Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001)
ISSN: 1530-5686
GENITAL LANDSCAPING, LABIA REMODELLING AND VESTAL VAGINA: FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION OR FEMALE GENITAL COSMETIC SURGERY?
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Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001) ISSN: 1530-5686 GENITAL LANDSCAPING, LABIA REMODELLING AND VESTAL VAGINA: FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION OR FEMALE GENITAL COSMETIC SURGERY? |
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Media articles on Designer Vaginas
Lisa Derrick
New Times Los Angeles Online “Dr. Tight”
04/30/1998
First it was hair color, with women being told that blondes have more fun. Then came breast implants, liposuction, collagen, and Gortex. But now women are informed that they should make some internal modifications as well. And though they may not be what kind of changes Deepak Chopra has in mind, a Beverly Hills gynecologist says his one- hour laser procedure to resculpt and tighten the vagina will result in better sex.
Dr. David Matlock is selling an operation normally used to relieve stress urinary incontinence--leakage of urine from the bladder during coughing, exercise, or sexual intercourse. But he’s marketing the surgery as a way to enhance sexual gratification, a claim that has yet to be proven in clinical studies.
According to Matlock, “sexual gratification” doesn’t necessarily equal orgasm. “Sexual gratification is sexual pleasure,” he says. “Orgasm is just a part of that; it’s the pinnacle of that.” To the doctor, who cites Masters and Johnson repeatedly, sexual gratification means an increase in “frictional forces.” That is achieved, he explains smoothly, by decreasing the diameter of the first third of the vagina. To accomplish this, he makes incisions in the top and bottom of the vaginal canal using a laser, overlaps the muscle, stitches it in place with absorbable sutures, and removes excess surface tissue.
“I get patients that say they are not satisfied sexually, that they desire to have a more aesthetic appearance. They want to be tighter,” he explains. “Some patients, the husband and wife, come in together and say, ‘We’re not sexually satisfied.’”
“The woman has to come in here initially without anorgasmia (the inability to achieve orgasm),” Matlock continues. “We don’t want to deal with that; that’s in the realm of dysfunction.” Instead, he wants to enhance the sex lives of “normal functioning women” who have no serious problems sexually.
Traditionally, gynecology--even gynecological plastic surgery--has concerned itself with issues of physical function such as incontinence rather than sexual pleasure. But Matlock feels this needs to change. “You’re not here to make an ethical judgment; you’re here to help people,” he says. “And if [women] feel this will help their sex life, okay, we can go ahead and enhance these things.”
Among the enhancements Matlock is betting women want is “designer laser vaginoplasty,” a cosmetic remodeling of the labia. “It’s called ‘designer’ vaginoplasty because the woman is the designer,” says Matlock. “The doctor is just the instrument.” He cites the airbrushed women of Playboy as examples of what is aesthetically pleasing in labia. “Honestly, if you look at Playboy, those women, on the outer vagina area, the vulva is very aesthetically appealing, the vulva is rounded,” he says. “It’s full, it’s not flat...Women are coming in saying, ‘I want something different, I want to change things.’ Then look at Playboy, the ideal woman per se, for the body and the shape and so on. You don’t see women in there with excessively long labia minora.”
The glossy brochures that share space with Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Allure, and a bouquet of artificial flowers in Matlock’s beige-marble offices on Sunset Boulevard contend that 30 million American women “suffer” from symptoms of vaginal relaxation, primarily stress urinary incontinence, a figure other gynecologists interviewed for this article supported.
But Matlock claims that, after surgically treating women for this problem, his patients reported an astounding side effect. “They would call me and say, ‘my sex life is greatly enhanced.’ I had husbands calling. Patients would tell their friends who may not have had functional problems, saying, ‘well, Suzy had this done.’ I thought, if the patient wants this and we can offer it, let’s do it. I changed my concepts and offered it to patients who wanted it. Laser vaginal rejuvenation for the enhancement of sexual gratification is a laser surgical procedure designed to enhance sexual gratification.”
Another Beverly Hills gynecologist who declined to be named says that he has performed this surgery on women with stress urinary incontinence and they, too, said it improved their sex lives. But would he recommend the operation to a woman purely for sexual enhancement? “Not at this stage, no,” the physician says. “What Dr. Matlock is doing is very avant garde and on the cutting edge. I prefer to be in the middle of the pack.”
Vaginal relaxation can indeed be a medical problem, says Dr. Linda Brubaker, chief of uro- gynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at Rush Medical College in Chicago.
“I see a number of women with pelvic-floor problems who have satisfying sex lives,” she says. “Prolapse (the bladder and or uterus dropping into the vaginal canal) may need to be treated surgically, but to claim that sexual enhancement occurs is scientifically unproven.” She feels that peer review and scientific documentation are necessary to validate Matlock’s claims, and that if this is such a major breakthrough for women, he should be sharing it with his fellow gynecologists in published articles.
Designer vaginoplasty, and another of Matlock’s services--hymen reconstruction-- are considered elective surgeries. Only if there is a functional problem like prolapse or stress urinary incontinence will a patient be covered by insurance for the surgery, which costs between $4,000 and $8,000.
In Matlock’s office on a recent day is a 56-year-old Filipina whose English is not strong. She is here because of the eye-catching ads she has seen. Matlock’s ads-- featuring a luscious young thing in a bikini who looks like she’s in the throes of orgasm-- appear frequently in local papers.
The older woman has checked off on Matlock’s brochure problems she wants corrected--stress urinary incontinence and labia minora she feels are too big. “I have no problem with sexual gratification,” she laughs shyly. Matlock explains the surgical procedures, pointing to a plastic diagram of the female organs. He repeatedly rolls out his catch phrases, like “laser vaginal rejuvenation for the enhancement of sexual gratification” and “designer laser vaginoplasty.”
After a brief exam by the doctor, the woman returns to the consulting room. “Your labia aren’t too bad,” he says. “We can reduce those if you like.”
He recommends an operation called an anterior colporrhaphy to restore the bladder to its normal position and ease her incontinence. “This procedure is 94, 95, 96 percent effective in correcting the problem of stress urinary incontinence,” he says. The surgery, done on an outpatient basis in the doctor’s office, will take no more than an hour, but the patient must wear a catheter for four days afterward.
