How Lovely Are Your Labia?
Lip-lift, anyone? No, the other lips. Plastic surgery "down there" is, apparently, the next big thing. Mireya Navarro, poor dear, who is apparently assigned to the pussy beat at The New York Times, goes deep under cover to find out why:
"The women feel undesirable or unpretty," Dr. Stern said. "Even if nobody sees it, they see it."The yoga instructor from Boston, who flew to Dr. Alter in Beverly Hills for a labiaplasty four years ago, said she was "asymmetrical": part of her inner vaginal lips extended about half an inch beyond the outer labia.
"The only women I could compare myself to was women in pornographic movies," she said. "They were tiny and dainty and symmetrical. Nobody looked like me."
...One patient, a 22-year-old college student from Toronto, said she had never had intercourse until after her labiaplasty because she felt "insecure and ugly" about excess labia tissue.
"It's just that when you feel bad about your body, especially this part of your body, it's kind of impossible to let your true feelings and passions show," she said.
Now, after the surgery last May, she said, "I have nothing to hide."
Some sex therapists are troubled that the emphasis on a youthful look in the doctors' ads are creating demand. And some pointed out that there are dissatisfied customers as well.
Dr. Laura Berman, director of a treatment clinic for female sexual dysfunction in Chicago, the Berman Center, said some of her patients complained that they ended up with pain or could no longer be sexually aroused after undergoing some of the procedures. Unlike most other cosmetic procedures, she said, genital plastic surgery has the potential to harm function.
"Any time you're having surgery that involves any kind of intervention in the genitals you're asking for trouble in regard with your sexual function," she said.
...Some plastic surgeons, who note that there is no such thing as "normal" female genitals, are scratching their heads.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, to be honest," said Dr. Young, of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, who said he does a small number of labiaplasties in his practice in St. Louis. "I try to discourage most patients."
Even people in the pornographic film industry say there is no universal standard of beauty for genitals and that, in any event, men fantasize about the woman, not any one body part.
Mark Kernes, a senior editor with the trade magazine Adult Video News, said, "I really don't think most men care."
I know a very pretty (and horny) woman who had a few pounds on her, and was worried that men wouldn't want to have sex with her because of it. I told her most guys are just grateful that you're having sex with them; they aren't sitting around taking measurements of your thighs. Unless you can swing your labia round your neck and wear them as a scarf...are they really a problem?!!
What about the male end, ladies -- are cosmetics important? Circumcised vs. not; 6" vs. 8"; narrow vs. wide; vascular vs. not; etc..
Can one get a "peniaplasty?"
RKN at November 28, 2004 7:36 PM
For me, it's a utility item, not a fashion choice. As a girl, I enjoy being with naked men, but I'm really not all that interested in staring at them. Quite frankly, I'd rather shop.
Amy Alkon at November 28, 2004 7:39 PM
Can I get a witness? Tell me if I'm wrong about this: Most people who've had plastic surgery on their faces look like accident victims who needed reconstruction. I think the human eye has spent the last few million years evolving to know exactly where all the little micrograms of flesh around a person's nose should be found. And the idea that some surgeon can put them someplace better is just silly.
Next time you're in the grocery, look at the cover of this month's Oprah magazine. (It's the issue with Oprah on the cover! [Scratch that, they all are]). Anyway, I think she's wearing a green dress. No wait, I found this proxy on her site, and you can see what I'm talking about:
http://images.oprah.com/omagazine/200412/images/omag_200412_landing_75x102.jpg
The point is, it's her head p-shopped onto someone else's body. Aside from fraud of it all, this is ALWAYS a disconcerting, troublesome effect. It summons the scared-of-the-supernatural, witch-burning part of the immortal soul.
And it's weird, because this has happened to her before. See #7 in this list:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tests/hoaxphototest2.html
Seriously, we're all glad Winona Ryder kept her factory-installed rack, but don't we also wish she'd kept her original honker?
Don't fuck with the human eyeball, I say. There are better ways to show deeper beauty.
