For a number of reasons, it’s important that women think twice about going for that “perfect look”, which is why I posted this article by via alternet. If you are concerned you don’t look like the “perfect” nymphs in porn movies and on Internet websites, don’t worry, your boyfriend or husband or female lover isn’t concerned, unless you’ve signed on with a superficial lover. Simply put, they’re glad you’re sharing this part of your body with them. They may actually think that having you, and the way you are, is better than winning the lottery. Perfection has more to do with presentation and positive self-esteem than the specific size, shape or color of your labia.
However, some women, due to extreme labia size, could reasonably be concerned about their situation (before and after picture at the end of this article). A woman may suffer practical concerns such as pain and physical discomfort. Vanessa Scott, a vaginal surgery consultant, provides an objective and comprehensive website on this subject. If you have medical reasons or are hell-bent to have labiaplasty, Vanessa offers this essential advice. But other than these extreme cases that affect more than self esteem, labia size, shape and color reflects nothing more than a woman’s personality. What you have between your legs may serve to make you more tantalizing.
Also see Labiaplasty: What do “Normal” Labia Look Like
Women are risking their lives to achieve an unrealistic and unnecessary ideal.
Type “labiaplasty,” “vaginoplasty” or any of nearly a dozen female genital cosmetic surgeries into any search engine, and a flurry of doctors’ Web sites will pop up touting the self-esteem, sexual enhancement, comfort and fashion benefits of female genital cosmetic surgery.
These sites, typically decorated with airbrushed pictures of lovely women in various states of undress or even nude, are replete with before-and-after photos of trimmed-down labia and gushing quotes from satisfied customers.
Many of these sites promise ecstasy, plus: “Laser vaginal reconstruction can accomplish what ever [sic] you desire.”
Some patients seem happy with the results.
“When my husband and I had sex, well, it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” a 40-year-old woman reports, six weeks after a three-hour combination labiaplasty, vaginoplasty and clitoral unhooding, costing at low estimate of $15,000 (a high estimate: at least double that). “I had an orgasm probably within three minutes. … I feel like I’ve found what I had lost … I feel like I’m 25 again!”
Her surgeon reports this case study as “Strengthening Our Love For Each Other.”
Dig a little deeper though, and you find stories tinged with grief and regret about genital “enhancement” surgeries gone wrong.
“Had the surgery 1/07,” one woman reports. “Can’t say enough [about] how much I regret it. The problems I had it done for can’t even compare to the pain and discomfort I’m having now. The surgeon, who has extensive experience, doesn’t know why this is happening.”
One of the newest wrinkles in the business of sex is the explosion of genital cosmetic surgery.
Not surprisingly, women constitute 90 percent of patients requesting these surgeries. Both physician and popular Internet sites prey on women’s sexual insecurities by promoting appearance and alleged sexual benefits, but pay scant attention to the wide range of normal genital appearance, the variability of sexual response and possible harm.
The New View Campaign Working Group on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery, a project that I participated in, identified unresearched claims made about female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS) and analyzed how the rhetoric used by the body-modification and sexual-medicine industries has co-opted core feminist concepts of empowerment, self-determination and choice for profit.
Our review of medical, academic and popular literature, and a survey of physicians’ promotional materials provides a disturbing picture.
There are nearly a dozen genital “remodeling” procedures.
The most popular by far is labiaplasty, the trimming of one or both sides of the inner lips or labia minora, or cutting out a V-shaped wedge. As a part of the clitoral system, the inner lips are sexually sensitive, so removal of this densely innervated tissue to get better sex seems, well, counterintuitive.
The next most popular surgery is vaginal tightening: vaginoplasty or vaginal rejuvenation, which involves removal of part of the vaginal lining and tightening tissue and muscles surrounding the vaginal opening.
The question about the development of scar tissue and disruption during future vaginal births is typically left unaddressed.
Reduction of the glans or tip of the clitoris (clitoropexy) for is done for purely aesthetic purposes. The only function of the glans is sexual sensation, so trimming can in no way enhance sexual pleasure. The protective clitoral hood (or “unhooding”) is rarely requested, but is often offered (for additional cost) along with labiaplasty. The idea that reduction or removal may enhance clitoral sensation is pure mythology.
