The atrocity exhibition (21 page)

In a TV interview a few years ago, the wife of a famous Beverly Hills plastic surgeon revealed that throughout their marriage her husband had continually re-styled her face and body, pointing a breast here, tucking in a nostril there. She seemed supremely confident of her attractions. But as she said: ‘He will never leave me, because he can always change me.’

Something of the same anatomizing fascination can be seen in the present pieces, which also show, I hope, the reductive drive of the scientific text as it moves on its collision course with the most obsessive pornography. What seems so strange is that these neutral accounts of operating procedures taken from a textbook of plastic surgery can be radically transformed by the simple substitution of the anonymous ‘patient’ with the name of a public figure, as if the literature and conduct of science constitute a vast dormant pornography waiting to be woken by the magic of fame.

The reduction in size of Mae West’s breasts presented a surgical challenge of some magnitude, considerably complicated by the patient’s demand that her nipples be retained as oral mounts during sexual intercourse. There were many other factors to be taken into account: Miss West’s age, the type of enlargement, whether the condition was one of pure hypertrophy, the degree of ptosis present, the actual scale of enlargement and, finally, the presence of any pathology in the breast tissue itself. An outstanding feature of the patient’s breasts was their obesity and an enlargement far beyond the normal. After the age of 50 years breast tissue may behave in a very unfortunate manner if the blood supply is in any way impaired. In the case of Miss West, therefore, it was decided that a pedical operation should be avoided and subtotal amputation with transposition of the nipples as free grafts was adopted as the procedure of choice.

In dealing with very large breasts in older subjects, it may be necessary to reduce the huge volume of breast tissue in two stages, since the radical reduction in one stage may well interfere with the nerve supply of the nipple and prevent the erection of the nipple during subsequent sexual excitation. Miss West was warned, therefore, of the possible need for a second operation.

Procedure

A marked degree of asymmetry between Miss Mae West’s two breasts was found. The left breast was appreciably larger than the right. The most important step before operating on the breasts was to ascertain carefully the sites proposed for the new nipples. Measurements were made in her suite before operation with Miss West sitting up. The mid-clavicular point was marked with Bonney’s blue. Then, steadying each of the breasts in turn with both hands, the assistant drew a line directly down from this point to the nipple itself. The new nipple should fall on this line 7½ inches from the suprasternal notch. This corresponded to a position just below the midpoint of the upper arm when it was held close to the patient’s chest. The entire skin of Miss West’s chest wall was cleaned with soap and water and spirit, and then wrapped in sterile towels. Miss West was then ready for operation.

Removal of breast tissue. It was first considered how much breast tissue could be removed without damaging the blood supply to the nipple. The breast was brought forward and laid on a board of wood. A large breast knife was carried down from above, curving very close to the nipple. The final amount of tissue was not removed in the first stage, and the remaining tissue of the breast was folded round and up to judge whether the breast formed a shape that would be acceptable to Miss West, or whether it would be possible to remove more tissue.

Once more the entire field was reviewed for bleeding points. These were controlled by diathermy, but the pectoral vessels running down the border of pectoralis major were ligated. The skin covering was arranged to fit snugly over the newly formed breast. A curved intestinal clamp was used, but the fact that it fitted tightly on the skin margins did not appear to damage the vitality of the skin edges in any way.

All the stages described above were performed on the other side. It remained merely to bring out the nipples through new holes at the chosen position above the vertical suture line. Having found where the nipple would lie most comfortably, a circle of skin was excised. The nipple was then sutured very carefully into this circle.

The completion of the operation was to ensure that there were no collections of blood in the breast, and that the breast was adequately drained on both sides. Corrugated rubber drains running both vertically and horizontally were satisfactory. The breasts were very firmly bandaged to the chest wall using a many-tailed bandage. Firm pressure was applied to the lower half of the breast with Miss West lying absolutely flat on her back.

