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Q. Should children under 16 be allowed to get cosmetic surgery?A. Dr. Michael Kulick gave the perfect answer. The following articles provide more background.Should Teenagers Be Allowed To Have Cosmetic Surgery? (Australia’s well thought out guidelines)Teens Getting Plastic Surgery: Be Cautious (health.usnews.com)Briefing Paper: Plastic Surgery for Teenagers (American Society of Plastic Surgeons position paper)Should cosmetic surgery be banned? (teenagers opposing views SCMP)Cosmetic surgery and teenagers – a disaster waiting to happen (The Guardian)Should Teens Get Plastic Surgery To Boost Their Self-Esteem? (Jezebel)Should Teenagers Be Allowed To Have Cosmetic Surgery?“It seems to us that both sides are right, at least in part. And perhaps, in certain aspects, each side could be wrong.”There are differing opinions and much controversy around the topic. One group says it is best to let teens have cosmetic surgery if they wish. Others believe there should be age restrictions for cosmetic surgery, that allowing teens unlimited access opens them up to exploitation and fosters unhealthy values. Who is right? Should teens themselves have a say? And where does Australian law stand on the matter?Should teens have cosmetic surgery? That depends. If there is a medical reason, or some factor that is clearly affecting the physical, emotional or psychological wellbeing of a child or teen, then cosmetic surgery should clearly be an option on the table.If there is no medical reason or justification that makes the procedure urgent, but the teen expresses the desire for social or self-esteem reasons, some hard thinking needs to be done.Also, should teens themselves have a say? Where does Australian law stand on the matter? These are all important issues to explore in this article.Let’s start with what cosmetic surgical procedures are common among teenagers.What do teenagers want?According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), the most common cosmetic surgical procedures for teens include ear correction surgery (otoplasty), nose reshaping (rhinoplasty), breast reduction (reduction mammoplasty) in teen girls, correction of breast asymmetry, and male breast reduction surgery in teen boys with excessive breast development or gynaecomastia.You can read more about the ongoing dialogue and justifications concerning breast reduction surgery in our article, should breast reduction be available to teenagers?What if the parents are OK with it?Sure, some parents willingly pay for a cosmetic breast enhancement for their daughter or for their son to have nose-reshaping surgery. Some are even willing to let teenagers have liposuction. But should this be allowed?One camp says that letting teens who want it have cosmetic surgery if their parents see no problem with granting approval and paying for the procedures. Similar thinking exists everywhere in the world, but we are increasingly hearing about cases in the US and the UK.Here are a few stories:Surgeon Gave Teen Daughter Breast Implants - An ABC News story from February 2012.Teenage victim of online bullying resorted to plastic surgery to silence teasing – A story from the U.S. about a 13 year old girl named Nicolette having nose reshaping surgery (MailOnline, October 2011).Two videos from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery tell the stories of Allison, a young teen who had nose reshaping surgery (rhinoplasty) and Wills, a teen boy with gynaecomastia who underwent treatment for male breast reduction.Aside from the ‘ick’ factor, the first story received the most publicity and public backlash, possibly because breast augmentation is considered purely cosmetic. The teenagers in the other stories appear to have benefited greatly from their surgery, facing less bullying, less embarrassment and possibly feeling better about themselves after their procedures.The question then is whether these teens’ lives and the lives of numerous others like them should be made difficult by outright bans on cosmetic surgery for teenagers, or whether age restrictions, with some leeway for cases such as these, should be put in place.Age related cosmetic surgery banThose in the opposing camp want a blanket ban on cosmetic surgery for kids and teenagers. They would like to place restrictions on when young people can decide for themselves when they need cosmetic surgery.They rightly claim that the lack of restrictions make children and teenagers vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by unscrupulous elements. They also say that obsession with physical features and physical beauty at an early age fosters unhealthy values, setting up kids for problems with body image and self esteem.Who is right?It seems to us that both sides are right, at least in part. And perhaps, in certain aspects, each side could be wrong.There are valid points in the argument for an age-related ban, but is a blanket ban justified? Then what happens to teens like Wills, Nicollette and Allison, and to numerous other kids who are bullied for their unusual features? In a perfect world the bullying would be corrected, not the physical features, but we—and our children—live in the world we have.Who decides?When the annual survey of the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia (CPSA), conducted through Costhetics, included a question about age, 76 percent of the respondents felt that 21 is the most appropriate minimum age to start surgery for aesthetic purposes. Nearly 20 percent of people felt 18 to 21 were appropriate ages. Compare that figure with the 4 percent who felt that ages 16 to 18 was appropriate and to the mere 1 percent who said 16 years or younger was okay.In considering where public opinion stands on this matter, it is important to remember that those who took part in the survey appear to be very open to cosmetic treatments—which is probably what drew them to Costhetics and to the survey in the first place. Yet even they felt that teenagers are not old enough to make their own cosmetic surgery decisions; that age restrictions are appropriate.Surprisingly though, the Australian public appears to be more broadminded on the matter. When a March 2012 survey in the Herald Sun ran a survey asking its readers “Should plastic surgery have an age restriction?” the cumulative results showed that around 84 percent of its readers answered ‘yes’ and only 16 percent said ‘no’.But does that mean Australians welcome a total ban on cosmetic surgery for those under the age of 21 years? Or do they want guidelines, with room for case-by-case evaluation? It will take time to find a balanced answer.Meanwhile, Australian lawmakers seeking to better regulate cosmetic surgery to ensure safe conditions for consumers have recognised the complications of this question.Australian laws on cosmetic surgery for kids and teenagersAt present, laws differ from state to state on how cosmetic surgery is regulated for kids and teens. Queensland has the strictest laws, restricting cosmetic surgery for those below 18 years, subject to a ‘best interest’ requirement.The National Framework on Cosmetic Medical and Surgical Procedures (2011) contains measures meant to safeguard those below the age of 18. The supplementary guidelines in relation to cosmetic medical or surgical procedures recommend measures for adults as well as those below 18. These specific recommendations were directed at the Australian Medical Board.Here are the key features:The first consultation should be with the operating doctor, rather than with an agent or patient advisor.In determining the suitability of a procedure, the doctor is required to undertake an exploration of why the surgery or procedure is requested. The doctor should explore both external reasons—such as a perceived need to please others—and internal reasons—such as strong feelings about appearance. Doctors are also required to look into the person’s expectations of the requested surgery or procedure to ensure they are realistic.The guidelines state that “If there are indications that the person has self-esteem or mental health problems, the person should be referred to a GP or an appropriately qualified health professional” such as a psychiatrist, psychologist or specialist counsellor for review. However, when the Medical Board of Australia invited public comments on the proposed guidelines, the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery submission pointed out that “a self-esteem ‘problem’ could imply anything from a normal response to some aesthetic concern, which a cosmetic procedure might ameliorate, to body Dysmorphic Disorder”. Therefore, the College recommended changing that requirement to include a phrase requiring a doctor to refer for evaluation those whom they believe “may have an underlying psychopathology such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder or other mental health condition or concern which may make them an unsuitable candidate for a cosmetic medical or surgical procedure”.A pre-procedure consultation within a reasonable time before the day of the procedure that includes informed written consent from the patient. The informed consent should be reconfirmed on the day of the procedure.Guidelines also encouraged a cooling-off period between the initial consultation and the date of procedure.In addition, there are specific recommendations for those under 18 years of age:A ‘cooling off’ period of 3 months if the requested surgery or procedure has no medical justification. There should be a second consultation at the end of the ‘cooling-off’ period during which the request is further explored. Doctors should not schedule the surgery or procedure at the initial consultation.Doctors are asked to encourage prospective patients to discuss their desire for the surgery or procedure and any concerns they have during the cooling-off period.The requesting person should be assessed by an appropriately qualified health professional such as a psychiatrist, psychologist or specialist counsellor.The Supplementary Guidelines on Cosmetic Medical and Surgical Procedures that will be part of “Good Medical Practice: A code of conduct for doctors in Australia” are yet to be issued in final form. Once they are issued, regardless of state laws, all medical professionals seeking registration in Australia will be obligated to adhere to those guidelines.As things stand, this area is in constant flux. At present, if your teenager wants cosmetic surgery you may be confined by your state laws and the ‘best interest’ clause in the current code of conduct for doctors in Australia.For more informationShould breast reduction be available to teenagers?Mark D. Epstein, M.D., F.A.C.S. Published on Apr 23, 2018Teens Getting Plastic Surgery: Be Cautious (health.usnews.com)Video: Cosmetic Procedures(HEALTHINATION)AS