Hymen restoration or repair (hymenoplasty) is done to provide the illusion of virginity when the hymen has been broken through normal activities or intercourse. Some women are having hymenoplasty as a “Valentine’s present” to their lovers.
Removal of a tough or “imperforate” hymen for functional reasons is variously called hymenotomy or hymenectomy.
The wildly controversial “G shot” is an injection of a quarter-sized dollop of human-engineered collagen through the vaginal wall into the urethral sponge, the spongy tissue surrounding the urethra.
Developed and franchised by Dr. David Matlock of Dr. 90210 fame, this procedure must be redone every few months. According to Matlock’s Web site, and unpublished data, this injection results in “enhanced sexual arousal and sexual gratification for 87 percent of normal sexually functioning women.”
Many women sing the praises of the shot: “After my G shot, I get sexually aroused performing yoga.” But comedian Margaret Cho reported no sexual enhancement at all and says it felt like she was “sitting on a hemorrhoid donut.”
Other procedures include pubic mound reduction, reducing or poofing up the outer lips or labia majora and “building up and strengthening” the perineal body.
Regarding the ecstatic reviews, psychologist Carol Tavris notes that “One of the most well-documented findings in sociology is called the ‘justification of effort’ effect: The more time, effort, money and pain that people invest in a procedure, program, surgery, or other activity, the more motivated they are to justify it.
“How easy would it be for you to find a Marine willing to say that cadet hazing and suffering were unnecessary and brutal?” Or “… to get George Bush to say ‘Gee, I guess going to Iraq was a bad decision?’ “
All women by far are not enthused. “Perhaps the only rejuvenation going on is the doctor’s wallet,” an anonymous contributor to the Wall Street Journal blog opined. On Women’s Health News, Rachel Walden observed “… spending $3,500 to $20,000 cutting up your hoo-ha isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with you.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists noted in 2007 that these “procedures are not medically indicated, and the safety and effectiveness … have not been documented. No adequate studies have been published assessing the long-term satisfaction, safety and complication rates,” although the college dropped the ball by failing to institute regulations or sanctions.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons informally agrees with this policy, but does not have a formal policy of its own.
Women may believe that their doctors are proficient in these techniques, but ob-gyns, family-practice physicians and urologists are promoting and performing these lucrative surgeries with minimal training.
By Matlock’s estimation, doctors in all 50 states, and around the world, operate as “franchisees” of his business. Although he has been asked repeatedly for documentation on safety and effectiveness, Matlock has refused to publish any outcome studies, citing his need to “protect his intellectual property.”
The most reliable evidence of the possible negative after-effects of genital surgeries is reported in follow-up reports on children with intersex conditions. In many cases, labia reduction removes sexually sensitive tissue, may cause lifelong hypersensitivity or numbness, pain on intercourse, infection, adhesions and scarring.
Some doctors acknowledge the downside of these putative enhancement procedures.
“We have seen many unfortunate examples of terrible, scarred, uneven results of labiaplasty from other physicians who have attempted labia-reduction surgery with typically poor results, which are usually permanent,” Dr. Robert Roh, a New York City gynecologist, reports on his Web site.
Dr. Red Alinsod, an Orange County, Calif., gynecologist, concurs: “The numbers of patients requiring labiaplasty revisions have dramatically increased over the past several years. It is not a common procedure but one that is steadily on the rise as more surgeons attempt to perform labiaplasty surgery without knowledge of the basic tenets of aesthetic vaginal surgery.”
No guidelines for “normal” genital appearance exist. An article in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Jillilan Lloyd and colleagues notes that “Previous work has defined the labia minora as hypertrophic [enlarged or overgrown] … if the maximum distance from the base to edge was [greater than] 4 centimeters.” After careful measurement of 50 volunteers ages 18 and 50, these authors report “wide variation in all parameters assessed,” with the width of the labia minora varying from 7 to 50 centimeters in width.