Colporrhaphy is indeed standard for treating stress urinary incontinence, according to Brubaker. But she warns: “Making the vagina tighter doesn’t necessarily improve female sexual response. This surgery can produce scarring and painful intercourse”--an opinion shared by a prominent Westside uro-gynecological surgeon who prefers not be named in order to avoid a “pissing contest” with Matlock.
Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy, a professor of plastic surgery at UCLA and chief of plastic surgery at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, says adamantly, “Vaginoplasty is for reconstruction, not for aesthetics.” He cautions that there also can be a loss of sensation in the labia after such surgery, an opinion echoed by other plastic and reconstructive surgeons.
Matlock minimizes the possibilities of scarring and pain. “Scarring-- you can’t look at it as scarring per se,” he says. “The body heals by scarring. If you look at this procedure, you can’t see anything, there’s a thin line. The vagina, the mucous membranes, heal so well. It heals by scars, it heals by retraction.” He insists that any scarring that occurs would in no way interfere with sexual enhancement or gratification.
Matlock claims to have performed 1,000 of these surgeries over the past decade and says the proof of his work is in the happiness of his patients. Moreover, he claims, his surgeries (half of which were to enhance sexual gratification) produced no complications from scarring or pain. “Everybody enjoys what has been done,” he says.
Dr. Brubaker is incredulous. “If that’s the case, he should definitely present this for peer review. That’s an amazing statistic for any surgeon.” Her sentiments are echoed by others who are stunned at such assertions. “That’s beating the odds,” said one L.A. plastic surgeon.
Though his peers may not be reading about him in scientific journals, Matlock is enjoying a lot of media attention. He cites an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, an upcoming article in Marie Claire, and a mention in the L.A. Times business section.
Later this year, women also will have a book from Dr. Matlock entitled “What The Gynecologist Didn’t Tell You.” He’s excited about the book’s potential. “Hopefully I can bring a lot of attention to these issues,” he says. “My colleagues are interested.” Of course, the book won’t be aimed at his colleagues in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, but at women who worry whether their labia are symmetrical--and if an hour in Matlock’s hands could really enhance their sex lives.
And what do men think about the concept of tightening? To quote one 37-year- old single male publicist, “I never met a pussy I didn’t like.” Though now, thanks to Dr. Matlock, he may be meeting more than a few that look alike.
Dorianne Sager
Thunder bird: Online Magazine.
Issue 3, Volume 1, April 1999
Are there any limits left to what the media will report on? What was taboo only 10 years ago now makes headlines. A cheeky and sassy flair in the 90s is what my mother used to call “talking back.” Sex used to be reserved for the bedroom, but it now lies prominently on the first page. The impotent male, once expected to keep a low profile, has now been raised to new heights with the massive media coverage of the savior pill, Viagra. Women, perhaps feeling a little stifled with the excessive amounts of testosterone in the air, have retaliated with the latest issue to push the journalistic envelope; designer vaginas.
It’s an area of plastic surgery that doesn’t get explored much and often has people crossing their legs in embarrassment. Not to fear. We are the new media generation, we have the freedom to spread our legs (so to speak), clamp our inhibitions firmly on the operating table and nip and tuck our taboos into neat little stories.
Unfortunately, with every milestone reached, there is a price. Reporting on designer vaginas may have broken through another outdated modesty barrier, but now women have one more body part to obsess about, our imperfect vaginas. Not that I’m sure mine is imperfect. I actually haven’t worked very hard to cultivate a personal relationship with it, although I have dubbed it my GGA (general girl area). But, according to the latest trend sweeping through the plastic culture of altered perfection, I could probably do with some improvement.
The concept of designer vaginas grew out of successfully repaired episiotomies, where the entrance to the vagina would be tightened after a woman gave birth. Overly strenuous or repeated childbirth can leave many women with little or no control over their vaginal opening and as a result their sex lives are often affected. Some women also have excessively large labia, which can hang down to resemble a small penis. In Japan, the condition is called the “winged butterfly” and is considered a sexual delicacy. But for many women it can cause chaffing, painful intercourse and extreme psychological inhibitions.
According to Dr. Robert Stubbs in Toronto, who has been performing such surgeries for the last 15 years, this type of work has been around since the 50s, when doctors discretely referred to it as “improving a woman’s well-being.” Although it is a topic just recently tackled by the media, the desire for “designer vaginas” is, in fact, a growing area of plastic surgery in Canada. The nip and tuck part of the surgery has even been dubbed the “Toronto Trim.”
Women often go to Dr. Stubbs because they are unable to reach orgasm, or are genuinely distressed about their appearance. The surgeries available include; adding fat to small, dried out labia to give them a more rounded and youthful appearance, vaginal tightening, wrinkle removal of the labia (dismissed as a gimmick by Dr. Stubbs), clitoral repositioning, or pubic liposuction of oversized lips. Bigger, smaller, Armani or Gucci, the possibilities are endless. Eyebrows may raise over this trend of experimenting with needles and female genitalia, but Dr Stubbs dismisses the ethical concerns that might surround such surgery. If an intelligent and informed woman comes to him with valid concerns about her vaginal appearance or sexual discomfort, he sees no reason why he should not help them. “There are only a few things in life that stimulate people” he says. “Hunger is one, sex is the other.”
Personally, I think the medical priority should be focused on making the clitoris easier to find. Maybe they could start etching road maps onto woman’s stomachs to help men along on their journey. “The quickest way to my G-spot – next left.” Since men are always so concerned with finding the fastest route from A to B, and since they hate to stop and ask for directions, this might be the most effective way to increase a woman’s sexual satisfaction. However, for some women, simply turning off the light to disguise a tired looking vagina or handing their partner a user’s manual is not a desirable solution.
Vaginal surgery is often dismissed as nothing but hype, mired as it is in the myth that it increases female sexual gratification. But, there are many out there who believe female sexual gratification is a myth anyway, so what’s the harm in a little elective surgery? Since female sexuality is shrouded in mystery, it has not received any in depth clinical research, perhaps because of the fear that the results could be faked.
This medical oversight, which has delayed the development of a female Viagra pill, is also responsible for the lack of recognition for “designer vaginas.” The road to female liberation and equality may seem to have veered a bit and some may debate that a woman’s self esteem should not lie between her legs. Yet, if advances in medical science can aid a man’s sexual life, why not a woman’s? Is this not what the fight for equality is all about?