MILLIONS OF teenagers begin their final summer before college, not a few are prepping for cosmetic surgery, to take advantage of the long recovery time and a transition from one peer group to the next. In the aftermath of a $20 million-plus court award in Pennsylvania in May to a family whose 18-year-old daughter died from what was likely a pulmonary embolism after liposuction, some parents may be wondering whether cosmetic treatments in teens are safe.U.S. News & World Report asked Richard D'Amico, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, what families should consider when deciding whether to take the plunge.How do doctors determine if surgery in teens is appropriate?I think it's important to draw a distinction between teenagers who are younger than 18 and those who are older. At 18, these individuals are adults in the eyes of the law and are allowed to make the decision on their own. For those under 18, it becomes a family and parental matter. We also have to distinguish between procedures that are purely cosmetic and those that are reconstructive. Several factors are important in deciding when and for whom surgery is appropriate: an ability to understand the procedure; that the desire for surgery does not reflect what a parent, friend, or boyfriend desires; and that expectations are realistic. If your expectations aren't realistic and you have low self-esteem or no friends, cosmetic surgery is not the right answer. Rather, I would recommend counseling. But if a young person has good self-esteem and good family support, can understand what's going on, and has realistic expectations, then surgery may be appropriate. The need to know all these things is what makes the consultation so critical.It can be entirely appropriate for teenagers under 18 to undergo reconstructive procedures. This is most often for maldevelopment of the breast in girls [which can include deformities and severe underdevelopment of the breast and nipple] and overdevelopment of the breast in young teenage boys—a condition known as gynecomastia. When girls' breasts are too big for their bodies, a breast reduction is also considered a reconstructive procedure.What about cosmetic or aesthetic procedures?On the cosmetic side for those under 18, we're really talking about rhinoplasty, where the primary endeavor is to improve the appearance of the nose, whether or not there is a problem with the septum. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons feel that young women under 18 should not get breast implants for purely cosmetic reasons. Once a teenager reaches 18 years of age, we can perform cosmetic enhancements or enlargement of the breast using saline implants. FDA guidelines suggest waiting until 22 years of age before using gel implants.Is it considered OK for teens who are concerned with their weight to get liposuction?It's generally discouraged in teens younger than 18 with weight problems. It's recommended that weight loss is addressed and controlled with diet and exercise. The body contouring technique is not a weight loss tool, and that is true at any age. In fact, if someone is grossly overweight, he or she has to get to a better weight before liposuction is considered. There are a lot of teenagers with psychological issues related to their weight. And while as plastic surgeons we usually don't get involved in counseling, if someone who is 15 or 16 is obsessed with their weight, counseling can be very helpful.And for teens 18 and older?It's a very reasonable and useful tool, but we like to have people with the maturity to be able to manage their weight with diet and exercise. Then contouring improvements can be made.Are teenagers more susceptible to certain complications than adults are?No. But people need to know that cosmetic surgery is still surgery and, though extremely rare, there are risks. Before we even go ahead with surgery, the family and the teenager need to understand the potential risks from both surgery and anesthesia.However, there are instances where the teenage body is still growing and we don't operate on structures if they need time for further growth. With rhinoplasties, the issue is usually that the nose is already too big, so further growth will not be beneficial.Can you describe what happens at a typical consultation?When a teenager who is younger than 18 comes in for the consultation, he or she must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. We first sit down and discuss the patient's request—in this case it would almost always be rhinoplasty—and we make sure it's something the teenager actually wants. You can tell when people want something or if they're simply there because mom has expectations of the teenager's appearance. Those things come out in the discussion. We find out if the teenager's expectations are realistic and ask them point-blank why they want the surgery. They have to be able to talk and communicate their desires and not just parrot what someone else told them. If their reason is just that their boyfriend wants it or because some friends tease them, then that's inappropriate and I wouldn't offer that family the surgery. In that case, I would postpone the discussion until they're really ready. What you want to hear is that the teenager wants the surgery for themselves. And as we talk to them, we determine what their self-esteem is.What then?If I don't think they're ready, I'll tell the parents that yes, there may be an issue with the teen's nose, but I don't think this young person is ready yet. Let's talk again next year. If the teenager believes that if only she got her nose done, she would no longer be ostracized, then I'd refer her for counseling. I also look at the level of parental support. You really have to look at personal maturity and make sure that the expectations are realistic. Certainly parents can seek a second opinion, but they must treat what the surgeon says very seriously.What are the main considerations a parent and teenager should take into account when deciding on plastic surgery?No matter what someone's age is, patients should always choose a plastic surgeon certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. The second critical element is to make sure the surgery is carried out in a licensed hospital or accredited facility because complications can happen to people of all ages. Make sure you sit down with the plastic surgeon and have a thorough consultation that goes beyond just the area of concern, particularly with teenagers. This includes a thorough physical exam and all preoperative testing. The doctor should get to know the teenager and make sure he or she is emotionally ready and will be able to deal with complications if they come up. I see all of my patients twice before I do surgery, and I think it's a good idea to have the patient come back after the first discussion. It shows perseverance and drives home the point that this is a serious decision.And if the patient is 18 and older, but still young, I encourage parents or guardians to be involved in the decision making, even though it is the patient's legal choice.Matthew Shulman, ContributorBriefing Paper: Plastic Surgery for TeenagersTeenagers who want to have plastic surgery usually have different motivations and goals than adults. They often have plastic surgery to improve physical characteristics they feel are awkward or flawed, that if left uncorrected, may affect them well into adulthood. Teens tend to have plastic surgery to fit in with peers, to look similar. Adults tend to have plastic surgery to standout from others.2015 Plastic Surgery Statistics: Cosmetic Patients Ages 13-19Common physical characteristics or concerns a teen may wish to correct include a misshapen nose, protruding ears, overly large breasts, asymmetrical breasts, or severe acne and scarring.Teens frequently gain self-esteem and confidence when their physical problems are corrected. In fact, successful plastic surgery may reverse the social withdrawal that so often accompanies teens who feel different. According to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) statistics, 64,470 cosmetic surgical procedures were performed on people age 13-19 in 2015, while 161,700 cosmetic minimally-invasive procedures were performed.Not every teenager seeking plastic surgery is well suited for an operation. Teens must demonstrate emotional maturity and an understanding of the limitations of plastic surgery. The ASPS cautions teenagers and parents to keep in mind that plastic surgery is real surgery, with great benefits, but also carries some risks. Teens should have realistic expectations about plastic surgery and what it can do for them. In addition, certain milestones in growth and physical maturity must be achieved before undergoing plastic surgery.Although health insurance does not pay for cosmetic plastic surgery, coverage is often provided when a procedure alleviates physical symptoms or improves a body function. Such is usually the case, for instance, when breast reduction eliminates severe back and neck pain. It should be noted; however, that health insurance coverage varies greatly between health plans.StatementAs with any surgery, parental consent is required for all plastic surgery procedures performed on teens younger than 18 years old. The ASPS advises parents to evaluate the teenager's physical and emotional maturity and believes that individual cases merit careful evaluation under the guidance of a plastic surgeon certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery. The most rewarding outcomes are expected when the following exist:The teenager initiates the request.While parental support is essential, the teenager's own desire for plastic surgery must be clearly expressed and repeated over a period of time.The teenager has realistic goals.The young person must appreciate both the benefits and limitations of plastic surgery, avoiding unrealistic expectations about life changes that will occur as a result of the procedure.The teenager has sufficient maturity.Teenagers must be able to tolerate the discomfort and temporary disfigurement of a surgical procedure. Plastic surgery is not recommended for teens who are prone to mood swings or erratic behavior, who are abusing drugs and/or alcohol, or who are being treated for clinical depression or other mental illness.Common Plastic Surgery ProceduresRhinoplasty (nose reshaping)Plastic surgery may be performed on the nose to straighten the bridge, remove an unsightly hump, reshape the tip or open breathing passages. Ordinarily this is not performed until the nose reaches its adult size - about age 15 or 16 in girls and a year later in boys. In the event of a prior injury or obstruction to breathing, insurance may cover a portion of the procedure. According to ASPS statistics, 30,246 rhinoplasty procedures were performed on patients