Post-operative recovery. The operation was a lengthy one and Miss West suffered a serious degree of surgical shock. Intravenous saline solution was given during the operation. The foot end of Miss West’s bed was raised on blocks, and she was allowed to lie comfortably on her back until she recovered a normal pulse rate and a normal blood pressure.

Miss West was not allowed to go home before the fitting of an adequate supporting brassiere. It had a good deep section around the thorax, and the cups were of adequate size and gave good support from below. It was some time before Miss West’s breasts reached their final proportions and shape, and there was no urgency about trimming scar lines until six months had passed. The left breast was then found to be too full in the lower quadrant, and the scar lines were unsatisfactory. Both these points were attended to. The ultimate results of this operation with regard to sexual function are not known.

Mae West’s Reduction Mammoplasty.

Still fondly remembered, Mae West was one of Hollywood’s most effective safety valves, blowing a loud raspberry whenever the pressures of film industry self-inflation grew too great. No one in her admiring audience was ever in any doubt about the true purpose of that splendid body. Yet despite her earthiness, she retained a special magic of her own, and ended her days as a pop icon who might have been created by Andy Warhol. That he never decided to re-invent her reflects the fact, I think, that she got there before him, and might have dangerously subverted the whole Warhol ethos. Besides, Warhol was always at his best with vulnerable women.

Were her breasts too large? No, as far as one can tell, but they loomed across the horizons of popular consciousness along with those of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Beyond our physical touch, the breasts of these screen actresses incite our imaginations to explore and reshape them. The bodies of these extraordinary women form a kit of spare parts, a set of mental mannequins that resemble Bellmer’s obscene dolls. As they tease us, so we begin to dismantle them, removing sections of a smile, a leg stance, an enticing cleavage. The parts are interchangeable, like the operations we imagine performing on these untouchable women, as endlessly variable as the colours silkscreened on to the faces of Warhol’s Liz and Marilyn.

J.G. B
ALLARD
was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China, where his father was a businessman. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he and his family were placed in a civilian prison camp. They returned to England in 1946. After reading Medicine at Cambridge for two years, he worked as a copywriter and Covent Garden porter before going to Canada with the RAF. His first short story appeared in
New Worlds
in 1956, and after working on scientific journals he published his first major novel,
The Drowned World
, in 1962. His acclaimed 1984 novel
Empire of the Sun
won the
Guardian
Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His controversial 1973 novel
Crash
has also been made into an equally controversial film, directed by David Cronenberg. J.G. Ballard’s most recent novels include
The Kindness of Women
,
Rushing to Paradise
,
Cocaine Nights
and
Super-Cannes
.

From the reviews of
The Atrocity Exhibition
:

‘A powerful book . . . phrase and image are constantly disturbing and stimulating. The central figure is a doctor moving through an underworld of psychosis. Reality and fantasy glide into each other. His chosen guides are the token figures of late-twentieth-century violence.’
Sunday Telegraph

‘
The Atrocity Exhibition
plays variations on the theme of human cruelty through surrealistic glimpses of car crashes, images of decay and destruction, and public figures imagined in odd sexual attitudes.’
   
Sunday Times

‘A doctor suffering from a nervous breakdown is obsessed by images of violence: the assassination of President Kennedy, car crash victims, the death of Marilyn Monroe. Escaping from hospital, he rationalizes these fantasies by restaging events of violence in a way that he considers will give them new meanings - a disturbing book.’
Irish Times

The Drowned World
The Voices of Time
The Terminal Beach
The Drought
The Crystal World
The Day of Forever
The Venus Hunters
The Disaster Area
The Atrocity Exhibition
Vermillion Sands
Crash
Concrete Island
High-Rise
Low-Flying Aircraft
The Unlimited Dream Company
Hello America
Myths of the Near Future
Empire of the Sun
The Day of Creation
Running Wild
War Fever
The Kindness of Women
Rushing to Paradise
A User’s Guide to the Millennium
(
NF
)
Cocaine Nights
Super-Cannes

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