The good news is, the fight looks like it’s heading towards a climax. Dr. Stubbs’ practice is thriving and he boasts a high percentage rate of satisfied women – a brave claim for any man.
All self-congratulation aside, it just might be that 1999 is the year of the designer vagina. Spreads in American newspapers advertise the glory of revamped genitalia; a Dr. David Murdoch in the States has even claimed the title “The Picasso of Vaginas.” Canadians, of course, are much more conservative and realistic, and while I don’t see the National Post or the Globe freeing space for “before and after” endorsements, Dr. Stubbs’ work has been receiving greater recognition by the medical establishment.
Times have certainly changed. Gone is the modest innocence of the “Beaver Cleaver” days when sexual frustration was passively accepted. Women can now publicly declare their frustration and pay for the right to be fully orgasmic. As Dr. Stubbs says: “Nothing is new. It depends on whether the timing is right.” And you can bet the media will be there to report on it.
Note: There are of course risks with this type of medical tinkering, as there are with every surgery. Women should not hold unrealistic expectations of mind-blowing orgasms once surgery has been completed. Plastic surgery, like sex, can often disappoint.
Lynda Gorov
Globe Staff, 08/23/99
That Little Bastad
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The clear plastic model of a vagina on Dr. David Matlock’s otherwise empty desk is flawless, both anatomically and aesthetically. It is intended as the ideal. It’s what his female patients want.
Along with the more accepted cosmetic surgeries such as breast augmentations, eye lifts and tummy tucks, Matlock offers what his publicist discreetly describes as an essential service for women with a certain physical dysfunction. Advertisements for his Beverly Hills medical practice, featuring an array of barely clad beauties, put it more bluntly: “Ladies. If you are self-conscious about showing ‘The Full Monty’ there is a solution. ... You won’t believe how good sex can be!”
That controversial - and clinically unproven - promise has pulled women by the hundreds into Matlock’s salmon-and-cream surgical center, all of them eager, many of them desperate, for the latest trend in self improvement: plastic surgery to enhance sexual pleasure. Whether driven by vanity or medical necessity, they are willing to pay thousands of dollars and to undergo resculpting, tightening and trimming via Matlock’s laser. Afterward, many speak of the doctor in a tone approaching reverence.
“Thank God, because Dr. Matlock gave me back my life,” said Maria, 34, an image consultant and mother of two from Chicago whose difficult childbirths left her with a misshapen vagina and other, painful problems. “They say sex doesn’t matter. It does. In fact, before sex was so uncomfortable it probably resulted in my divorce. Now I’m functioning like a normal human being.”
For his part, Matlock sounds like a man sure of what women want and glad to give it to them. In some cases, he’ll even restore hymens in brides-to-be. But the gynecologist and board-certified plastic surgeon sounds proudest of what he calls “laser vaginal rejuvenation,” the one-hour procedure that has brought patients from around the country to his marble office suite and landed him on shockjock Howard Stern’s radio show. He says he’s performed more than 1,000 of them in the last decade or so, almost half of them since the ad began running 18 months ago.
As even Matlock concedes, his is a modified version of an operation to correct vaginal relaxation and related symptoms. One cause can be prolapse, a collapse of the bladder or uterus into the vaginal canal, when pelvic muscles and ligaments are damaged or weakened. More often, it manifests itself in stress urinary incontinence, that sometimes accompanies exercise, coughing or sexual intercourse after childbirth.
Matlock readily explains his technique in precise clinical terms. But it’s not his choice of instrument, laser over scalpel to reduce bleeding, that has gotten women’s attention. It’s his pitch, centered around sex.
He claims to be one of a few doctors willing to perform the surgery to enhance sexual gratification.
Most other doctors, he said, would try and convince a woman that her “symptoms” are the normal side effects of aging and dissuade her from having the surgery.
“I’m saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’ ... This is involving the quality of life,” he said.
But it’s a feature of the surgery that some other doctors dispute. While Matlock cites Masters and Johnson on the importance of “frictional forces,” they say there is no proof that vaginal tightening improves sex except in the most extreme cases and can, in fact, cause unnecessary scarring and make intercourse painful. Repairing a leaky bladder, as opposed to restoring it to its normal position should also have no effect on the vagina, they say.
Mostly, though, Matlock’s critics question hyping the cosmetic angle, regardless whether a woman has an actual physical problem or only a tendency to buy into the latest trend. His sex enhancement surgery costs anywhere from $3,500 to $8,000.
“I worry absolutely that this will be the next thing they’ll tell women is wrong with them,” said Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy, a professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Californa/Los Angeles and chief of both specialties at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center. “If you have a problem and things aren’t working correctly, that’s a different story. But do it for yourself, not for your husband, not for your boyfriend, not because your agent sent you in. ... Don’t be duped.”
Matlock too says he wants women to focus on their own needs, not anyone else’s. He says anyone with a sexual dysfunction such as anorgasmia, or the inability to achieve orgasm, is best treated with therapy. He also says if more doctors were sensitive to women’s complaints, he wouldn’t be inundated with inquiries from potential patients. He wouldn’t be getting requests for training sessions from other doctors around the country. And don’t get Matlock started on the help that would be available if men had similar dysfunctions. He ticks off the scores of devices available to impotent men and all the medications. Few, after all, questioned the necessity of Viagra, not even the insurance companies who often refuse to pay for vaginal rejuvenation.
Matlock himself seems to turn few patients away. Instead, he offers one anecdote about a divorcee whose husband left her for a younger woman, another about a woman who made her husband pay $1,000 every time they had sex after the surgery and still another about women whose sexual partners have small penises.
The goal is post-virginal, pre-childbearing condition, he says.
In testimonial after testimonial, patients whose names and numbers Matlock provided swear by his technique and say they don’t know what they would have done had they not found him. None says she had the surgery purely for cosmetic reasons, although Matlock says a fair number do.
Jessica, a 30-year-old woman from Riverside, Calif., cites a litany of medical problems she had before seeing Matlock, from extensive cramping to heavy bleeding to eventual loss of bladder control. She had no complaints about sex before, she says, but was delighted at the unexpected improvement. She has since recommended the procedure to several friends.