age 13-19 in 2015. The procedure accounted for nearly 50 percent of all cosmetic surgical procedures performed on this age group.Zendaya Plastic Surgery / Nose Job / Rhinoplasty New LookOtoplasty (ear surgery)Surgical correction of protruding ears, in which the ears are pinned back, may be performed any time after the age of five. Otoplasty made up 10.1 percent of all cosmetic surgical procedures performed on this age group in 2015, with more than 6,472 procedures. Insurance reimbursement for otoplasty is possible, but typically only occurs in extreme cases.Free plastic surgery for bullied teen stirs controversyCorrection of Breast AsymmetryWhen one breast grows much larger size than the other, an operation may correct the difference by reducing the larger breast, augmenting the smaller, or both. Insurance reimbursement is occasionally possible with this procedure.Breast AugmentationSaline-filled breast implants can be used for breast augmentation in women 18-years or older and for breast reconstruction [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval; May, 2000].In November 2006, the FDA re-approved the use of silicone breast implants for breast augmentation. However, silicone breast implants are only approved for use in women age 22-years or older.Many teenagers who want breast augmentation have one breast that is larger than the other - sometimes a full cup size or more in difference. This condition is called breast asymmetry. Using a saline-filled implant in the smaller breast allows the patient to have breasts of the same size. Although waiting may prolong the physical awkwardness, it is advisable to delay surgery until breast growth ceases in order to achieve the best result. More than 7,840 breast augmentations were performed on 18-19 year olds in 2015.Breast ReductionSurgical reduction of very large breasts can overcome both physical and psychological burdens for a teenage girl. In fact, many teenagers suffer ongoing back pain due to overly large breasts. Although waiting may prolong the psychological awkwardness, it is advisable to delay surgery until breast growth ceases in order to achieve the best result. Insurance reimbursement is often possible with this procedure. In 2010, more than 4,600 breast reductions were performed on patients age 13-19.Acne and Acne Scar TreatmentAcne eruptions may be controlled by the proper use of modern prescription drugs. In addition to supervising the use of these medications, plastic surgeons may improve acne scars by smoothing or "refinishing" the skin with a laser or with a fine sanding technique called microdermabrasion. In 2015, nearly 7,871 microdermabrasion procedures were performed on patients age 13-19. Other treatments for acne related skin problems include laser skin resurfacing, dermabrasion, and chemical peels. In 2015, 27,954 laser skin resurfacing procedures, 6,119 chemical peels, and 17,978 Botulinum Toxin Type A (Botox, Dysport) were performed on patients 13-19.Male Breast Reduction (Gynecomastia)Teenage boys with large breasts, known as gynecomastia, are often eager to undergo plastic surgery. Surgical correction, accomplished in a variety of ways, is occasionally covered by insurance. Gynecomastia accounted for 10.9 percent of cosmetic surgical procedures for patients age 13-19 in 2015, totaling 7,021 procedures.Male Breast Reduction Guide | American Board of Cosmetic SurgeryTo assist people considering plastic surgery ASPS has developed a brochure, "Make the Right Choice," which offers information on managing expectations and questions to ask before plastic surgery. www.plasticsurgery.orgRecommended ReadingLukash, F. Children's art as a helpful index of anxiety and self-esteem with plastic surgery. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 2002. 109:1777-1786.McGrath, M.H. and Mukerji, S. Plastic surgery and the teenage patient. Journal of Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology 2000; 13:105-118.Pearl, A. and Weston, J. Attitudes of adolescents about cosmetic surgery. Annals of Plastic Surgery 2003; 50:628-630.Rosen, D. Question from the clinician: Adolescent gynecomastia. Pediatrics in Review 2003; 24:317-319.Sarwer, D.B. Plastic surgery in children and adolescents. In: Thompson, J.K., Smolak L. (eds.). Body image, eating disorders and obesity in children and adolescents: Theory, assessment, treatment and prevention. Washington, DC: APA Press, 2001, pp 341-366.Sarwer, D.B., Wadden, T.A. and Whitaker, L.A. An investigation of changes in body image following cosmetic surgery. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 2002. 109:363-371.Sheerin, D., Morag, M. and Kusumakar, V. Psychosocial adjustment in children with port-wine stains and prominent ears. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 1995. 34:1637-1647.Simis, K.J., Hovius, S.E.R., Beauford, I.D., Verhulst, F.C., Koot, H.M. and the Adolescence Plastic Surgical Research Group. After plastic surgery: Adolescent-reported appearance ratings and appearance-related burdens in patient and general population groups. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 2002. 109:9-17.Simis, K.J., Verhulst, F.C. and Koot, H.M. Body image, psychosocial functioning and personality: How different are adolescents and young adults applying for plastic surgery? Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry 2000; 42:669-678.Bullied teens have extreme desire for plastic surgery, finds studyShould cosmetic surgery be banned?Elise Choi, 16, Sai Kung Sung Tsun Catholic SchoolHave you noticed that an increasing number of celebrities are having cosmetic surgery? It is because they want a better image to present to the public. But should all of us join in?I think cosmetic surgery should be banned. First of all, people have different definitions of beauty. We have to accept the fact that everyone is unique. True beauty lies in your personality. If a boy or a girl is considered ugly but has a good personality, people will find him or her attractive on the inside. That beauty is everlasting. Good looks fade with age. Character is far more important.The cosmetic surgery trend misleads people into thinking that looks are most important. They might copy their idols' looks so they can feel good about themselves and be accepted by the public. This would be bad for society.Changing our looks is a type of cheating. Our looks are a present from our parents and we should respect that.More importantly, cosmetic surgery involves risks. Some doctors might not even have a licence. If the effect is not what you expected, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Once your face is changed, it's changed.There's also the problem of hygiene. If cosmetic equipment is not sterilised properly, it could spread disease.I think cosmetic surgery should be banned as soon as possible, before anyone gets hurt.Matthew Murchie, 15, St Joseph's CollegeCosmetic surgery has gained a bad name in recent years, not only as something against nature but also as a dangerous type of operation that can leave patients with awful, plastic-looking faces.Many patients undergo plastic surgery only because they need it. For example, people who have facial injuries or were born deformed may require surgery to fit in with society.Some may say we should allow only those who really need it to have cosmetic surgery and ban it for those who wish to use it to look good. But where do we draw the line? Is it acceptable for someone to, say, correct a harelip? Would we then allow someone to straighten a crooked nose?More importantly, we are already free to change our appearance in whatever ways we like. We dye our hair, grow beards, pierce our bodies and get tattoos. Just because cosmetic surgery requires a surgeon and pain-killing drugs doesn't mean there is anything wrong about it.Banning cosmetic surgery would have serious consequences. Cosmetic surgery is performed by qualified surgeons. Once it is banned, illegal providers would arise for those who want it, and the operations would be far more risky.It doesn't matter whether those who choose cosmetic surgery are making a good or bad choice. All that matters is that it can help people improve how they see themselves. After all, it is our own choice if we want to change our appearance.Cosmetic surgery and teenagers – a disaster waiting to happenYoung women feeling insecure, media pressure to get the 'perfect body' and an unregulated industry exploiting a growing market all add up to a looming crisis. So why won't the government step in?Jane Martinson @janemartinson Mon 28 Apr 2014 17.00 BSTElla, from Ashurst, near Southampton, has been thinking of having cosmetic surgery since she was 11. She is now 18, and the therapist dealing with her low self-esteem issues has advised counselling before having her breasts enlarged. "She made it very clear that often cosmetic surgery doesn't fix everything," Ella told BBC's Newsbeat, "but I do feel like it would fix the large part of it in that I wouldn't feel ashamed any more."Soon, surgery to address body confidence issues may be more common than therapy, as young women appear to be fuelling the increase in cosmetic procedures in the UK. Hard evidence is limited in a surprisingly unregulated industry but anecdotal evidence is everywhere, so much so that last week the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) called for a crackdown.The demand for surgery isn't new. In 2005, a magazine survey of 2,000 teenagers found that 40% of girls had considered plastic surgery. Since then, however, the industry has grown five-fold, an increase unaffected by the 2012 scandal over the PIP breast implants.Born into the sexualised womanhood of Girl Power, the millennials have come of age in a society increasingly inured to the exploits of the surgery-enhanced reality TV stars. Leah Totton, the Apprentice winner who used Alan Sugar's money to set up cosmetic skin care clinics this year, says she has had to put a blanket ban on procedures for under-18s after one 14-year-old girl came into the clinic with her mother and asked for Botox.In April last year, a report by NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh found that 41% of girls aged seven to 10 and 63% aged 11 to 16 said they felt some pressure to look the way celebrities do. Suggesting that surgery had become "normalised" in pursuit of a "designer" body, he called for tougher controls over who can offer treatments and how they can be marketed. The government ignored him.Ash Mosahebi, a consultant plastic surgeon and council member of Baaps, calls the lack of regulation in the UK a "big problem". "The government's view is that restrictive practices are counterproductive to the economy. Our view is that they are important for patient safety."So what are the rules about offering children cosmetic surgery? Similar to those for other "permanent" procedures such as tattoos. Any surgery on an under-18 needs parental consent, though there is a grey area after 16 in which parents can't insist on treatment, for example. The lack of regulation in an industry in which anyone can order dermal fillers online and set up shop suggests the grey area is wider than that. Not for nothing does the association call dermal fillers "a crisis waiting to happen". Do cosmetic surgeons demand proof of age? "I do, but there may be some less scrupulous people who don't," admits Mosahebi.Guidelines suggest that teens must have reached certain milestones in growth and physical maturity as well as "emotional maturity", such as an awareness that plastic surgery is not a panacea for all ills, for example.Increased regulation of the industry isn't a panacea either, of course. More rules govern who can perform cosmetic surgery in the US and yet 236,356 cosmetic procedures were performed on 13- to 19-year olds in 2012, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.Campaigners say more should be done to stop the media encouraging unrealistic body types. Lucy-Anne Holmes, founder of No More Page 3, says: "One gender is allowed to be fully clothed, look old and be overweight while the other isn't. The impact this has on girls and young women is sad and unfair."Cosmetic surgery is increasingly the answer for young women, and men, who want to cosmetically "enhance" their bodies. Mosahebi says: "At some stage we will have another disaster and they might change their mind." By then, of course, it'll be too late.