Cosmetic Surgery For Female Genitalia

[Guest yamsham]

I found the following rant here: Link.

Femalia Deformia

by Rebecca Buchanan

The following short article, entitled "A Cut Below," appeared in the April 2006 issue of UTNE:

Female genital mutilation is illegal in the United States and Canada, but girls and women ages 14 to 82 are paying plastic surgeons as much as $7000 a snip for customized labia. Shameless (Fall 2005) estimates that thousands of women are trading in the lips they were born with, which surgeons say suffer from "deformity" and have "the unsightly appearance of excess skin," for a "small, neat, and tidy" look. One surgeon has performed his signature procedure — slicing the lips and clitoral hood — on so many women, it's been dubbed the "Toronoto trim" after his home town. But anti-mutilation laws could conceivably render the surgeries criminal, and the desire for down-there perfection can come with some out-there side effects: nerve damage, soreness, hemorraging, and lost sensitivity and pain during sex. Hey: Size doesn't matter!

Let me see if I can wrap my pitiful female brain around this.

There are little girls in Africa who have their clitori ripped out with sharpened pieces of glass; there are teenage girls who have their labia hacked off and sown shut, leaving only a small hole for menstruation; there are women being mutilated like this on a daily basis to satisfy some barbaric social custom —

and there are women who live free and independent who volunteer to be mutilated?!

What. The. Fuck?!

On top of which: some of the "women" undergoing this operation are as young as fourteen? So, what, the fourteen year-old has the funds to pay for this? I think not. What the hell kind of parents would pay for something like this? What the hell kind of parent would encourage his/her daughter to think of herself as deformed?

Not to push all the blame onto the parents — or, heck the lovers or husbands who apparently stand by and/or support the women who undergo these surgeries — or the doctors who perform them and apparently make a nice profit. No, I don't blame society for this idiocy.

I blame the women who are doing it to themselves.

What the fuck is wrong with you?!*

Are you a cancer survivor? Were you terribly injured in a car accident? Were you mutilated by a violent lover or rapist? Hell, in that case I can totally understand under-going reconstructive surgery. .... Except this isn't reconstructive surgery. It's elective cosmetic surgery — on the most intimate, most female part of the body. There is nothing inherently defective or deformed about that part of the body: female genitalia is what it is. Labia major, labia minor, clitoris, vagina. Female genitalia is designed to bring pleasure, to be beautiful to the eye.

If you think your genitals are deformed, they're not: your brain is.

Your body is beautiful, and so is the pelasure it can bring you and the one you love. If you can't or won't see that, than a plastic surgeon is not the kind of doctor you need to see.

Enough disgusting things are done to women in the world without us turning on ourselves.

I only heard about this a couple days ago, and I am still stunned. This is about the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. I could understand if it was physically necessary. I knew a woman who'd had an accident with a bike when she was a kid. It screwed up her pelvis and genitalia pretty bad and she was very self-conscious about it. I could see how she might benefit from it. But just because you don't think it's visually appealing? What the fuck kind of insane world do I live in?

Any other thoughts or opinions?

[Guest Big Samurai]

Those who have the money to blow on useless procedures will blow it on said procedures. The up side of this is that there might be a little humor in it in the "Yeah, I could tell those boobs were fake!" tradition. Like so:

Dude A: So, how'd the date go?

Dude B: It was all good ... 'til the sex.

Dude A: Aw, man! What happened?

Dude B: Found out she had a prefab.

Dude A: Damn, that sucks.

[Guest Zimarah]

I've always shaken my head at elective cosmetic surgery. My mom has always wanted a nose job, but of course, doesn't have the money to spend on it.

Now, I happened to have inherited my mother's nose. It's not that bad. Though I sometimes wonder if she thinks I "need" a nose job...

In the case of an accident, or some incident that actually does disfigure you, yes, that is the reason this type of surgery should exist.

[taker]

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!? That's almost as bad as the Hymn Reconstruction article I read a few years back, I thought that was barbaric but WHAT THE FUCK! You people disguss me even by my standards! AND THOSE SOME LOW STANDARDS!

[EveKnight75]

Becky, Becky, Becky. Don't you realize that yelling at these women that their brains are deformed won't help your case any?

You sound like one of those women who yell at models for being skinny or at busty women for having big boobs. You sound like you're just jealous.

Sounding like a jealous, ranting lunatic instead of arguing a point rationally just makes you sound like an idiot and adversely encourages women to go through with the procedure.

Granted, it is fucked up and there must be something unusual going on in their minds, but really, Becky darling, you simply must state your point more eloquently...

