Top medical journal blasts "designer vagina" craze

[kurth]

Top medical journal blasts "designer vagina" craze
Thu May 24, 7:03 PM ET

One of the world's most prestigious health journals has lashed a fast-growing trend in the United States and Britain for "designer vaginas," the tabloid term for cosmetic surgery to the female genitalia. The fashion is being driven by commercial and media pressures that exploit women's insecurities and is fraught with unknowns, including a risk to sexual arousal, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says.

Known as elective genitoplasty, the surgery usually entails shortening or changing the shape of the outer lips, or labia, but may also include reduction in the hood of skin covering the clitoris or shortening the vagina itself. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the practice is spreading fast in the United States as well as in Britain, but the picture is unclear, the BMJ says.

Not only is there a disturbing lack of data about the phenomenon, there has been negligible assessment about surgical after-effects -- and almost zero reflexion as to whether a labial "problem" exists in the first place, the BMJ says angrily. In 2004-5, 800 "labial reductions" were conducted by Britain's state-run National Health Service (NHS), more than a doubling of the figure of six years earlier. Other operations were carried out by the private sector, although the full figures are unknown...

The BMJ piece suggests genitoplasty is a classic example of where commercial, media and social pressures artificially create a problem, fuel concern over it and then put forward a solution for it. "There is nothing unusual about protrusion of the labia," it says. "It is the negative meaning that makes it into a problem -- meanings that can give rise to physical, emotional and behavioural reactions, such as discomfort, self-disgust, perhaps avoidance of some activities and a desire for a surgical fix."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070524/hl_afp/lifestylehealthwomen_070524230339

[Swamp Rat]

1. Humanity has jumped the shark.

[Suich]

23. Heh! Heh! Heh!

Good one, Swamp Rat! Thanks!

:hi:

[panader0]

2. Oh my..................

[stevedeshazer]

3. This must be some kind of joke

This is a problem?

[InkAddict]

25. No joke - remember what the secret shame used to be?

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[Cerridwen]

4. "shortening the vagina"?!

I will not laugh...I will not laugh...I will not laugh...


















































:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[SeattleGirl]

5. Are you freakin' kiddin' me?????

Holy crap! I've heard stupid, and I've seen stupid, but this takes the cake!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. No, cutting off ribs does. THAT's way creepier. -nt

[SeattleGirl]

26. Oh yeah, I've heard about that, plus getting something done to

give a woman more "toe cleaveage". The world has gone batshit crazy about looks, or what constitutes "good looks."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. I should live so long!!!

[azurnoir]

7. ok first women are told what their breasts

are supposed to look like and now our vagina? There waqs a surgery for to do something to the penises but I don't think it ever caught on much

[Colobo]

42. Women pay for these things, and that is the real problem

[Mz Pip]

8. Uh, what is it

supposed to look like?

I did hear a bit about this on the radio today. Apparently, vaginal cosmetic surgery is covered in Britain. Can you imagine how the insurance forms must read? :eyes:

The mind boggles at what people who have entirely too much free time obsess about.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[blogslut]

9. Personally,

considering the lack of statistics, I think this is a made-up trend. I am not buying that there's some major upsurge in genitoplasty.

[Rosemary2205]

11. I wonder if this has anything to do with internet porn?

Or girls gone wild type things. I just wonder if it's creating more pressure to look like the centerfolds so to speak. I can't imagine where else women would see what the popular labia configuration du jour would be.

I've never understood cosmetic surgery other than reconstruction or to repair life altering birth defects but this I understand even less that the rest.

[Schema Thing]

17. doubtful

porn makes you realize how much variety is "the norm". Centerfolds come in a great variety of lovely vaginal forms.

[Warpy]

12. Some of this approaches the FGM done in Africa

using shards of glass. The only difference here is that some pig of a surgeon is collecting big bucks to mutilate women who have been conned into thinking it's fashionable.

Who ARE these women? Porn stars? Repug housewives with wandering and/or closeted husbands? WHO?

[aikoaiko]

16. Except that FGM is done to girls to control their sexuality....

... whereas labioplasty or vaginoplasty is done electively by women to define their own sexuality, albeit in the context of our porn prevalent culture.

[Warpy]

33. FGM is also done to make them

more attractive as marriage partners in those cultures.

BTW, I recall a scandal of about 25-30 years ago about a doctor who'd had his medical license pulled for doing just this sort of surgeries on his OB-Gyn patients without their consent. He called himself the "love doctor," and his surgeries sounded just like this. His patients were left in constant pain from the exposed glans of the clitoris. I wonder if it's the same asshole who's doing this one.