• This article was amended on 30 April 2014. The original said anyone with a medical degree can order dermal fillers online. This has been corrected.Should Teens Get Plastic Surgery To Boost Their Self-Esteem?More teenagers are getting plastic surgery in the hope that it will make them look "normal," but can you get self-esteemfrom a scalpel?Today's New York Times reports that the bad economy is having little effect on the number of teens getting plastic surgery, and in fact, the number of people age 18 or younger who had cosmetic surgery more than tripled in the past 10 years, to 205,119 in 2007 from 59,890 in 1997. Liposuctions and breast augmentations are much more popular than they were a decade ago — remember Amanda from an episode of the View last July? — and have increased more than sixfold.Teen Girl Gets Lipo To "Prevent" Eating DisorderToday on The View, we met 15-year-old Amanda, who had a breast reduction and liposuction on her…Teens are often motivated to get plastic surgery because they believe their natural looks are inadequate. “Unlike adults who may elect cosmetic surgery for that ‘wow’ factor to stand out in a crowd, to be rejuvenated and get noticed, kids have a different mantra. They do it to fit in,” said Dr. Frederick Lukash, a New York plastic surgeon who specializes in adolescents. Dr. Lukash is especially familiar with why teens want to change their appearance because he has performed rhinoplasty on two of his three daughters, at the ages of 16 and 17.All teens want to fit in, and the reality is that kids will often be teased for "abnormalities" such as ears that stick out "too far", or a crooked nose. But studies show that today, most kids think there is something wrong with the way they look naturally. 7 in 10 girls said they believed that when it came to beauty and body image they did not measure up, and only 10 percent thought they were "pretty enough," according to a recent survey of 1,000 American girls sponsored by the Dove Self-Esteeem Fund. “Our children are barraged with images of ideal women and men that aren’t even real, but computer composites,” said Jean Kilbourne, co-author of So Sexy, So Soon, a book on adolescents. “These girls and boys can’t compete. The truth is, no one can. And it leaves teens feeling more inadequate than ever and a lot of parents unsure as to the right thing to do.”Often the parents and doctors who allow a child to get plastic surgery just want to spare them pain and increase their self esteem. Some even justify the plastic surgery by saying it will prevent other destructive behaviors like eating disorders, bullying, and self-mutilation. But while most doctors say they can judge how developed a teen's body is and if they are getting a procedure done for the "right" reasons, the long term effects are hard to predict. It's natural for teens to have issues with their looks because their bodies are changing so much and they're trying to figure out how to define themselves as adults. But accepting how you look is part of maturing, and if perceived imperfections are taken care of with a knife, teens may not be learning mentally how to be comfortable with their appearance.Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery [The New York Times]A Surgeon Finds Teenage Clients In His Own Family [The New York Times]Earlier: Teen Girl Gets Lipo To "Prevent" Eating Disorder

“Where can I put up tutoring flyers around town so that parents will see them?”As other answers have indicated, think about places where parents and children congregate.Ask schools if they will allow you to post your flyer on a school bulletin board or in a school newsletter. You may need to go through the school board or at least through the administration of the school. Be professional—send a formal letter first and then follow up with a personal appointment. There is a good chance that schools will require you to be a certified teacher or at least a certified teacher assistant. You may be more likely to be accepted if you offer to volunteer in a classroom situation or volunteer to help with a school club. For example, I have volunteered with the “One to One Reading” program that is widely available in schools in our province. If you aren’t a certified teacher, volunteering for opportunities like this provides you with accepted training plus experience that the school can observe in order to determine your skills, as they will usually only allow advertising of tutoring through the school if they trust your qualifications.If you are an active volunteer in a community organization such as Scouts or Guides, or perhaps a Sunday School teacher in a church, or volunteer with summer kids’ camps where your skill(s) which you want to tutor are on display, you may be able to advertise your tutoring offerings at their locations or through their newsletters or bulletins.Check around your community to see if there is a local tutor’s organization. Attend their gatherings. Find out where they advertise. Through such an organization, you can pass on to other tutors jobs that you can’t take on, and they will do the same for you. The group may also take part in community events, or have a booth (taking turns at it) at local outdoor markets and arts festivals, etc. If your community doesn’t have such an organization, seek out other tutors and form one. It can be a general group or can focus on a particular skill.Attend meetings of your local PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) or PTA or similar association. Get to know parents and mention to them (personally) about the tutoring you offer. Bring along a copy of your flyer or at least your business cards. You might be able to get permission to talk about your tutoring during the meeting; you’d need to get on the agenda before the meeting.Organization meetings: Many local organizations meet monthly or so, and are looking for speakers. Think about what you could present on (whether related to your particular tutoring skill or not) that would be of interest to such a group. Get permission to mention your tutoring business. If you can come up with a topic that combines the interests of the specific group with some aspect of your tutoring skills, all the better.Trade shows: I have had a booth at the local annual Home and Garden trade show, at which I not only advertise my tutoring (and writing and editing) business but also provide activities for children—which definitely attracts the attention of parents whose kids’ are getting bored. I have my tutoring flyers handy to hand out to the parents.Grocery stores: Some grocery and other stores have community bulletin boards. Look especially for ones that are located in residential neighborhoods with lots of families. Be sure to always ask permission.Colleges: Most colleges have bulletin boards that offer services such as tutoring for their students. Many college students are also parents, so they may be looking for tutoring for their children as well. If the college has a special area for students with children, see if you can post a notice there.Local newspapers or radio/TV shows: Many local newspapers, community radio and television stations are on the lookout for volunteers to present information. Why not write an article related to tutoring in your community, along with photos if possible, to submit to local papers? Or offer to do a radio or TV show—or be interviewed—related to topics surrounding your type of tutoring skills? Write up a proposal that suggests the kinds of information you can present. Try to make it of interest to a broad portion of the public; it will demonstrate your knowledge and skills, and you will almost certainly have time to mention your business.Seniors’ complexes: Many seniors’ complexes are looking for people to make presentations or volunteer with the residents. Think about how your skills could be offered in these locations. It doesn’t even have to be a skill you tutor. You might lead sing-songs, play table games with residents, help in their community garden, teach them skills, help them write letters or even a memoir, or just visit with lonely residents. As you build relationships, you can mention your tutoring. Seniors have children and grandchildren to whom they can mention your tutoring services; also, you may well meet parents and kids who are visiting, see your inter-relational and even teaching abilities and be impressed enough to hire you as a tutor.Other possible locations to place flyers: Daycares and Before/After School Care centres; Local public libraries; Recreation centres; bulletin boards at local beaches and parks; etc. Always get permission!Remember, if you want to “get” tutoring clients, be willing to “give” to the community in terms of volunteer time, etc. Also, use your imagination in your advertising. Besides flyers, you can do all sorts of volunteer activities to get you noticed and appreciated in the community; always carry brochures and business cards with you; create some useful booklets on topics related to your tutoring skills and make them available at trade and craft shows, and so on.