[Guest suzanne_2006]

Christ, I thought I'd heard it all when I heard about labial

piercings! But hell. If a woman wants it and can afford it,

then deal with it. Me? I'd never do it.

[Guest omnichild]

I frown at the women who are doing the surgery for vanity reason.

But there are women who have the surgery that is not for vanity reasons. Some women's labia are well large and have excessive skin. Thus this makes a woman uncomfortable. So I can agree with woman who have surgery for that reason.

[dazzledfirestar]

Okay, I'm going to pull away from the cosmetic issue here. What gets me is the list of side effects! It's like, "Look at my lovely genitals. Want to touch them? well I won't feel it or enjoy it. But doesn't it look nice?"

Give me a break! Why would someone put themselves (and their partner) through that voluntarily? How must it be for the partner? Try as you might you can't make the new model do what the old "ugly" one would. The partners of these women must have to deal with the emotional hurts of not being able to please their wife, girlfriend etc. And let's face it, if sex hurts (in the bad way ) you'd be less likely to do it, therefore, less likely to be showing your new bits to anyone, so you've just wasted 7000$.

[Guest Melody Fate]

I agree with Dazzle

What I hate the most about it is that once again, it gives us a standard we must live up to. I never worried what my genitals looked like, because I knew there was nothing that could be done. And my labia are a bit on the large side but you know what? Anyone I've let look and touch has had no complaints. If they did, they would be welcome to seek gratification somewhere else.

We send enough negative messages to people. "You're not good looking enough, you need to be hacked and cut to become more perfect." For the luv of God, can't we have one part to a woman's body that we don't feel we need to rush to fix if not textbook perfect?

Honestly, I never knew there were standards for the loveliness of my vagina growing up. While I didn't spend hours staring at it, it functioned in every way it was supposed to and I was pleased.

Now we have a standard of beauty tacked onto it? Now we have to worry if our vaginas are pretty enough?

No thank you. For cases of deformity or accidental dismembering, fine. But otherwise? Just...wrong.

[Guest mykell]

For those of you wondering about the women (girls, really) as young as fourteen...

Many people (an estimated 1%) are born with genitalia that differs enough from "standard" male or female to be considered intersex.

It is common practice in the US to perform cosmetic surgery on infants with more extreme cases of intersex. (In some, but certainly not all, cases these surgeries are also medically necessary.)

Many intersex women (by women, I mean people assigned female at birth) do not develop breasts, menstruate, etc. naturally. If she has been diagnosed with a condition that assures that these changes will not take place, chances are she will be taking estrogen to cause the secondary sex characteristics. Some - if not most - of these women are glad to have these changes occur; others are forced into it (Many intersex individuals have their conditions hidden from them. Even though they can see the differences in their bodies, they don't know why their bodies are different, or what the pills their parents are having them take are and what they're for. Also, some intersex individuals would rather not have doctors and pills change the bodies they were born with. Also, in some cases where the intersex was more extreme and the doctors couldn't tell for sure which sex the person "really" is, the doctors chose wrong. Finally, as with non-intersex people, a small portion of intersex people are transsexual.)

I'm sure that some cases, the people in charge of an intersex child's life will wait until age 14 or later to perform genital surgery.

If you want more info, look in libraries/Google/Wikipedia/etc. for intersex. Also look up "John Money" - an infamous doctor who worked a lot with intersex people.

Now that I have brought another side and a pile of information to the table, it's time to talk about my opinion.

I feel that cosmetic genital modification should always be an option that fully informed, fully consenting adults should have. It should never be practiced under any other circumstance. It is a personal decision. Even if somebody who is not intersex (or transsexual, although transsexuals have completely different types of genital surgery, and not only must be informed, consenting adults, but also need a letter from a therapist to go through with it) wants a surgery like this, it's her body and she can do what she wants with it. Is it the wrong decision for her to make? Probably. But who am I to judge? I do not know these women, and I do not know why a surgery would be so important to one of them. For all I know, they have a good reason.

[Guest Melody Fate]

The article didn't talk about people who were born with difficulties or deformities. It talked about women who only do this because they are dissatisfied with the general appearance of their genitals.

I think we all agree, if it's medically necessary, then it's fine. However, in the case of a child born with both, were I the parent, I would do my best to try to not decide for my child. Yes, it would create some real troubles when the child was growing up, but I'd hate it even worse that when my child was an adult, they wanted to be the one I hadn't picked.

There's a book called Middlesex that is fiction, but deals with a person who grew up as a girl, but later found out she/he had both parts and really wanted to be a boy. No one spotted her penis at birth, because the doctor in attendance was getting old.

It's a really good story.