“It was like I didn’t even know I had this problem until afterward,” said Jessica, who, like most of the other patients, did not want her full name used. “I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Another patient, a 25-year-old student from Orange County who did not want her name used at all, had the same reaction after having her labia remodeled in what Matlock has dubbed “designer laser vaginoplasty.”
“I’ll just get graphic because that’s what it’s about,” she said. “It’s cleaner, it’s more hygienic. ... It’s sculpted. It looks nice. It’s perfect. Honestly, I feel sexier.”
Results like that have made designer vaginoplasty Matlock’s second most popular, one usually done for aesthetic reasons. Sometimes women bring along copies of Playboy centerfolds and tell him they want theirs to look like that. In turn, Matlock nips with the laser and plumps with liposuctioned fat, restoring the area to its youthful shape and sheen.
“I say designer because the woman’s the designer and the doctor’s her instrument,” said Matlock, who is not the only doctor who performs this procedure but is among those helping to popularize it.
As Matlock sees it, anything that increases a woman’s confidence stands to improve her sex life. His patients tell him as much, and so does his booming business. Still, the emphasis remains on the physical rather than the psychological.
“If you look at the human sex response cycle - expectation, plateau, orgasm, resolution, it’s very complex,” Matlock said. “All the senses are involved. The brain is involved. I will not begin to think I can deal with all of that. What I say is that I can deal with one part, and that’s all I’m trying to do, and that is enhanced sexual gratification.”
Jen Loy
Fabu la Magazine
The first time I caught sight of an ad for “Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation,” I knew I was in LA. The ad featured a barely bikini-clad woman with back and neck arched to suggest that summit of all sensations. “You won’t believe how good sex can be!” Singing the praises of a Dr. David Matlock of the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Center in Los Angeles, the ad invited me to “Call today for a complimentary consultation with our Board Certified Gynecologist.” And financing was available. That’s a relief.
A few weeks later I had in my hands a press release about a “New Trend in Plastic Surgery for Women,” which informed me that “a growing number of women are joining a new trend in plastic surgery to improve the appearance of their outer vaginal area.” Curious, and more than a little nauseous, I read on and quickly learned that “Dr. Alter has developed a new procedure for reducing the size and shape of the inner lips of the vagina,” called labiaplasty. According to the release, the good doctor was more than willing to tell me all about it.
So now there’s a problem with women’s lower lips? I’m still threatening to buy the boobs that were supposed to be my birthright, and now I’m invited to grab a mirror and take a good look. As a friend and fellow admirer of the plastic in Pamela said, “but my pussy is perfect!” My sentiments exactly. We’ll buy boobs, but get cut near our clits? Hell no! So why all the buzz about modifying muffs?
With a name like Dr. Alter, I figured he was where I’d start my voyage into the apparently budding industry of designer vaginas. Dr. Matlock has a full-page ad, but Dr. Gary Alter has a publicist.
Costing anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000, a sample of the snipping, injecting, clipping, and stitching from the burgeoning world of Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (or, as Cosmo refers to it, “sexual-enhancement surgery”) includes: vaginal tightening (similar to the husband’s knot the stitching up of the torn or stretched vagina after child birth), the liposuction and lifting of lips that have begun to lose the battle with gravity, the “repair” of the hymen, the clipping of elongated or asymmetrical inner lips, unhooding the clitoris for more friction, and injecting fat (taken from the inner thigh) into lips thought too thin.
According to press material, the most common procedure is labiaplasty. Labiaplasty is the trimming of the labia minora, the flaps of skin that form the inner lips of a woman’s genitalia. Based in the Mecca of makeovers, Beverly Hills, Dr. Alter is one of the few board- certified urologists and plastic surgeons practicing in the United States. After 10 years as a urologist, he “saw various problems that were not being addressed by anybody. Plastic surgeons don’t know much about genitals.”
“The [original] procedure, that’s still in all the medical literature, is when you have these labia minora that are sticking out, is to just kinda cut ‘em off. So, you have this long suture line and the raggedness of the sutre line simulates the edge of a labia. But to me, that was very unnatural. I thought, as a plastic surgeon, there has to be a better way to do this.” So, he developed labiaplasty.
“It’s the combined training that makes a difference. You can make an ear smaller without losing the shape by taking various triangles out of the ear, the edge of the ear, and then you bring the ear together, so it keeps the same shape.” Ears? The normal edges of the labia are left intact, and according to the before and after shots on his site (www.altermd.com), the new labia look “natural.” No, the photos have not been altered, just the flesh. And the after shots do look “natural,” but it would be easy to argue that the before shots look natural as well. After all, these women were born with what is bared in the before shots. Isn’t that natural? We are talking about plastic surgeons and the women who pay them, natural is up for debate.
Was there a biological reason these women came to Dr. Alter? Were these women unable to reach orgasm before the procedure? Not according to Dr. Alter. “You can forget the orgasm part; I don’t do this for sexual improvements. It’s purely cosmetic.” In fact, 90 percent of Dr. Alter’s patients have pursued this procedure for cosmetic’s sake, while less than 10 percent have what he would consider a “legitimate physical” need to get cut. Some women’s labia minora are long enough that they get pulled during penetration, making the act of sex painful, or caught in clothing, making snug panties, tight pants, biking, or horseback riding far from comfortable. But the majority of the women who have had a labiaplasty do not have legitimate biological or physical reason. Psychological, yes.
Vanity may call for such things as a nose job, a tummy tuck, or a face lift. And I’ll be honest: I’m not joking when I threaten my busty family with a boob job if my genes don’t kick in. But my labia? Isn’t it kind of dangerous to go clipping the skin that protects the sensual center of my body?
According to more than a few doctors, yes. In a recent Bitch article, “Vulva Goldmine” (Vol. 11), Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy cautions that “any time you make an incision, you have decreased sensitivity.” Lesavoy, who teaches plastic surgery at UCLA (Dr. Alter’s alma mater) continues, “I would caution anyone against having genital surgeries for cosmetic reasons. I think they’re fraught with dangers. God made us in such a way that things function pretty well left alone.”