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.Not surprisingly, we are finding that Nazi propagandists and Nazi sympathizers were geniuses at manipulating the truth. If you look at the abilities of these people, you see that in many respects they were the best propagandists in human history.Once I saw a presentation by a government propagandist. He was very frank about how disinformation works:“To effectively lie you cannot just make the whole thing up. This is too hard. So what you must do is take the truth and then use the facts around it to fill in the details, making the lie more believable. If someone knows that a fact has some basis in the truth, then they are less likely to second guess the rest of what you say.”And most people are fine with unsubstantiated claims because they are too lazy to look up things. Half of the citations on Wikipedia are dead links.I had read once that Joseph Stalin supposedly said “It is okay if the Red Army men act out by ‘having a little fun’ having been in battle and under stress,” meaning he endorsed the rape of German women after the Red Army went into Berlin. Given Stalin’s attitudes about sex, I found this very out of character with him. So I decided to look closer.If you look in Wikipedia, you find the name Antony Beever. He is the author of a book called Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. He has also written a few other books about WWII. Sadly, reading his work you find that he is a Nazi sympathizer. Often he makes unsubstantiated claims about Russian “atrocities” without backing them up with any kind of citations. His narrative style is far from detached, as he writes as if you are reading history like a story told by an omniscient narrator.Beever is usually cited by newspapers and media outlets in supporting the claims that German women were raped from the “ages of 8 to 80,” and that millions of women were raped. These are some very serious claims.Here is what he says in his book starting on page 534:The round of victory celebrations did not signify an end to fear in Berlin. Many German women were raped as a part of the extended celebrations. A young Soviet scientist heard from an eighteen-year-old German girl with whom he had fallen in love that on the night of 1 May a Red Army officer had forced the muzzle of his pistol into her mouth and had kept it there throughout his attack to ensure her compliance. Women soon learned to disappear during the ‘hunting hours’ of the evening. Young daughters were hidden in storage lofts for days on end. Mothers emerged into the street to fetch water only in the early morning, when Soviet soldiers were sleeping off the alcohol from the night before. Sometimes the greatest danger came from one mother giving away the hiding place of other girls in a desperate bid to save her own daughters. Berliners remember that, because all the windows had been blown in, you could hear the screams every night. Estimates from the two main Berlin hospitals ranged from 95,000 to 130,000 rape victims. One doctor deduced that out of approximately 100,000 women raped in Berlin, some 10,000 died as a result, mostly from suicide. The death rate was thought to be much higher among the 1.4 million who had suffered in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. Altogether at least 2 million German women are thought to have been raped, and a substantial minority, if not a majority, appear to have suffered multiple rape. A friend of Ursula von Kardorff and the Soviet spy Schulze-Boysen was raped by ‘twenty-three soldiers one after the other’. She had to be stitched up in hospital afterwards. The reactions of German women to the experience of rape varied greatly. For many victims, especially protected young girls who had little idea of what was being done to them, the psychological effects could be devastating. Relationships with men became extremely difficult, often for the rest of their lives. Mothers were in general far more concerned about their children, and this priority made them surmount what they had endured. Other women, both young and adult, simply tried to blank out the experience. ‘I must repress a lot in order, to some extent, to be able to live,’ one woman acknowledged, when refusing to talk about the subject. Those who did not resist and managed to detach themselves from what was happening appear to have suffered much less. Some described it in terms of an ‘out-of-body’ experience. ‘That feeling,’ wrote one, ‘has kept the experience from dominating the rest of my life.’ A robust cynicism of the Berlin variety also seemed to help. ‘All in all,’ wrote the anonymous diarist on 4 May, ‘we are slowly beginning to look upon the whole business of rape with a certain humour, albeit of the grimmer kind.’ They noted that the Ivans went for fatter women first of all, which provided a certain schadenfreude. Those who had not lost weight were usually the wives of Nazi Party functionaries and others who had profited from privileged positions. Rape had become a collective experience – the diarist noted – and therefore it should be collectively overcome by talking among themselves. Yet men, when they returned, tried to forbid any mention of the subject, even out of their presence. Women discovered that while they had to come to terms with what had happened to them, the men in their lives often made things far worse. Those who had been present at the time were shamed at their inability to protect them. Hanna Gerlitz gave in to two drunk Soviet officers to save both her husband and herself. ‘Afterwards,’ she wrote, ‘I had to console my husband and help restore his courage. He cried like a baby.’ Men who returned home, having evaded capture or been released early from prison camps, seem to have frozen emotionally on hearing that their wife or fiancée had been raped in their absence. (Many prisoners who had been in Soviet camps for longer periods also suffered from ‘desexualization’ as a result of starvation.) They found the idea of the violation of their women very hard to accept. Ursula von at her as though she had gone out of her mind. He left a couple of days later, saying that he was off to search for food. She never saw him again. A daughter, mother and grandmother who were all raped together just outside Berlin consoled themselves with the idea that the man of the house had died during the war. He would have been killed trying to prevent it, they told themselves. Yet in reality few German men appear to have demonstrated what would admittedly have been a futile courage. One well-known actor, Harry Liebke, was killed by a bottle smashed over his head as he tried to save a young woman sheltering at his apartment, but he appears to have been fairly exceptional. The anonymous diarist even heard from one woman in the water-pump queue that when Red Army soldiers were dragging her from the cellar, a man who lived in the same block had said to her, ‘Go along, for God’s sake! You’re getting us all into trouble.’ If anyone attempted to defend a woman against a Soviet attacker it was either a father or a young son trying to protect his mother. ‘The thirteen-year-old Dieter Sahl,’ neighbours wrote in a letter shortly after the event, ‘threw himself with flailing fists at a Russian who was raping his mother in front of him. He did not succeed in anything except getting himself shot.’ Perhaps the most grotesque myth of Soviet propaganda was the notion ‘that German intelligence left a great number of women in Berlin infected with venereal diseases with the purpose of infecting Red Army officers’. Another NKVD report specifically ascribed it to Werwolf activity. ‘Some members of the underground organization, Werwolf mostly girls, received from their leaders the task to harm Soviet commanders and render them unfit for duty.’ Even just before the attack from the Oder, Soviet military authorities explained the increase in VD rates on the grounds that ‘the enemy is prepared to use any methods to weaken us and to put our soldiers and officers out of action’. Large numbers of women soon found that they had to queue at medical centres.It was small consolation to find so many in the same condition. One woman doctor set up a venereal diseases clinic in an air-raid shelter, with the sign ‘Typhoid’ written in Cyrillic outside to keep Russian soldiers away. As the film The Third Man illustrated, penicillin was soon the most sought-after item on the black market. The abortion rate also soared. It has been estimated that around 90 per cent of victims who became pregnant obtained abortions, although this figure appears extremely high. Many of the women who did give birth abandoned the child in the hospital, usually because they knew that their husband or fiancé would never accept its presence at home. At times it is hard to know whether young Soviet officers suffered from cynicism or a completely blind idealism. ‘The Red Army is the most advanced moral army in the world,’ a senior lieutenant declared to a sapper officer. ‘Our soldiers attack only an armed enemy. No matter where we are, we always set an example of humanity towards the local population and any displays of violence and looting are totally foreign to us.’ Most frontline rifle divisions demonstrated better discipline than, say, tank brigades and rear units. And a wide range of anecdotal evidence indicates that Red Army officers who were Jewish went out of their way to protect German women and girls. Yet it would appear that the majority of officers and soldiers turned a blind eye to Stalin’s order of 20 April, issued through the Stavka, ordering all troops ‘to change their attitudes towards Germans… and treat them better’. Significantly, the reason given for the instruction was that ‘brutal treatment’ provoked a stubborn resistance ‘and such a situation is not convenient for us’. A liberated French prisoner of war approached Vasily Grossman in the street on 2 May. ‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I like your army and that is why it is painful for me to see how it is treating girls and women. It is going to do great harm to your propaganda.’ This indeed proved to be the case. In Paris, Communist Party leaders, riding high on the crest of admiration for the Red Army, were appalled when returning prisoners of war recounted the less heroic version of events. But it still took a long time before the message began to get through to the Soviet authorities. Many think that the Red Army was given two weeks to plunder and rape in Berlin before discipline was exerted, but it was not nearly so simple as that. On 3 August, three months after the surrender in Berlin, Zhukov had to issue even tougher the Soviet propaganda about ‘liberation from the fascist clique’ was starting to backfire, especially when the wives and daughters of German Communists were treated as badly as everyone else. ‘Such deeds and unsanctioned behaviour,’ the order stated, ‘are compromising us very badly in the eyes of German anti-fascists, particularly now that the war is over, and greatly assist fascist campaigns against the Red Army and the Soviet government.’ Commanders were blamed for allowing their men to wander off unsupervised. ‘Unsanctioned absences’ had to cease. Sergeants and corporals were to check that their men were present every morning and every evening. Soldiers were to be issued with identity cards. Troops were not to leave Berlin without movement orders. In fact, the order contained a list of measures which any western army would have considered as normal even in barracks at home. Articles in the international press followed the subject throughout the summer. The effect on client Communist Parties abroad, then at the height of their prestige, clearly alarmed the Kremlin. ‘This scoundrel campaign,’ wrote Molotov’s deputy, ‘is aimed to damage the very high reputation of the Red Army and to shift the responsibility for all that is happening in the occupied countries on to the Soviet Union… Our numerous friends all over the world need to be armed with information and facts for counter-propaganda.’ Standards of morality had indeed taken a battering, but in the circumstances there was little option. On returning to Berlin, Ursula von Kardorff saw the scenes of impoverished people bartering near the Brandenburg Gate. She was immediately reminded of a line in Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, ‘First comes food, then come morals.’ The Brandenburg Gate had become the main focus for barter and the black market at the beginning of May, when liberated prisoners of war and forced labourers traded their loot. Ursula von Kardorff found all sorts of women prostituting themselves for food or the alternative currency of cigarettes. ‘ Willkommen in Shanghai ,’ remarked one cynic. Young women of thirty looked years older, she noticed. The need to survive had distorted more than just morals. The anonymous diarist, a former publisher, was approached by a Soviet sailor so young that he should still have been at school. He asked her to find him a clean and decent girl who was of good character and affectionate. He would provide her with food, the usual ration being bread, herring and bacon. The writer Ernst Jünger, when a Wehrmacht officer in occupied Paris, observed that food is power. The power, of course, becomes even greater when a woman has a child to feed, as so many German soldiers found in France. In Berlin, the black-market exchange rate was based on Zigarettenwährung – ‘cigarette currency’ – so when American soldiers arrived with almost limitless cartons at their disposal, they did not need to rape. The definition of rape had become blurred into sexual coercion. A gun or physical violence became unnecessary when women faced starvation. This could be described as the third stage in the evolution of rape in Germany in 1945. The fourth was a strange form of cohabitation in which many Soviet officers settled in with German ‘occupation wives’ who replaced the Soviet ‘campaign wife’. Real wives back in the Soviet Union had been furious to hear of ‘campaign wives’, but their moral outrage knew no bounds when they heard of the new trend. The Soviet authorities were also appalled and enraged when a number of Red Army officers, intent on staying with their German mistresses, deserted once it was time to return to the Motherland. After being approached by the young sailor, the diarist wondered whether she herself had become a whore by accepting the protection and nutritional largesse of a cultivated Russian major. Like most of his countrymen, he respected her education, while German men she knew tended to dislike women who had been to university. Yet wherever the truth lay between rape and prostitution, these pacts to obtain food and protection had thrown women back to a primitive, almost primeval state. Ursula von Kardorff, on the other hand, foresaw that although German women had been forced to become even more resilient than German men, they would soon have to revert to stereotype on the men’s return from prison camps. ‘Perhaps we women,’ she wrote, ‘now face our hardest job in this war – to give understanding and comfort, support and courage to so many utterly defeated and desperate men.’ Germany had fought on for as long and as bitterly as it did because the idea of defeat produced ‘a conviction of total catastrophe’. Germans believed that their country would be totally subjugated and that their soldiers would spend the rest of their lives as slaves in Siberia. Yet once resistance collapsed with Hitler’s death, the change in German attitudes surprised Russians in Berlin. They were struck ‘by the docility and discipline of the people’, having half-expected the sort of ferocious partisan war seeing every fugitive or incident as an example of Werwolf activity. Each NKVD Frontier Guards Regiment was arresting over 100 Germans a day in early May. Over half were handed over to SMERSH. Some of the worst denouncers to the Soviet authorities were former Nazis, perhaps trying to put their denunciations in before they themselves were revealed. SMERSH blackmailed former members of the Nazi Party into helping NKVD units hunt down SS and Wehrmacht officers. Squads with sniffer dogs were used to search apartments and allotment sheds, where many German deserters had so recently been hiding from SS and Feldgendarmerie detachments. Soviet sabotage theories included the idea ‘that leaders of fascist organizations are preparing mass poisonings in Berlin through selling poisoned lemonade and beer’. Children found playing with panzerfausts and abandoned weapons faced interrogation as suspected Werwolf members, and SMERSH was interested only in confessions. The one sign of overt defiance appears to have been a handful of Nazi posters in Lichtenberg, proclaiming, ‘The Party Lives On!’ There was also one striking exception to the general pattern of submission. On the night of 20 May, ‘an unknown number of bandits’ attacked Special NKVD camp No. 10 and liberated 466 prisoners. Major Kyuchkin, the camp commandant, was ‘at a banquet’ when the attack took place. Beria was furious. After the NKVD’s strong criticism of senior army officers for their lack of vigilance, this incident was deeply embarrassing. Women in Berlin just wanted to get life back to some semblance of normality. The most common sight in Berlin became the Trümmerfrauen, the ‘rubble women’, forming human chains with buckets to clear smashed buildings and salvage bricks. Many of the German men left in the city were either in hiding or had collapsed with psychosomatic illnesses as soon as the fighting was over.[1]Next, let’s take a look at these claims with some actual facts, instead of unsubstantiated claims.The myth of "raped Germany" composed GoebbelsIn recent years, Victory Day has acquired another, alas, not very beautiful tradition: the closer the holiday, the more often all kinds of "researchers" begin to broadcast the myth of "raped Germany"ALEXEY OVCHINNIKOVFirst day of peace in Berlin. Soviet soldiers communicate with civilians.In this case, the number of German maidens, allegedly affected by the Red Army, only grows over the years.But who needs the Russian soldier to remain in people's memory not as a liberator and protector, but as a rapist and robber?We talked about this with the leading researcher of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of History,Professor Elena Senyavskaya."The Nazis were intimidated to the point that they committed suicide"- Elena Spartakovna, is this all a consequence of perestroika?Those years gave birth to a lot of nonsense ...- Not certainly in that way.This vile story began much earlier, with Goebbels propaganda, when it was announced to the population that the Red Army brutally raped all German women aged from 8 to 80 years.And the people were really scared to the limit, to the extent that the activists of the Nazi party first killed their families, and then themselves.Elena Senyavskaya- Why did you need such an image?- Firstly, in order to increase the resistance of the advancing Red Army, secondly, that the population would leave with their retreating units, so that the Soviet troops would not help.The Goebbels case in the same 1945 continued by the Allies, then the first publications appeared, where the Red Army was already attempted to be represented as an army of marauders and rapists, while being completely silent about the outrages that were happening in the western occupation zone.Since the beginning of the Cold War, the topic has been exaggerated, but not as aggressively and massively as it has been in the last twenty years.The "raped" figures were at first modest: from 20 thousand to 150 thousand throughout Germany But in 1992, after the collapse of the Union, the book of two feminists, Helke Zander and Barbara Yor, The Liberators and the Liberated, was published in Germany, where for the first time the figure of 2 million was derived.Moreover, it was derived on the basis of a completely incorrect package: statistical data were taken in one Berlin hospital for 1945-1946, where about 500 children were born per year, and about 15-20 people in the column “father’s nationality” indicated “ Russian".Moreover, in two or three such cases it was stated “raped”.What are these "researchers" doing?They considered that in all cases when the father was Russian, there was rape.Then the Goebbels form "from 8 to 80" was taken and simply multiplied.However, this figure has received widespread since 2002, with the publication of the book by Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin, Which was published in 2004 with us.And the mythical “2 million”, on the eve of the anniversary of the Victory, went for a walk through the liberal media ...Germans are tired of repenting- You can understand those who injected this topic during the Cold War.But then the Berlin Wall collapsed, and according to Gorbachev, "peace and friendship" were established ...- The geopolitical realities have changed.On the other side, attempts were made to revise the results of the Second World War, plus the desire to withdraw theUSSR (and Russia, as its successor) from among the winners, and here all means are good.This was one of the steps that led to the fact that in a number of decisions of European organizations, including the European Parliament, Stalinism and Nazism were equated, when the aggressor and its victim were put on the same level, replacing the topic of guilt and responsibility, and making us repent for what was not.- It turns out that these “researchers” did not write essays themselves, but received a certain order from those who built this new geopolitics? ..- Naturally.The second reason why the West liked the myth is in the psychology of the German people, who are tired of feeling guilty, there the last generations are already saying: why should we repent of the ancestors' guilt?They are now rising wave of sentiment, which in the formation of national identity is trying to approve the idea that their ancestors are not so guilty, that there was no collective responsibility of the Germans ... That's where the geopolitical order closes with the mood of the masses.Set aside revenge!