[HamdenRice]

38. That's not why FMG is done in Africa

Let me say right off I am obviously opposed to FMG in Africa, but we should at least know what it is we are opposing.

Female circumcisions -- as well as male circumcisions -- are done in most African societies as part of a complex cultural tradition of "age grades" and "initiation schools" and "secret societies." To summarize something that could take dozens of books, the basic idea is that in Africa one is not considered an adult capable of the responsibilities of marriage and adulthood until one is initiated into society. Neither boys nor girls are circumcized until their early teen years.

At some point, usually around age 14, all the boys of a certain age are taken off to "bush school," where they learn the tribal secrets, praise poems, history, and many other aspects of their culture. This culminates in their being circumcized and re-introduced into society as adults.

Some cultures do the same for girls, although in southern Africa, the girls are educated and initiated not in a bush school, but in seclusion within their villages. But at the end of that period, similarly they are circumcized.

Age grades are the backbone of many rural African societies. If the community decides, for example, to engage in a collective public works, they often call out the men and women by their age grades. Women's age grades form powerful secret societies in West Africa and are an important source of what rights and powers women possess.

The point is that activists will not succeed with a simple minded message of "ban FMG." The whole complex has to be addressed. In the past, colonial officials and early independence governments tried to ban the whole complex and the some entire communities fell apart culturally. One sub tribe in Botswana banned initiation and circumcision and after society basically fell apart, they re-instituted it.

For this practice to end, we're going to have to persuade the age grades and secret societies by supporting the larger cultural structure and helping them move to some more symbolic act of adulthood at the end than circumcision.

[Warpy]

47. "Female circumcision?"

The first thing we need to do is to recognize that term is a misnomer, a disgustingly bland euphemism for genital mutilation.

The analogue to male circumcision in women would be a hymenectomy.

The rest of your points are valid. Ending will need to come from within their society according to their own patterns of authority.

[HamdenRice]

48. It's not one operation

There are hundreds of different variations from the horrific (such as sewing up the labia to ensure virginity) to removing the clitoris, to many cultures that just make a slit which heals with no permanent effect.

In addition to understanding the cultural context, we also need to understand what, physically, is actually being done and not lump it all together.

[Spinzonner]

13. No Monograms ?

[sellitman]

14. Turn out the lights.

No one will be the wiser.

lmao!!!!!

[TygrBright]

15. Y'know... I didn't know about this. I didn't WANT to know about this. n/t

[NV Whino]

19. ditto.

[samdogmom]

18. GOOD GRIEF!

We are truly a decadent society if we have members worried about this! What are women thinking--for goodness sakes? Who knows what a vagina should look like? Honestly, I don't get it. Some members of our society have way too much money and way too much free time--they dream up problems that simply don't exist in real life!

[Bigmack]

20. I don't know how this will sound....

.. but I like 'em just fine the way they are.

Seen a few.... liked them all. The same, but subtly different.

I don't understand. What part of "commercial, media, and social" pressures tells a woman she has an ugly vagina?

[Missy Vixen]

21. The same that tells women

>What part of "commercial, media, and social" pressures tells a woman she has an ugly vagina?<

their bodies are undesirable after 40, after they've had (and nursed,) a child, after they have gained weight as a result of getting older.

The "subtle differences" are what make each of us human and lovable to someone else. It's too bad we can't celebrate them instead of believing there's something wrong or bad about them.

Julie

[Berry Cool]

31. And the same ones that told them they had to douche because if they didn't

they'd suffer "embarrassing odor" and not be "fresh and clean," when the truth is, feminine plumbing is self-cleaning.

And that told them they had to eliminate all signs of having a menstrual period, because periods are disgusting.

[Bigmack]

I see the stuff that says...

women are baggy, saggy and undesirable unless they look like Barbie, but I've never seen anything directly aimed at telling women their vaginas are ugly. My wife tells me that women never talk about their vaginas with each other. If she's right... is vagina-hatred part of some total-body-hatred thing?

While we're on the subject, all the shaving stuff makes me a little nervous. If it's some kind of attractant to men, it must be to men who like little girls. Eeeeeww!

[BlooInBloo]

22. There's a jackass for every topic, of course...

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-circumcision-has-first-name-its-o-s.html

" There's a headline for ya:

Designer Vagina Surgery Growing Because of Porn

Unsuprisingly, America's Most Non-Gay Man was on this like it was a Play-Doh and bacon sandwich:

This is all very similar to women getting their nails done. Women don't do that for men; they do that for other women and themselves. No guy on earth has ever noticed a woman had "pretty nails" and a "nice pedicure" until she told him to compliment her on it.