[Guest mykell]

Rarely with intersex do you have "both" - they usually have more in-between parts, such as an enlarged clitoris or a micropenis, or a split scrotum, or no vagina (as in, a full vulva with clitoris and all, but no hole), etc. What I'm saying is that a "deformed" labia is a type of interex.

[Guest Agaib]

I think it's much more difficult to decide what exactly is intersex and what isnt. I'm sure there are genetic variables that can cause a woman to have a large labia without her gender actually being in question. The entire problem lies in the fact that in nature there is no distinction. All nature cares about is the phenotypes, the end result, not the genotypes, how you got there. Unfortunately a perfect distinction is nearly impossible because in nature, there is none.

[Guest Melody Fate]

Rarely with intersex do you have "both" - they usually have more in-between parts, such as an enlarged clitoris or a micropenis, or a split scrotum, or no vagina (as in, a full vulva with clitoris and all, but no hole), etc. What I'm saying is that a "deformed" labia is a type of interex.

Yes, I know in most cases neither set of genitals are complete.

I also know that labias can differ greatly from person to person. In my younger days, when me and my friends would steal my brother's girly mags for a sneak preview of what we hoped to become, I noticed my own vag wasn't exactly like many of the women they showed in those mags. In fact, I noticed in the mags that most of the girls had vaginas that varied from woman to woman.

I never thought these women were deformed. I never thought that one vagina was more attractive than another. People vary in appearance in practically everything, they certainly can vary in the vagina too.

It's still pitiful that women can be so uncomfortable with the apearance of their vaginas that they want to get them snipped and cut.

The "deformity" language doesn't mean a whole lot to me because too many doctors will claim everything is a deformity so they can bill insurance companies. I have one finger that's bent slightly. I was born with it, it functions fine. I just never would make a good hand model. I had a plastic surgeon tell me once he could "fix it." I told him I couldn't afford to have it fixed. He said that he could get my insurance to pay for it, because it was a "deformity" that probably had deep, psychological implications to my well-being. Oh BS. I didn't even know it could be fixed, so I never worried about it, it was just me. And I wouldn't call it a deformity, it functions just fine.

Also, I strongly doubt that there are so many unisex people in Toronto that the proceedure even has a cute little nickname. In fact, the cute little nickname makes me suspitious that the proceedure has nothing to do with deformity and everything to do with some new standard on how women's vaginas are supposed to look.

[Guest H_Tellenoi]

I think this entire idea gets a 'wow' and then a head shake. What are people thinking with changing how their labia and all that looks. It doesn't matter what it looks like as long as it works. aside from those who may need it for medical/psychological reasons, cosmetic reasons are bull. Why waste the money on getting your vagina fixed in such a weird and strange manner? It reminds me of the women who have their pinkie toes cut off so they can wear smaller sized taller high heels...haven't we had enough stupidity with cosmetic body modifications yet?

[Guest Agaib]

I would like to note that I personally like the human foot a lot. I don't have any sort of fetish but I think feet are neat things, and as a foot lover, I would find a woman missing her pinky toe, or a woman that had changed her foot for "beauty reasons" as much lower on the prettyness scale.

In fact...

I love every part of a woman's body from the butt, to bust, to face. But the most beautiful looking woman in the world, is one that looks natural. Not a woman that's been "improved."

[Nanaea]

Wow, Agaib! You get my vote for man of the year!

[Guest .:Deathbringer:.]

-Gets on a speakerphone-

ATTENTION FORUM PEOPLE!

GRODY!

THAT IS ALL!

I mean, wow... People these days just dunno what the hell to do with their money... Sad...

[Guest Noctivagus]

People will augment any part of their body that they can in order to achieve the feeling of beauty or normalcy. Yes, female genital mutiliation is terrible, but the key to the horror is that these are children who are forced into this and screwed up for life from the trauma. If a grown ass woman (over eighteen) wants her vulva to look like a lotus, whatever.

The entire plastic surgery industry profits from unreasonable physical insecurities, especially those of women. This is just one more step in an old issue.

[Guest lightgoddess]

Here, here Nanaea!! Agaib for man of the year!

As far as women snipping their stuff, it's really no different than getting a boob job for vanity purposes. Boob jobs tend to lower sensitivity and all that stuff, too! Personally, if a woman is going to spend $7000 on getting her stuff 'improved', I'd prefer that she just give me the money. I promise that it'll be spent in a lot better way! lol

Seriously, though, if a person is well informed and trusts the doctor, goes into the procedure knowing all of the risks, and still wants it done, there probably is some kind of deep insecurity there, but do I care? No. People waste their money on senseless procedures every day, so why not have a nip and tuck around your vagina? (And, no, I'm still not for these things in an elective sense, but I don't care what you spend your money on!)