Describing protuberant labia minora as “looking like a spaniel’s ears,” French surgeons reported a high patient satisfaction rate for 98 women who answered a post-operative mail questionnaire.
Although they defined labia minora hypertrophy to be greater than 4 centimeters, they concluded “… we believe that hypertrophy of the labia minora is definitely a mere variant of normal anatomy.” The 7 percent dissatisfaction rate was caused by poor aesthetic or functional result, or unrealistic patient expectations. The authors concede that “… 40 percent of the patients did not respond to the questionnaire, or were lost to follow-up, thus giving a potentially lower satisfaction rate.”
Normal female genitals are virtually invisible in the popular media, except through pornographic sources. Lloyd and her colleagues note, “With the conspicuous availability of pornography in everyday life, women and their sexual partners are increasingly exposed to idealized, highly selective images of the female genital anatomy.”
In 2005, shock-jock Howard Stern went live on the E Channel and found that the frequent appearance of porn stars enhanced ratings. Houston, a popular porn star and strip club dancer, appeared on Stern’s show and talked about reducing her labia to look better on film. Carlin Ross, of http://www.dodsonandross.com remembers how Stern milked the topic.
“He could see that the porn stars were good for ratings, and they would bring their labia trophies cast in clear resin like an award and auction them off on Ebay.”
Surgeons have also noted the impetus behind this trend. “Some women just want to look ‘prettier,’ like the women they see in [pornographic] magazines or in films,” one New York City ob-gyn says. Another doctor reports that his patients want their vulvas to look like “the playmates of Playboy.”
Based at least partially on the porn model and on the invisibility of normal genitals in the media, on Web sites, in chat rooms and women’s magazines they are establishing a narrow norm and aesthetic ideal.
These negative messages feed a long history of misogynist genital disgust, and misinformation creates an environment of dissatisfaction and a demand for female genital cosmetic surgeries that would fall within the definition of female genital mutilation articulated by the WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA in 1997:
Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for nonmedical reasons. … In some forms of Type II … only the labia minor are cut.
Women’s right to choice is a core feminist concept, but choice made in the vacuum of the deficient discourse on FGCS is little more than wishful thinking.
The entrepreneurial medical and media narratives do not provide a useful understanding about the appearance and function of the female genitals, hence, informed consent is impossible.
Sexual attraction, response and pleasure are complex interactions of psychological and physiological processes that change with age, partners and experience, and regardless of the perceived short-term benefits of genital surgeries, reconfiguring the genitals is unlikely to have significant impact on sexual fulfillment.
Rebecca Chalker is the author of The Clitoral Truth and teaches the “Cultural History of Sexuality” through her Web site.
http://www.alternet.org/sex/141479/the_%27…
Before Surgery After Surgery
The following are images of women that most men, including myself, find feminine, exquisite and tantalizing.
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So if your vagina looks like any of these, consider celebrating your good fortune instead having your labia removed.
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It is so refreshing to read information from men who actually like women! I wish that guys like you made your voices heard more often. Clearly, healthy heterosexual men are going to love women’s labias in all their different shapes and sizes. I think that there is something very suspicious about a culture that promotes one ‘type’ of shape for anyone’s genitals. It’s a fascist approach. It’s important for men to keep supporting women in this way, and yes, I agree that men can also be the victims of the body police- more and more – and we should all support each other in celebrating our uniquenes.s
I hope that women and men saw the section on 60 minutes last night about the risks of all kinds of surgery. One woman has died from lipbosuction. She was 26 and extremely attracitve but obvioulsy not entirely happy with her thighs. Then there was a woman who has been left very disfigured by Dr.Morris Ritz from the Melbourne Institute of plastic surgery. She went in for breast augmentation, and ended up with no breasts and terrible scarring. Dr. Ritz performed multiple surgeries in one go- something that was then found to be negligent in the extreme. He was never there for her after care and in fact she never saw him again after the original procedures. She sued him and won the case. However, he is still practising these proecedures every week. I went into an online chat room about this after 60 minutes had finished and there were so many women who expressed dissatisfaction with this doctor. One woman, who worked for him as a nurse for some time said he made more errors than any other doctor she’d worked for. She described him as “scary”. (in his potential to inflict serious harm on his patients. Please, girls and women, if you want vagina designer work., do your homework, ask the hard questions such as: What can go wrong? How much pain will I be in? When can I go back to work? Is my inner labia particularly out of the ordinary? Will you see me after the operation? WIll you offer follow up care? How much follow up care etc… and whatever you do, don’t choose the very dangerous and sneaky Dr. Morris Ritz
It is very encouragaging to read this information in a men’s website. Yes, I went to Dr. Morris Ritz for a labia plasty. You want to talk about “pain” afterwards???