Cridland at November 28, 2004 8:32 PM
Re: cooters, my oldest friend in the world was once asked by his wife- "Honey, do gay men think women's genitals are ugly?"
Hopelessly cornered, he had to drop the hammer: "Sweetheart, ALL men think women's genitals are ugly."
Cridland at November 28, 2004 8:35 PM
The surgery I find scariest is the one where women, previously normal of face, show up looking like cats. Jocelyn Wildenstein, oft shown in the NY Post, is the leader of the pack. SCARRRRY! You see this more and more around Los Angeles. Some woman you know -- at a store, or in business -- shows up renovated a la feline. As for genitals -- Crid is right. All genitals are ugly.
Amy Alkon at November 28, 2004 11:14 PM
> You see this more and more around
> Los Angeles.
Exactly! All these middle-aged doorknobs are asking for the same treatment. They know that the fleshy lips of youth have something to do with sexuality, so they turn the knob up to eleven, but then can't understand why they look like psychotic clowns instead of eager lovers.
Wildenstein doesn't look feline, she just looks fucked up.
Cridland at November 28, 2004 11:24 PM
Womens' fun parts ugly? Scary? Ladies, you can line up right over here. Those lips are fine just the way they are. Grateful and humble am I to have experienced their beauty up close and personal more times than I probably have deserved. I trust I have returned even a small portion of the thrill and pleasure that every single one of them has given to me over the years. Gentlemen and gentlewomen, a toast, to the 'other' lips!!
allan at November 28, 2004 11:50 PM
hmmm..lovely labia, perhaps not. Genetailia aren't particularly attractive. It's good thing we get so excited we just don't care. Or have our eyes closed as we're murmuring and/or shrieking ooooooooh baby!
Sheryl at November 29, 2004 1:35 AM
The subject's contention---that having a labia 1/2-inch shorter is the fast-track to self-esteem---almost defies comprehension; even the doctors' interviewed are scratching their heads: What are these women chasing? Why risk the loss of sensitivity in order to look like an eight-year-old girl? What's really sad is, think of the men who will appreciate such an act. If I told my husband I was going to get my vagina chopped up in order to feel better about myself, he'd take my car keys and send me to the shrink.
nancy at November 29, 2004 2:40 AM
> What's really sad is, think of the men who
> will appreciate such an act.
There's no such man! Seriously. We could find you a guy somewhere in this town who likes a silicone rack, but no guy has ever said "Matilda? Oh, she has a sweet personality, nice legs and straight teeth, but her cooz is the wrong shape." It just doesn't happen.
Cridland at November 29, 2004 3:34 AM
I'm wondering if allan's not right. Ugly?
If labia are so ugly why do sex toy manufacturers make "real life" replicas?
For instance, consider the Fleshlight:
http://tinylink.com/?yPYqRxqfgP
(It sorta looks like it could double as a decent Thermos).
RKN at November 29, 2004 3:46 AM
"excess labia tissue" -- ooh, yum! Lusty lesbians lounging by the lake, laping up the luscious labia!
Um, since when are asymmetrical pussy lips a problem? Even though one of my balls hangs lower than the other, I've never had any problems getting them licked. Come one, come all -- gather round and taste the Incredible Asymmetrical Ball Sack!
Does anybody remember that incredibly ignorant "rugged vagina theory" of low heterosexual HIV risk back in the 1980s? Put forth by yours and my favorite peer-reviewed scientific journal, Cosmopolitan. (Read it and weep: Gould, Robert E. 1988. "Reassuring News About AIDS: A Doctor Tells Why You May Not Be At Risk." Cosmopolitan, January, 146-7.) Dr Gould contrasted the Rugged Vagina with the Vulnerable Rectum (wait! wait! that hurts!) I kid you not.