- And what really was rape?- We cannot say that there were no such phenomena at all.There were, but not on the scale about which they lie to us today.In the documents, such facts were considered as “emergencies and immoral phenomena”.The country's leadership and commanders themselves believed that it was not only that it formed the negative image of the Red Army, but also shattered discipline.And they struggled with this by all means, starting with party political work, explanations, ending with tribunal sentences, right up to executions of looters and rapists.Berlin residents talk with a Soviet officer.- Do you have statistics?- Unfortunately, not all documents are declassified yet.But those that are, allow us to calculate the scale of the phenomenon.Here is the report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Byelorussian Front on illegal actions against the civilian population for the period from April 22 to May 5, 1945.For the seven armies of the front, 908,500 people recorded 124 crimes, of which 72 were rapes.Only 72 cases for 908.5 thousand ...- Your opponents write that a wave of rape happened before the capture of Berlin ...- On April 20, there appeared directives on changing attitudes towards the German civilian population and prisoners of war.So our opponents resist the fact that the order was late, while the entire period of winter-early spring of the 45th Red Army was outraged with impunity.It is not true.Because besides this order and subsequent directives, there were orders at the level of fronts, armies, and separate units that were issued before the Red Army entered the territories of other states.Brochures were distributed that told about the history of a particular country, its culture, and local traditions.In January of the 45th there were orders at the level ofKonev, Rokossovsky, Zhukov, which were supposed to send a sense of revenge on the right track and prevent negative phenomena.- And how did the soldiers perceive it?After all, many lost loved ones at home, they brought up this feeling of revenge, remember Ilya Ehrenburg with his “Kill the German!”, And then they reached the lair, and suddenly - “set aside revenge” ...- Naturally, many of those explanations about the new feeling of revenge did not suit.In political messages, conversations between fighters are recorded, they are outraged by orders: “first they said one thing, now the other, and why we should feel sorry for these Germans if they behaved like this on our territory” ... But on the one hand - tough disciplinary measures, on the other - Russian chad loves (even the Germans admitted that our soldiers treated German children very well, fed them not only as part of the centralized food supply, but from their own rations, sometimes giving away everything that happened), did not allow large-scale acts of mesti.And the main point that was emphasized at all levels is that “we should not be like the Germans” in our actions.- Historian Yury Zhukov claimed that rape and other crimes were mostly committed not by the soldiers of the Red Army, but by the former Red Army soldiers and civilians who had just been hijacked to Germany who had just been released from concentration camps ...- Yes, they were awaiting shipment home, were not controlled by the command, there was generally quite a motley crowd of repatriates.They strayed into gangs and began to rob local people, to recoup for the humiliations they had to endure.And since this was happening in the zone of responsibility of the Soviet troops, all this was passed on to our servicemen.There are other testimonies: as allies freed from the camps, were engaged in looting in Berlin, stuffing cars with junk, and at the exit from the city we already demanded that everything be returned to the place.Another point: in the same reports of military prosecutors, it is often indicated that slander cases occur when the alleged rape was not confirmed, while the commanders managed to punish the innocent.A very interesting diary was left by the Australian correspondent Osmar White, who accompanied the American army, and visited all zones of occupation.He did not feel much sympathy for us, but argued that the Red Army, unlike the allied ones, was very disciplined, that the Soviet administration was very effective not only in fighting crimes, but also in the field of urban recovery, and providing the population with everything necessary for life.And that all the horrors that tell about our soldiers are, on the one hand, rumors and gossip, on the other, these crimes are mostly committed by repatriates.The Germans fled from the Anglo-Americans to the Russians- And how do women from those territories treat our soldiers?- Oh, you can write a whole dissertation on this topic.First, the enormous difference of mentalities.Nonsense, all these stories that the soldiers, especially from the countryside, were rashristannymi and fornication by definition.On the contrary - for the most part they were brought up in patriarchal traditions, and it was a real savagery for them that the Hungarians and Austrians had many intimate relationships before marriage.I won’t talk about who she is in the understanding of the Russian soldier, so some disgust towards such women flowed from here.The commanders were also in shock: there were a lot of reports in which it was reported that as soon as the unit took up a settlement, groups of women headed by “mothers” came to them.Who immediately offered their famous services.And in all cases, the reaction of our officers was angry and abusive.Plus, it was often revealed that the Nazis deliberately left a certain number of women infected with veno-diseases.For the withdrawal of soldiers from the system.Is this also "raped Germany"?In Romania and Hungary, we went to brothels.But, as a rule, not very many, out of curiosity, and even then they have unpleasant feelings, a feeling of disgust and misunderstanding.The very idea of ​​buying another person did not fit in the head of a Soviet person.Do not forget that there was such a very common phenomenon as military prostitution.The diaries of the German women are preserved, where they philosophically argue that prostitution is a quite respectable profession.This was very common, especially in the Western occupation zone, where the Germans, by the way, were very poorly supplied with food (unlike the Soviet zone, where children under 8 were even given milk).The daily ration of the German was less than the American breakfast.Naturally, women were forced to trade in a known manner.In this rape there was more than enough.And if the Germans make claims of violence, not to us, but to the allies, from whom the Germans, in horror, fled en masse to the Soviet occupation zone.- And how, by the way, did the American command react to the crimes of its subordinates?- Often - prefer not to pay attention.In the diaries of the same Osmar White it is said that crimes against German women were massive, that the American command did not in any way suppress these phenomena, and if any repression followed, it was only against the Negro rapists.- racism?- Yes.In the minds of the American commanders, the Negroes dared to raise a hand against a white woman, and having tried this case could bring this habit to the American land.Different and French troops.In the US Senate after the war, the behavior of the native French formations, the Senegalese, was told inStuttgart. Figures were raped within one or two days: about three thousand only in the Stuttgart subway.Until now, the Italians are making claims to the Anglo-American military for a marroconate — the excesses of the Moroccans who turned around inItaly. These guys raped not only women, but also boys ...Trophies - fabric cuts and needles- We are also accused of looting.The same trophies, by the way, from where?- It is very interesting here.Full of documents, which states that engaged in looting, mostly Anglo-Americans.Moreover, the full program.They took the property with ships, and they did not immediately begin to repair obstacles in the ports.Basically, they were engaged in the collection of various values.As for the Red Army, there was such a thing as a “bricarchy”.- What is it?- It was not about robbery, but about collecting abandoned orphan property: open houses, broken shops, abandoned suitcases ... But even this was fought as a dampening phenomenon ... At some point, the command allowed sending parcels to their homeland.And they did not send a watch with diamonds, but what was needed in a war-torn economy.The sets of sewing needles were valued, they could be exchanged for a good set of products ... Fabric cuts, because there were no clothes left at home ... A lot of working tools were sent: hammers, pliers, planers - the fighters knew that they would soon return then rebuild burnt villages.They can not be blamed for this.At the same time, in all letters enclosed in parcels, soldiers justify themselves to their wives and relatives for rags and junk.They had a very squeamish attitude towards all of this ...- By the way, remember, recently the entire Internet was discussing the famous photo with a view of the Reichstag, where there are two pairs of watches on the same hand of an officer?- It has long been understood.There is actually a clock and a compass, relying commander.Or remember a photo of a Soviet soldier taking a bicycle from a Berlin resident, and how the network liberals screamed about looting.But there was an instruction to confiscate the bikes for the needs of the army and the fighter carried it out.Do you understand the difference of approaches?The story is denigrated not for free- By the way, about our homegrown liberals.What interest is it for them to broadcast lies about their ancestors?- In fact, there are people who do it quite consciously.And, let's say, not free.And we are not necessarily talking about monetary remuneration, there are other ways of encouraging - traveling abroad, receiving grants, citizenship ... But there is also a large stratum of Internet leaders who thoughtlessly repeat the lies behind the first group.They are so clouded mind that they are willing to believe in any nonsense.- So it is not only network hamsters, the intelligentsia is already engaged in this.Here, Pavel Polyan, a teacher at the North Caucasus Federal University, on one very liberal radio, responding to a question about the fate of our women, who were intimate with the occupiers, replied:In any case, this is not commensurate with the mass rape that the Red Army abused when entering Germany ... ”There are many disagreements between Russian historians on this subject, by the way?