NOT ALL BOYS ARE EXPERTS. Why Holding a Breast Implant in Your Hand Doesn't Tell You the Whole Story

As your boyfriend, he probably thinks he is qualified as someone with a fair amount of experience knowing what a natural breast feels like.

So when his partner was considering breast implants and someone handed him an implant to squeeze, he thought, "Great. This should tell me exactly what the final result will feel like."

It turns out he will be completely wrong.

Holding a breast implant in your hand is actually a terrible way to predict how a breast will feel after surgery. Think about it. The implant sitting in your palm is completely naked. No skin. No fat. No breast tissue. No support.

It's a bit like squeezing a peeled durian segment and trying to judge what eating a whole durian is like. You're experiencing only one component of the final package.

Naturally, most guys pick up an implant and start doing what guys do.

We squeeze it.

We poke it.

We bend it.

We hold it up to the light.

Then we inevitably notice a wrinkle or fold and start wondering whether the finished breast is going to feel like a crumpled shopping bag.

Thankfully, that's not how it works.

Once implanted, the device sits underneath layers of tissue. Depending on the patient, that can include breast tissue, fat, skin, and sometimes muscle. All of these layers contribute to how the breast feels.

In real life, nobody is feeling "the implant."

They're feeling the implant plus everything covering it.

This is why an implant that feels surprisingly firm in your hand can feel much softer once it's inside the body. Likewise, wrinkles that seem obvious when you're holding the implant may become completely unnoticeable after surgery.

The final feel depends on many factors:

• The thickness of the patient's natural tissue

• The amount of breast fat and glandular tissue

• Skin elasticity

• Implant placement

• Surgical pocket design

Two women can even receive the exact same implant and end up with very different results because their tissues are different.

The body changes everything. It's similar to judging a sofa by squeezing a piece of foam before it's wrapped in upholstery. You're not experiencing the finished product.

So if you're a boyfriend evaluating implants during a consultation, don't put too much weight on what you're feeling in your hand. The real-world experience comes after the implant is surrounded by tissue and becomes part of the breast.