There is no man in the world worth that kind of pain !!. It also wasn’t explained to me by Dr. Ritz before. He said I’d have “some” pain. Listen girls, just think about it? It’s your vagina right?? I don’t care what people do to themselves and their bodies IF they are consenting adults. So, if Dr. Ritz and the other men who commit legal torture on a woman via the pain that occurs after the anaesthetic wears off, then fine! Just tell us please! “I will do this for you for no good reason, it won’t improve your sex life, it won’t make you feel more comfortable, there’s nothing unusual with the way you look, and even ‘if” you think you look better afterwards “who” is looking, and why does he love you so littleto want you to SUFFER so much – Maybe he’s actually gay and doesn’t fancy women, full stop… “If” after all that you still want to go ahead, fine. Also, I must tell you that you’ll feel pain you’ve never known in your life before afterwards. It’s also a huge amount of money, so if you’re really wealthy enough to torture yourself for this feee….. Go ahead!” That’s the ONLY kind of “informed consent” men likde Dr. Morris Ritz can “HONESTLY” offer us!
It is a well known fact inside the sex industry that Dr. Morris Ritz (Mentioned in the two posts above)is responsible for performing labiaplasty, clitoral hood operations and a range of other “Vagina Designer” procedures on very young and impressionalbe girls. Many of them are merely desperate to make it through a law degree or other university course and given their physical attractive they turn to pole dancing and/or other forms of the sex industry. Others are single mothers or addicts of various kinds of substances. They have come to me in my work for better and safer conditions for the sex industry – one that will never go away and must therefore be regulated and safe.The above article that writes about the real inability to consent to something that you really do not understand is one of the most intelligent articles I have read on this subject. When doctors themselves do not inform patients of the range of appearances across the spectrum of “normal” looking vaginas, and instead permit young and impressional women to be influenced by the essentially child like trimmd vaginas that some men clearly prefer – otherwise they would not dominate the online porn industrey- than doctors such as Morris Ritz are, in my opinion, engaging in a fairly ruthless exploitation of the young, the poor and the often desperate sex workers who can spend the next 20 years of their lives paying off the procedures. On top of this, the painful is extraordinarily painful afterwards – a fact that never appears to be adequately explained by Dr. Morris Ritz, leaving these young women often in a state of profound shock.
I went to Dr. Morris Ritz when I was 21 for a labiaplasty and clitoral hood job and like the above writer said about her daughter I was young and all my friends had had sex except me. I come from a pretty conservative family but I wanted to be like other girls at uni. So I looked at internet porn, to see what to “do” in sex. Of course I knew what is was but I wanted some idea of how it’s done so I didn’t seem out of the ordinary when I did it for the first time. When I looked at the labias of the porn stars, I started to think there was something wrong with mine! I was a very late developer in terms of knowing abou the world. I went to Dr. Morris Ritz adn underwent both procedures. I cannot describe the pain I was in afterwards. It was horrific and he didn’t really tell me how bad it would be. And like the lady before daughter I also took out a massive loan that Dr. RItz told me about, through some company. I’ll probably be paying off for the next 50 years. The interest on it is reall high and I am still a student. When my mum found out,she cracked it. She made me understand that there was never anything wrong with my inner labia or clitoral hood and she also pointed out that the girls in porn have their vaginas cut like that to look like little girs. She said only little girls had those kind of vaginas, and even some little girls had protruding labias. She had worked in child care and she knew that there was an entire range of “normal.” Dr. Ritz didn’t do a bad job- I’m not accusing him of that but I think it’s done me a lot of psychological pain because I didn’t really have any reason to have it done and I feel kind of “used” by Dr. Ritz- used to make him money- because he didn’t tell me I was normal and also this loan just goes up in interest because I can’t afford to pay more than the mimimum requirements…