- I would not like to focus on specific colleagues.There are historians from the professional community, and there are people who position themselves as such, as we call them, folk-history, who, doing amateur activities, are trying to impose their opinions on society.So, there are no disagreements among professionals on this topic and there can not be ..."This is an attempt to deprive the people of history"- Not only that the image of a drunken and horny Russian soldier appears in Western films, so we ourselves shoot such films!- It is not now started, remember how many such films were there right after the collapse of the Union.And the first picture, which showed the war not from a position of slander, but from a patriotic point of view, came out only in 2002, The Star.Everything that came out before was filled with myths about Stalinist tyranny, about the “bloody” NKVD, SMERSH, special departments, which, it turns out, was the only thing they did that they shot back good officers and terrorized the fighters.And the idea was brought that the Victory was given to us contrary to the leadership, and in a whole number there was a veiled answer that maybe we didn’t even completely won ...- What for?- The Great Patriotic War still remains in our history the episode that unites the people, and not only ours, but also other peoples of the former USSR.And when they try to annihilate or slander May 9, the goal of this is quite obvious - it is an attempt to deprive the people of its history and to show that we have no past to be proud of.If the majority of the population can be convinced of this, then such a people will have no future.Understand the history of the Great Patriotic War has long become a large-scale field of information battle.- We lose in it?- In general, yes.- Why only lone historians oppose attacks on our history?The state seems to be talking about the need to protect history from falsehood, but the films in which the Russian soldier - frozen frost continues to be shot, and the liberals quietly continue to broadcast on the "crimes" of the Red Army on state channels ...- Do you want to hear from me about it?Because in fact, there is no opposition to falsehood at the state level.And it must be very tough.And the questions to be asked should be exactly the top officials of the country.One of the Russian emperors, Nicholas I, having somehow learned thata play was staged in Paris, denigrating the Russian army, demanded that it be removed.And when the French, referring to the freedom of creativity, refused, he replied: well, then I will send you a million viewers in their overcoats, and they will envelop you ... The piece was immediately removed.- Can you imagine that someone in the United States "at the behest of the soul" makes a film in which American soldiers in Germany only do what they rape, rob and drink? ..- I think that in the career of such directors and screenwriters this film would be the last one, they very closely follow such manifestations of “freedom”.They understand how dangerous it is.Not only that: research on this topic, if conducted, is not particularly advertised.By the way, back in 1989, the book The Other Losses was published by Canadian author James Buck, who argued that over one million German prisoners were starved to death in the camps of the American occupation zone.He was immediately pecked by his colleagues and declared almost a fool ...FROM FIRST SETEyewitnesses about Germany 45th“... At the end of my first day in Berlin, I was sure that the city was dead.Human beings simply could not live in this terrible pile of garbage.By the end of the first week, my performances began to change.Society began to revive among the ruins.The Berliners began to receive water and food in quantities sufficient to survive.More and more people were employed in public works under the guidance of Russians.Thanks to the Russians, who have extensive experience in dealing with such problems in their own devastated cities, the spread of epidemics was controlled.I am convinced that the Soviets in those days did more to allow Berlin to survive than the Anglo-Americans could do in their place ... ”“... After the fighting moved to German soil, many rape cases were committed by soldiers of front-line units and those who followed directly behind them.Their number depended on the attitude of senior officers to this ... Lawyers recognized that for cruel and perverted sexual acts with German women, some soldiers were shot, especially in those cases when they were negros.However, I knew that many women were raped by white Americans.No action was taken against the criminals ... "“... In the Red Army, severe discipline prevails.There is no more robbery, rape and bullying than any other zone of occupation.Wild stories of atrocities emerge due to exaggerations and distortions of individual cases under the influence of nervousness caused by the immoderate manner of Russian soldiers and their love of vodka.One woman who told me most of the tales about the cruelties of Russians, from which her hair stood on end, was eventually forced to admit that the only evidence she saw with her own eyes was how drunk Russian officers fired pistols into the air and along bottles ... "From the diaries of the Australian war correspondent Osmar White“... We moved to Oberhunden.Colored guys staged the hell out here.They set fire to the house.They slaughtered everyone the Germans with razors and raped ... "From the diary of the US Army signalman Edward Wise“... At about the same time I had to talk with one pretty Magyar woman.When I asked her if I liked it inBudapest, I answered that I liked it, only brothels confuse me. “But why?” The girl asked.Because it is unnatural, wild, - I explained.- A woman takes the money and after that begins “to love!”From the memoirs of cavalryman Alexander Motherland“... We went to some German city, settled in houses.A “frau” of 45 years old appears and asks the “Hera of the commandant”.He declares that he is responsible for the quarter and gathered 20 German women for the sexual (!!!) service of Russian soldiers ... The reaction of the officers was angry and abusive.They drove the German along with her ready-to-serve "squad" .... "From the memoirs of the mortar Naum Orlov"... A little further, at the railway crossing in front of the village, we were met by a" post for the collection of weapons and hours. "I thought I was dreaming about it: civilized, prosperous Englishmen take away the watches from the overgrown German soldiers!From there we were sent to the schoolyard in the center of the village.There have already gathered a lot of German soldiers.The Englishmen guarding us rolled chewing gum between our teeth - which was new to us - and they were praising each other with their trophies, throwing up their hands, humbled by their watches ...From the memories of Chief Corporal Egon Kopiske“... All this has been acquired in a completely honest way and do not imagine that robbery and robbery are underway in Germany.Full order.When attacking, they confiscated the abandoned "aces" by the Berlin and distributed to someone as a comradely ... "From the letter of foreman V.V.Syrlitsyna wifeREFERENCE "KP"Senyavskaya Elena Spartakovna- Leading Researcher at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of History, Professor, full member of the Academy of Military Sciences.Specialist in Russian military history of the 20th century, military psychology, author of over 250 scientific papers.SOURCE[2]KP.RUEven more materials on the topic:"GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR: PAGES OF HISTORYInterestingly, the German soldiers were not short of sexual activity, as they were provided access to prostitutes:This is from Anna Hag’s research:Sex outside of marriage was openly promoted by controversial League of German Girls (BDM) scandalous Nazi organisation. In 1944, a group of German parents complained to the court that the leaders of the League were openly telling their daughters to have illegitimate children. Public opinion attributed a great deal of sexual laxity to the members. The preparation camps for the 'Landdienst' (land service) of girls and boys often lay adjacent to each other. 900 of the girls participating in the 1936 Reichsparteitag in Nürnberg became pregnant. One of these mothers named 13 boys as the possible fatherImage: This is the example of a Hitler Youth membership card, this time for a member of the Jungmaedel.Speaking of faith-based programs, the Nazis promoted young women in the League of German Girls into something dubbed "Faith and Beauty." This elite group was made up of German types, age 17 to about 28, dressed glamorous and look forward to bearing gorgeous German children to S.S. leaders. Since most of those SS leaders were already married, bigamy was seen as a eugenic necessity.Girls from Faith and Beauty group were volunteerely served for sexual satisfaction of married SS leaders. Girls did it sincerely with pleasure.Hot and horny for HitlerIMAGE: WW2. KAMPF FÜR DIE SACHE (FIGHT FOR THE CAUSE) POSTER. Pin-Ups - "Spintmädchen". German propaganda in WWII.Brothels were an integral part of the Wehrmacht army and Hitler politic. Hitler prohibited unregistered self-employed street prostitutes in Germany and in all occupied countries. However he established brothels and demanded women to prostitute there as official registered prostitutes under the medical control because 10%of wehrmacht soldiers had gonorrhea and syphilis.Patriotic German women, members of NSDAP, went to work in brothels solely voluntarily and out of patriotic motives. The German Union of Women and the Association of German girls “Faith and Beauty”, supplied ideologically savvy girls to Wehrmacht field brothels. Moreover, prostitution was considered as a honorable job: Nazi prostitutes sincerely believed that they were contributing to the victory of The Third German Reich. German prostitutes received salary, insurances, benefits, vacations, pension, as well as proper medical care, they considered as a military workers.Photo: Induction ceremony in the BDM in Marienburg, 1937. Ten year-old aryan girls born in 1927 are admitted in the Jungmaedelbund of the BDM during a celebration in the refectory of the West Prussian town of Marienburg. Date: 20/04/1937SOURCES :{ Bund Deutscher Maedel }Wehrmacht Brothels / der Erste ZugHot and horny for HitlerLeague of German Girls - WikipediaExhibit reveals Hitler Youth sex mania at the Nuremberg ralliesStock Photo - Induction ceremony in the BdM in Marienburg, 1937Source: Anna Hag's answer to What was everyday life like for the non-Jewish people in Nazi Germany?Footnotes[1] http://Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Antony Beever, Viking Press, 2002, pg 534-537 pg 534[2] Миф об "изнасилованной Германии" сочинил Геббельс