections. Vanity Wonder, a former video model recently wrote a tell all book, “Shot Girls,” that talked about her illegal butt shots and how she used to work for a “Shot Lady.” She said in a recent interview with AllHipHop.com that women on the whole feel neglected. For minority women, our pool of men to pick from is small because our men are in jail, gay, on the down low so we have to do whatever we have to do to get their attention. It’s a constant competition between women. Vanity Wonder has had dozens of shots herself. She wrote the book in order to advise other young women to be cautious and not take these dangerous risks.
Some women have unfortunately died or have had limb amputations to save their lives from this. It’s shear madness! Black women, what’s really going on with us? We have to get to a point where we can lift our heads up and be proud of what we see in the mirror, regardless of what some man or woman thinks. You don’t have to look like the girls in the magazines to be beautiful and sexy. You already are. Now, I’m all for self improvements and what not, but you need to go about it the right way. You have to
make wise decisions. It’s your life here at stake. And getting a bigger booty is SO not worth you lying in a casket. Food for thought.
Lisa Brown is a magazine journalism student at Columbia College Chicago. In addition to journalism, she also writes fiction, penning poems, stories and songs.
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