I must agree with you Josh. I’ve attended a couple of circumcisions of baby boys and found myself having to leave and sobbing in the bathroom! I disagree with your wife too. I have loved deeply two men in my life (not at the same time!); one was circumcised, the other one was not. The look of each penis made no difference to me and I never judged one as being aesthetically more pleasing than the other! I guess that “once upon a time” there may have been health reasons for circumcisions of baby boys – but even if that was the case – those days are well and truly gone and there is no medical reason whatsoever for boys to be circumcised. I am extremely sad that my daughter went to see a plastic surgeon by the name of Dr. Morris Ritz in Melbourne, Australia, because she thought she had an abnormal inner labia. She hadn’t even had sex! She and her boyfriend (they were both 18 at the time) had only gone so far, and the rest of their assumptions came from internet porn which has lots of “trimmed” vaginas. My daughter was encouraged to take out a massive, high interest loan, and the procedure was extremely painful afterwards and for a long time. That’s the only reason that she eventually came to me. I am furious but there’s nothing I can do. She was 18 and she did signg the consent form. But don’t doctors have a moral obligation- especially to young women – to tell them that they are completly “normal”. I think that unless a girl’s inner labia is hanging half way down her leg (or something truly out of the ordinary) they should all understand that every labia is different. And also, let’s face it- if a man is in to you, and he’s down in that part of your body, the last thing he is thinking about is what it looks like! He’s probably not looking! Our society is getting sadder by the minute. When you really love someone, you accept a lot of things and go through a lot of things. I said to my daughter “If some guy is going to lose interest in you because of your inner labia, he was never really interested in you to begin with!”. End of story. She has an up and down weight as well. Sometimes she goes through “Plump” stages. That’s what she calls them. I’m not a man, but I’m sure she is far more attractive in her plump stages than in what she calls her “thin” stages where she looks like she’s amaciated. As far as older women are concerned, it’s absolute crap that any kind of vagina surgery is going to improve your sex life. It’s also crap that women would have this done for reasons of “comfort”. You’d simply wear less tight clothes around that area. Again, if you’re seriously deformed and unusual in that area – fine- I’m all for it. But most women and girls who are having this done are NOT unusually shaped in any way and “if” doctors like Morris Ritz are going to do this surgery they should atleast have the guts and decency to be honest and say “Hey, you know what? There’s no medical reason for this, you look like every other girl (woman), it aint going to improve your sex life- If the guy doesn’t know where your on button is by now, this aint gonna change it, and to older women: If you want to get it all tightened to make it feel better for him, that’s a hell of a lot of pain to go through for a man. Aren’t you a bit wiser than that? Why not just dress up or go on a holiday together?” Then, if after all that honesty- which should include “Hey, you know what? I do this for the money cos I’m running a massive, successful business, and if you still want me to cut into your private parts after all I’ve told you- then welcome aboard, and I’ll do my best to make it as painless as possible. But before you sign on the dotted line, here’s a list of ALL ALL ALL the things that probably won’t, but “could” go wrong.
This is 100% equivalent to circumcision in men, which my wife demanded we do to our sons because not to do so would be ‘nasty’ in the eyes of their future love interests. I don’t think many men have been so grossed out by large labia… At least in the above case it’s generally done on consenting adults. What makes it okay to mutilate the genitals of baby boys, but not okay for adult women to have theirs ‘mutilated’? All double standards aside, any cosmetic surgery against the patient’s wishes, or on a patient that cannot express their wishes (except in the case of injury or serious deformity), is mutilation. If an adult wants it, that’s their decision and we should judge our own prejudices before judging them.
One significant item you left out of your article: there are many men who like or prefer a larger or fuller labia. Just as there are those who like large breasts, small breasts or every size in between, there are men who like different shapes of female genitals. Women should accept what they have as normal and beautiful and find a partner who does likewise.