Lena of the Svelte Labia at November 29, 2004 5:23 AM
Well, I remember one of the first long articles in the popular press about aids WAY back in the day... We're talking late Hall & Oates era, or the inaugurate times of the Thompson Twins... A Rolling Stone (or somesuch) reporter, befuddled as we all were, was asking what the fuck this was about. And the doctor he interviewed, Fauci or a Fauci-like figure, said that some were guessing that vaginas, being designed to receive boygoo anyway, were probably better prepared biologically to defend against infectious transmission than were backside portals.
Within a year or two, everyone knew what behavior to avoid, and we didn't worry about it so much. Was it ever disproved?
Cridland at November 29, 2004 6:13 AM
"Within a year or two, everyone knew what behavior to avoid"
-- thanks to some big-mouthed activists in the gay community. Hurray for the homos!
"Was it ever disproved?"
-- that's a really good question, Crid. Not surprisingly, most commentary on the Rugged Vagina theory came from folks in the humanities (see "How To Have Theory in An Epidemic" by Paula Treichler) or from very angry women's health advocates like Gina Correa (see "The Invisible Epidemic"). One would hope that a two-page piece in Cosmopolitan would not attract a lot of attention from scientists.
A freshly douched Lena at November 29, 2004 7:03 AM
> thanks to some big-mouthed activists in
> the gay community. Hurray for the homos!
Well, y'know, they were... Y'know, *DYING*.
> that's a really good question...
?
I never heard about any "Rugged" anythings, I just read that vaginal intercourse was by its nature a less likely opportunity for transmission than was anal. The whole point was to keep politics out of it, right?
Cridland at November 29, 2004 8:35 AM
The RV (ie, "rugged vagina" -- not "recreational vehicle") theory was articulated in Cosmopolitan, that critical forum for scientific discourse. Perhaps the RV was an attempt to widen the magazine's market to lumberjack lesbians.
Lena at November 29, 2004 3:45 PM
to heck with what they look like! all i care about is how they taste!
me at November 30, 2004 12:37 AM
are we joking here, people? Labbia surgery?!! My husband always jokes that I have a chubby pussy - he's right. I've seen porn flics and I know i have an extremely large labbia. But I have never met another woman who has the capability to orgasm as often as me. I wouldn't chop it off if you paid me. So when I feel insecure about how my hoo hoo looks, I remember how much fun I have when my husband takes me to bed about 5 to 7 times a week. anyway, i don't think penises are all that attractive either, but I love his. It's all about love, inner beauty and yes, fantastic orgasms!!!
sane female at November 30, 2004 1:37 PM
A chubby pussy! How adorable. Does it have love handles?
PS: There are some very attractive penises out there. I've deep-throated many of them.
Lena Cuisina, Barren Cock Whore at November 30, 2004 3:12 PM
"when my husband takes me to bed about 5 to 7 times a week"
No wonder it's so chubby. You probably had a normal-sized pussy before your husband starting fucking you like the common bitch that you are. What you've got is called PISS (Pussy Inflammatory Size Syndrome). Have you tried Preparation H, you whore?
Cuntlike Lena of the Inflamed Tool Shed (AKA "CLITS") at November 30, 2004 7:07 PM
"You probably had a normal-sized pussy before your husband starting fucking you like the common bitch that you are. What you've got is called PISS (Pussy Inflammatory Size Syndrome). Have you tried Preparation H, you whore?"
Nice! Calling someone a whore and a bitch for sleeping with her husband. I hope my wife wants to do it that often when i get married. I bet you're single, aren't you CLITS??
john at December 2, 2004 3:26 PM
Yep, I'm single. And I'll bet that one of the reasons why her sex life is so good is that her husband is also calling her bitch and whore as he's pounding her chubby pussy. Lighten up, John. Some of us are quite proud to be bitches and whores.
Lena Cuisina, A Whore's Whore at December 2, 2004 3:38 PM
maybe he does call her bitch and whore - who knows or cares. I just wish all women would give it up that much and be more proud about being whores for their guys (ugly labbia or not)
john at December 2, 2004 3:51 PM
You want us to give it up? What do we get in return? Bring it on.
Cuntlike Lena of the Inflamed Tool Shed (AKA "CLITS") at December 2, 2004 6:09 PM