But according to Dr. Alter and the previously mentioned Dr. Matlock, Lesavoy’s and similar God/doctor-knows-best attitudes in the medical world are a major problem. Dr. Matlock maintains that “very few physicians are concerned with the appearance of the female external genitalia. A relative complacency exists that frustrates many women.” And Dr. Alter adds the he “see[s] a lot of women who are upset at gynecologists and other plastic surgeons because they have complaints about the appearance of their genitalia, but they have been dismissed by these gynecologists and plastic surgeons. They basically are told, “Don’t worry about it; there is nothing wrong with your labia,” or “go to a psychiatrist,” or “go on antidepressants.” This happens all the time. You start to wonder how doctors really view females.” Both men herald themselves as doctors, who unlike their peers are willing to listen to women. To give them what they want. According to our Beverly Hills plastic man, his patients are often “so relieved that they’re not the only person out there with this problem.”
There has never been a lot of discussion about what women’s vaginas and labia look like. At least, not in the wonderful world of Western medicine. Not that all women are slaves to the demands of our society, but we all feel the effects. We know what society expects of our breasts, our butts, and our legs. But what about our labia? And why does it seem like the labia is suddenly the thing to be tweaked?
In a recent Salon interview, Elizabeth Haiken, author of Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery (John Hopkins University Press), points out that “before crotch shots were published nobody was interested in this, but now everyone knows what labia are supposed to look like.” Dr. Altar has called it the “Penthouse effect.” If Playboy’s popularization in the ‘50s caused the fervor for breast enlargements in later decades, then crotch shots in magazines and porn flicks have heightened women’s awareness of their down-theres. So, women are lining up to improve their pudenda.
Not exactly. Canadian Dr. Stubbs, hawker of the Toronto Trim, boasts he’s doing the procedure “more than ever” he’s up to once a month. Dr. Matlock’s Web site doesn’t give numbers (but he does promise women better orgasms), and Dr. Alter is up from four or five when his press material boasted “many,” to 40 or so. For all the hype, it appears that hardly any women are getting this procedure.
Who are these women who think their vaginas should look better? Trophy wives? Plastic surgery junkies?
Dr. Alter offers that for the majority of the women who come to him for this procedure (women in their ‘20s and ‘30s) this is not their first surgery. Alter adds that “these women are really good looking” and having labia they don’t like becomes an “overwhelming self-esteem thing.” Does their self-esteem improve after the $4,000 -$5,000 dollar, hour or so long surgery? You betcha.
“Honest to god,” gushes Dr. Alter. “I’m telling you, the women are so happy it’s mind boggling.”
Mind boggling indeed. These doctors are hawking their shiny plastic wares to their return customers. They are taking ads out in the LA Weekly and hiring publicists to target women’s publications. And, no surprise here, women are buying it. Maybe the surprise is that the publicity is painting a picture of a plastic surgeon (with scalpel raised high above well- groomed hair and a Hollywood smile) as crusader for women’s rights.
I understand insecurity and body image issues. I think most women do. And hey, we all know our economy is driven by a materialism that often develops out of these insecurities. But considering the risks of losing sensation or gaining increased sensation to the point of constant discomfort, considering that sexual enhancement surgery could possibly rob a woman of the ability to enjoy the act, let alone walk across the bedroom, I have to shake my head. I, who have looked longingly at breasts that burst from blouses, would never stand in the way of a woman who wanted to buy the pussy of her dreams. But I might question her dreams.
With all the press releases, Web sites, and testimonies of labiaplastied ladies, there has been something of a media mania about all this muff modification. Cosmo’s “Health Report” (November, 1998) claimed that “A hot trend out of Hollywood promises to prettify and pleasure up your pantie-clad parts. Could one of these below-the-belt snips, nips, or tucks revolutionize your sex life?” (Leave it to Cosmo to ask the tough questions.) Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture asks “What is the standard for vulvas and who sets it?” Also responding to the press releases with articles and airtime are Marie-Claire, Jane, Howard Stern you can pretty much guess how each of these media giants covered the trend.
The most surprising and (perhaps) the most woman-positive piece of late was published by Playboy. A concerned hubbie wrote The Playboy Advisor (August, 1999) because his wife thinks her lips are too long. He likes ‘em just fine, as they give him more to “nibble on,” but nevertheless, inquires if “there is a doctor in his right mind who does this type of operation,” because the size of her labia are “really bothering her.” The Advisor does describe Dr. Alter’s procedure, but also suggests that the concerned nibbler buy a copy of Femalia (Down There Press, 1993) so she can see photos of vulvas and labia of all shapes and sizes. Quite the progressive piece of advice. “And you keep reassuring her that her lips are as beautiful to you as the rest of her.” Could it be The Advisor who realizes when a woman is more comfortable with the parts she was born with, she’ll get more pleasure out of using them, which in turn means her partner will get more pleasure as well?
Mike Falcon
With medical adviser Stephen A. Shoop, M.D.
A Doctor In Your House.com
USA Today.com “Female Genital Surgery Goes Public,”
March 3, 2000
Cosmetic surgery is increasingly going well below women’s beltlines to meet the changing demands of fashion, confront long-ignored medical problems, and satisfy aging baby boomers who believe they can have it all - and have it forever.
These procedures change both the external and internal configurations of female genitalia through traditional surgical interventions, cutting-edge innovations, and laser techniques.
Although specific figures have not been compiled, surgeons who specialize in the field report that demand for female genital cosmetic procedures is climbing rapidly. A decade ago, these operations were arcane. Now, they’re routinely advertised - usually in metropolitan alternative newspapers - and even seen live on the Web.
“The awareness of intimate geography is burgeoning,” notes Dr. David Matlock, a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist in Los Angeles. “And it’s an exploration each person, regardless of gender, needs to make for themselves.”
The escalating sexualization of our culture has made these explorations - and comparisons - virtually inevitable.
Women have been increasingly exposed to a media explosion of male-oriented explicit films and publications, often by their boyfriends and husbands.
Popular women-to-women publications are sometimes very explicit as well. Mainstream women’s magazines such as Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan have recently published first-person stories about women having cosmetic genital procedures.
Generational and style dynamics have also contributed to a heightened visual awareness of women’s private anatomies. “Younger patients often wear swimsuits that are extraordinarily brief,” notes Matlock. “To accommodate these styles, we see more women who expose large areas of skin in the pubic region.”
As their genitals become increasingly exposed, females are more likely to notice anatomical differences that were formerly obscured. This growing awareness moves certain women to become concerned that they fit within some sort of norm.