And no guy in the world is even noticing labial size. Unless they're enormous Dumbo-flaps or something. In which case, they may be noticed, but guys being guys, we probably find it to be a turn-on just because it's somewhat unusual."

[0rganism]

24. may be mistaken, but IIRC trimming the clitoral "hood" was a standard & justifiable procedure

From what I read (and don't ask me where, it was a long time ago) some women have excessive "hood" that can reduce sexual pleasure. Seems to me that having it trimmed by a qualified surgeon would be every bit as legit as men taking viagra.

For that matter, if a woman wants to get her labia redesigned, is that really a problem at all? I would think breast enlargement would be a more intrusive procedure, and society appears to have accepted, some might say embraced, that practice.

[TahitiNut]

43. While I'd guess there are some extremes that warrant such surgery ...

... I'd also guess that the other end of the spectrum is "doing it because they can afford to." I'm sure there are some younger women whose labia majora are pronounced enough to make wearing a bikini (or even regular 2-piece or Speedo) too revealing. (I.e. "camel toe" is the distatsteful euphemism.) I'm not inclined to prohibit anyone from such surgery - but I sure have sympathy for those with the extreme "body consciousness" due to social tyranny. I have an acquaintance whose figure I thought quite adorable ... "boyish" and slim and athletic - she was VERY attractive, imho. Nonetheless, she felt self-conscious about her smallish breasts and got implants. I grieved. I'd be the last to prohibit it, but I wish she could've been more attuned to those of us who regarded her as "just right."

[rucky]

27. Isn't this what we're trying to stop over in Togo? n/t

[WinkyDink]

28. I saw this on Drudge. I thought that's where it should have stayed. Capisce?

[Solly Mack]

29. Sad. Disturbing. Fuck it - that's pathetic

[WCGreen]

30. And perhaps some of these same women who have this "elective"

surgery done to themselves are dismayed about genital mutilations in the Third World...

I know it is a big difference, elective surgery vs. cultural inertia, but there just seemd to be the potential for a bit of irony...

Don't you think...

[DU GrovelBot]

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[wicket]

34. My vagina is fine just how it is, thanks

n/t

[MrSlayer]

35. I don't know how much of a "craze" this is.

I'm quite sure this is not going on huge numbers. This is a ten thousand dollar (or more) procedure. If a bunch of rich people want to ruin their vaginas then by all means go ahead. This has zero impact on the vast majority of us.

[NotGivingUp]

44. they're probably trying to make people think it is a craze so they'll think they should do it too.nt

[MrSlayer]

46. I wouldn't doubt it. n/t

[aikoaiko]

36. What a woman does with her body is her business.

Whether or not these types of cosmetic surgeries are ok is between the women and their doctors.

[HamdenRice]

37. End female genital mutilation in Europe and America

It's interesting that there are whole movements against female genital mutilation in Africa, but because of cultural blinders we cannot see that we also engage in routine male and female genital mutilation here.

[malaise]

39. When a woman has time to think about this bullshit

she seriously needs a hobby. Market driven insecurities - I want out of this planet - help! help!!

[TahitiNut]

40. Pictures. We need pictures. How can we assess this story without pictures?

:evilgrin:

[Vinca]

49. I want head shots (poor choice of words).

What kind of idiot bimbo is convinced her bug needs the designer touch?

[Neshanic]

41. If this was about a "designer penis", this med journal would be giving tips...

on the latest advancements, and techniques in doing it.

[WCGreen]

45. You really don't want to be talking "tips" when you are talking about

the penis....

[peekaloo]

52. unless you're a Rabbi.

:hide:

[WCGreen]

54. Shalom....

[doggyboy]

50. I want someone to botox my balzac

Too many wrinkles

[Enrique]

51. what if the vagine hang like sleeve of wizard?

anything can be done?

[Obamarama]

53. Is this like the difference between white albacore chunk tuna and the cheap stuff?

What a bizarre story.

[derby378]

55. Unless...

...you are a victim of either vulvar cancer or female genital mutilation such as practiced in various African and Middle Eastern nations, leave your mound of Venus alone.

If you're not totally happy with your vagina, trust me, there is someone out there who will love you exactly as you are and will do anything to satisfy you sexually and make you happy, minor personal quibbles over physiological aesthetics be damned.

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

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