“It’s sometimes somewhat ill-defined,” says Dr. Gary Alter, associate clinical professor of plastic surgery, UCLA School of Medicine, and board certified plastic surgeon and urologist in Beverly Hills. “But many women come in with very precise models of exactly what they want to look like. I encourage women not to rush into this, but to explore their beliefs and feelings, rather than to make quick judgments based on external appearances.”
Careful consideration by both patient and surgeon is an absolute prerequisite before any decision is made to operate. Both should be sure the patient is making the decision for the right reasons.
“If they have formed a question about how they look in a very private setting, have asked themselves what the dynamics are surrounding that internally posed question, and have determined it to be a problem for them rather than some artifice, then we are here to help them achieve a happy outcome based on their needs and determinations,” says Alter.
Experts downplay the notion that hordes of women are opting to undergo these operations because of narcissistic genital vanity. They maintain that most who elect these procedures actually feel deformed or are experiencing significant discomfort.
“These are not usually minor differences from some cultural ideal,” points out Matlock. “They’re significant differences from what makes them feel ‘normal,’ often have deep self-esteem issues entwined - just as they would for a male patient - and frequently have interrelated medical aspects.”
“For every patient that holds up a copy of Playboy and says ‘I want to look like this,’ there are others who have medical concerns that overshadow the cosmetic,” Matlock notes. “For every call we get from the merely curious, we get a letter with a Polaroid that asks, ‘Is there any way you can help me? I don’t look like myself, and I’m in considerable pain.’”
This mesh of physiological and psychological issues makes the field of women’s elective genital surgery controversial. But it is comparatively free of the criticisms that have accompanied cosmetic procedures such as breast augmentation that appear to be often motivated by male preferences in female sexual aesthetics.
“It is driven by women, and it’s for women,” emphasizes Matlock. “We take great pains to ensure that we are a team. The woman is the artist, and we are the instrument she uses to express herself in her image.”
“Underlying all of this is the belief that the patient’s physical, emotional, and mental health are entwined and can be improved through procedures that similarly overlap,” Matlock adds. “Quite frankly, if these had been ‘male problems,’ in our male-dominant culture they would have been addressed years ago.”
Labia minora reduction - The most frequently performed operation reduces significantly enlarged, asymmetrical or distended interior labia. These are usually hereditary. But trauma, childbirth, and even sexual activity can markedly increase their size and alter their shape. Some enlarge for no apparent reasons.
Although some distension is usual, labia minora that extend well beyond the exterior labia majora can be a source of discomfort and pain, particularly during physical activity and sexual intercourse. Form-fitting pants and thong bikinis are also hazards for extended minora, which can be severely irritated by such clothing.
Alter’s progressive procedure, the subject of a March 1998 article in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, achieves an essentially seamless outer labia edge that retains usual coloration by using a transverse suture line that is virtually unnoticeable. This is a vast improvement over earlier procedures, which involved excising the protuberant portions and then longitudinally oversewing the raw edge.
Labia majora remodeling - Asymmetry, loss of fullness, and unusually enlarged labia majora are addressed by different procedures. Careful excising of excess skin and fat can reduce abnormal shape and size without a visible scar. Restoring fullness usually involves fat injections or inserting graft materials.
Vaginal reconstruction - Relaxation of the vaginal muscles as women age is normal. But the degree of relaxation can vary considerably. “Simply put, the vaginal muscles become relaxed, and there can also be an actual widening,” says Matlock. A combination of less elasticity due to normal aging, and widening through childbirth can result in an enlarged vagina as well.
Some women are simply born with larger vaginas than others. “This isn’t a problem for most women,” emphasizes Matlock. “But it is for some, and it can have an impact on their enjoyment of sexual intercourse, as well as that of their partners.”
As sex therapists Masters and Johnson made clear in their landmark research, sexual gratification is directly related to the degree of friction generated between the male and female organs. If the vagina is so enlarged that friction is minimal, satisfying intercourse may be difficult to accomplish.
“Our usual goal in cases like this is to bring the woman back to her pre-childbirth state, with her providing very specific and precise input as to the level of reconstruction,” says Matlock. Sometimes excess tissue around the clitoris is also removed in order to facilitate access and increase the likelihood of orgasm.
Doctors frequently recommend Kegel exercises to tighten the pelvic musculature of women with relaxed vaginas. While this works for many, others experience disappointing results.
“We had one patient who did up to 180 Kegels per day,” notes Matlock. “She joked that if it ever became an Olympic sport, she’d win the gold. It wasn’t a question of her dedication, or the fault of the exercises. Kegels are primarily concerned with the leviator anii muscle, but the dynamics of vaginal musculature are far greater than that. She simply couldn’t restore what had been changed, because the enlargement was too great. For women like this, the procedure is a godsend.”
While vaginal reconstruction is not new, Matlock’s laser approach dramatically reduces operative bleeding, postoperative swelling, and recovery time. “The traditional in-patient procedure had been used for 70 years,” says Matlock, “but the more I researched the history of the operation, the more convinced I became that the reconstruction had to take into account the nature of the supportive muscles as well as narrowing the vagina. The vagina doesn’t exist by itself in space; it has an intricate relationship with surrounding structures and muscles. Laser precision helps.” It also helps make this an outpatient procedure in most cases.
Pubis tuck - This procedure involves removing excess skin above the pubic area, elevating the pubis and offsetting the visual effects of age and gravity. Often combined with an abdominoplasty or tummy tuck, this is almost always an operation dictated by cosmetic appeal.
Hymenoplasty - Restoring or building a more complete hymen is not as unusual as it might at first appear. Despite almost universal agreement that hymens are rarely intact or complete, certain religious, largely immigrant communities in the USA - and a number abroad - reserve a right for the husband’s family to engage a physician to examine his prospective bride’s hymen.
“To our minds, this is usually pretty absurd,” notes Matlock. “It can be of inestimable importance to some women, however. Leaving aside various cultural norms, any number of everyday activities stretch, tear, and detach the hymen.” But if the lower third of the hymenal remnant is fairly intact, it may be stretched and reattached, providing the observer with a visually sound ring that will also result in bleeding when forcibly penetrated.
Post-surgical or post-traumatic reconstruction - Atypical appearance as a result of cancer surgeries is fairly common. The irresponsible mutilation of girl babies under the guise of “female circumcision” also results in women seeking reconstruction years later. These are highly individualized plastic surgery procedures with widely varying outcomes.
A word of caution is in order for women contemplating any of these surgeries. “Ask the doctor a lot of questions,” says Matlock. “Don’t hesitate to sit in the office and ask current patients about their experiences,” advises Alter. “Above all, make sure that you’re entering into a relationship with someone who has done the procedures over and over again. This is definitely not something where you want to be first.”
Debra Ollivier
USA Today.com “Female Genital Surgery goes Public”
Nov. 14, 2000
For as long as she can remember, Jill wanted a different vagina. Not only was her labia minora slightly larger than her labia majora (“I’d see women in locker rooms and in magazines and be jealous,” she says); after two children she also had serious incontinence problems.
“My vagina had that ‘flippy-floppy’ feeling. I could barely feel anything. Sex was just not the same.” Then a friend of hers saw an ad for Dr. David Matlock and his Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation clinic in Los Angeles. “My friend said, ‘Hey Jill, you could do this!’ It was meant as a joke. I found Matlock’s number on the Net and was in his office within a week.”
Jill, a Manhattan lawyer, had two of Matlock’s trademark surgeries: Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation (LVR) to tighten her vagina and “enhance sexual gratification” and Designer Laser Vaginoplasty (DLV) to “aesthetically modify” her labia.
She calls her transformation “a miracle,” and she is not alone in her enthusiasm. High above Sunset Boulevard, in Matlock’s plush, 5,000-square- foot office, vaginas are being redesigned, labia modified, vulvae reconfigured. The women spreading their legs, exposing their personal secrets to the antiseptic trimmings and surgical prunings of a trusty laser are ad hoc pioneers in a rapidly growing industry. But is LVR truly a way of enhancing sexual gratification or simply a way of selling gynecological surgery while pushing the perfect vagina? With the reasons for LVR and DLV as diverse as the vaginas themselves, the answers are not so cut-and-dried.
Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation began as a modification of a traditional gynecological vaginal surgery for stress urinary incontinence. The procedure, which has been a standard gynecological surgery for decades, involves the tightening of the vaginal muscles and support tissues, as well as the reduction of redundant vaginal mucosa (relaxed vaginal lining). By reconstructing the “optimum structural architecture” of the vagina -- namely, by reconstructing the outer third of the vagina: the orgasmic platform, internal and external vaginal diameter (introitus) and the perineal body -- Matlock claims that women not only are relieved of incontinence, but they also enjoy increased levels of sexual gratification.
The connection between vaginal tightness and sexual gratification allegedly became apparent to Matlock 12 years ago when a woman came into his office with extreme stress urinary incontinence after the birth of four children. Matlock recalls her phone call weeks after the surgery. “She called back and said, ‘Doctor, guess what? Since I’ve had the procedure sex is great. My husband says he has the same wife, but a new woman.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ I just put that in the back of my mind.”
Later, word of mouth spread, bringing more women to Matlock’s office in search of a tighter vagina not just to end incontinence, but for better sex. Some requested that, once on the surgery table, Matlock do a little cosmetic surgery as well -- a plumping up of a flaccid vulva here, a trimming back of a labium there. “I hesitated at first,” says Matlock of those fledgling days, when a growing interest in sexual gratification and designer vaginas slowly brought women flocking to his office. “Then I modified my thoughts. I thought, OK.”
Matlock ran his first ad in the L.A. Weekly two years ago. Amid the clutter of ads for big breasts, tight butts, large penises and iron shins, the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation ad featured a bikini-clad woman writhing in orgasmic delight. The headline read: “You Won’t Believe How Good Sex Can Be!” Matlock’s phones haven’t stopped ringing since.
Speaking with the gusto of a moral crusader, Matlock sits in his office with a panoramic view of L.A. looming behind him. On his large, shiny desk stands a transparent plastic model of a vagina and its reproductive system. “Gynecology is a supersurgical subspecialty,” he says. “We dedicate our entire professional careers to the reproductive tract. But do we ever go back and look at the things that result from labor, delivery, childbirth? There can be relaxation of that structure and thus a diminishment or a decrease in sexual gratification. Do we concern ourselves with that? No. Not at all. We only concern ourselves with obstetrics. I think there needs to be research in this area, and I’ll tell you why: Women do [his emphasis] enjoy sex. Women want to enjoy sex. Women want to be able to enhance their sexuality if they can.”
By marrying this type of sexual marketing rhetoric with gynecological science and cosmetic surgery, Matlock unwittingly formed a new and lucrative alliance. Today women from all over the world come to Matlock’s office seeking a rehauled, resexed vagina. Like Jill, they claim phenomenal and life-changing results -- two adjectives that could very well describe what LVR and DLV have done for Matlock. Poised to launch an international franchising and licensing network, Matlock stands on the edge of a cresting wave that has already made him a millionaire several times over, generated media attention (Howard Stern has praised the man) and provoked the wrath of many in the ob/gyn community.
“I think this is a way of preying on vulnerable women,” says Dr. Linda Brubaker, fellowship director of Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center. “I reconstruct vaginas all the time. I agree that the field of women’s sexual functioning is a poorly studied area. But I don’t buy any of what Matlock is saying. There are standard pre- and post-operative intervention tests and tools that could be applied here to substantiate his claims. Curious that Matlock has not applied any of them to his own work, nor published any scientific material relating to his work, nor subjected anything to peer review. The longer this is untested, the better for him.”
Matlock makes no apologies in response to his critics. “I didn’t create the market. The need was there. The market was there. I saw it. I’m serving that market.” He looks out the window, a bit circumspect. “Doctors can be very vicious. They can be very, very jealous.”
Brubaker brushes aside his indictment of the ob/gyn community. To those considering LVR or DLV -- two procedures that are not without their risks, among them hemorrhage, infection, loss of sensitivity, lingering pain from nerve damage -- Brubaker says simply: “Run away, run away, run away.”
Apparently, a growing number of women are doing just the opposite. Consider Sherry. A 33- year-old financial consultant, Sherry went to “thousands” of gynecologists to discuss the problems with her “relaxed vagina” before going to Matlock. “Dr. Matlock was the first person who even remotely understood the situation.” She describes the result of her surgery as “overwhelming -- psychologically, physically, it was just night and day. It’s like being flat-chested your whole life and then finally having breasts.” Here she pauses, then adds: “This is L.A. Everybody wants to be beautiful. Everybody wants to be 22 years old with big boobs. Everything can be bought and sold.”
Jill also went to “a gazillion gynecologists” who dismissed her problem. Then she met Matlock. “It’s a personal preference. Life is short. For women who are severely damaged, sex should still be intense and passionate.” And herein lies the crux of the problem. No one would disagree that “severely damaged” women are entitled to great sex. To drive this point home, Matlock lifts up a large alarm clock from his desk. “I don’t want to be gross,” he says, “but I could easily put this in the vaginas of some of the women coming in here. Do you understand what I’m saying? And that’s just not right.” But while a staggering 30 percent of women will develop some form of pelvic floor disorder resulting in incontinence or compromise of vaginal integrity after birth, only 5 to 10 percent will be so damaged that they can easily fit a household appliance in their vaginas.
By obscuring the lines between the severely damaged and the naturally relaxed vagina, Matlock has leveled the playing fields among all women and widened the market potential for his genital landscaping. His tight-vagina hype also flagrantly misses the point. With sexual ground zero located in the clitoris, one can only wonder for whom the tight vagina truly tolls -- men or women?
Says Sherry, “You give more pleasure to a man, which affects your own sense of sexual gratification. It’s not necessarily about having better orgasms. It’s the way you feel as a woman.” In a moment of unguarded candor, Matlock himself suggests that a tight vagina might help you keep your man from running after younger women when he leans forward and asks, “Why not have the best sex you can at home? Why not? You tell me why these 40-, 50-, 60-year-old men are running after younger women? They want these women with these nice, hot, tight --” he puts his hands out here emphatically for me to finish the sentence. “Why is that?” he persists. (Which begs another question: Is surgically modifying your vagina the answer?)
Giving a 40- or 50-year-old woman a 20-year-old vagina is not all that Matlock has in his bag of genital tricks. He can also restore her virginity through a technique called hymenalplasty. Essentially the reconstruction of the hymen, this procedure has brought to Matlock’s office a steady clientele of Middle Eastern women. “You can’t believe how hysterical some of these women are. They come in here and say they’re going to get killed unless they get this done. They’re telling us that back home their brother will kill them, that their father will kill them. It’s terrible. The majority of these Middle Eastern women are coming in to have hymenalplasty because they’re getting ready to get married in their home country. All of them tell me that the groom’s side of the family can pick whatever doctor they want to determine whether or not she’s a virgin, to determine whether she’s worth it or not to be married to their son. So there are religious implications, there are social implications.”
That Matlock could become the Salman Rushdie of the Islamic vagina doesn’t seem to unhinge him. On the contrary. “If I can help a woman in this unfair world,” he says with a certain characteristic zeal, “then I’m going to go ahead and do it. I have no problems about doing it whatsoever. The man, he gets to do whatever he wants to do. Is he held accountable for anything? Absolutely not. But the woman is held accountable like this [he brings his hand to his throat like a knife]. It’s serious.”
Serious perhaps, but not always a question of life or death. Matlock cites the occasional flurry of Japanese women who come in for hymenalplasty. “At one point it became a regular thing. They’d come to the States, do a little school, go on vacation, then come here, have hymenalplasty and go home.”
As for Americans, while Matlock concedes that virginity before marriage is essentially a nonissue, a growing population of American women is seeking the “virgin experience” to share with their husbands. “I’m seeing quite a bit more of that happening,” says Matlock. “Women coming in because they want the experience.”
Take Helena. A financial analyst, Helena first went to Matlock for Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation. “It was the best thing I ever did. My husband was ecstatic,” she said. With her new vagina in place, Helena was drawn to the option of getting a new hymen. “My husband and I would have loved it if he had been my first. Our anniversary is coming up; we’re renewing our wedding vows. We want to have the virgin experience.”
Helena paid for her new hymen with a credit card. When we spoke she was still waiting for the healing process to end (a process she described as “full of lots of pain and crying, but that I’d go through again if I had to”) before setting up the special one-time conjugal event with her new vestal vagina.
Hymenalplasty and its bizarre implications aside, there is nothing new about LVR and DLV. Vaginal tightening has been done for decades to help women with extremely compromised vaginal integrity. For the even fewer women out there with true genital “deformities” -- extraordinarily long or protruding labia, for example, or excessive vaginal flesh -- surgery has also been an option for years. “Labial surgery?” says ob/gyn Dr. Cornelia Daly. “There’s nothing to it. It’s been around for 30 years. Lasers have even fallen out of favor. We have more sophisticated tools that do the same thing these days.” According to the ob/gyn community, Matlock has simply put a new spin (sex sells) on an old procedure.
And yet in his hype he offers an appealing line. “There are over 25 medications for male impotence,” he says. “It takes $500 to $600 million to bring one drug into research and development. Those are facts. Is there anything remotely similar there for women? No. Not at all. There are over 200 prosthetic devices for men on the market. Anything similar for women? Not at all. If men had problems like that -- if men had babies, and we had certain body parts stretched out as a result -- they would have been looked at, researched and solved a long time ago.” And who would disagree? Adds Lucy, “If men had these problems they would have been solved in a petri dish long ago.”
The irony here (which seems lost to the doctor himself) is that Matlock wants to liberate women from the shackles of a man’s world while selling them what could be the ultimate and most oppressive form of sex/beauty fascism. And as cosmetic surgery becomes more widespread, designer vaginas may become as common as the silicon breast -- a sinister prospect that has many women’s advocates up in arms. “Women’s genitals are fascinating, unique and beautiful,” says pioneering sex therapist Betty Dodson, whose Web site includes a “genital forum” featuring a panoply of different vaginas in all their diversity. Dodson -- who for decades has helped women discover their genitals, and particularly their clitoris, which she describes as women’s “little phallic symbol that terrifies the status quo” -- considers LVR and DVR as truly odious procedures except for very extreme cases.
“Now we want little doll-like genitals and vaginal orgasms and Viagra for women!” she laments, reemphasizing the need for women to assert their “clit power” as the only true road to enhanced sexual gratification. “If men can get close enough to lick and diddle, they don’t give a rat’s ass about the size of your genitals or the shape of your labias,” she says. Dismissing the link between vaginal tightness and sexual gratification as a way for men to cash in on women’s insecurities and for women to appease the male ego, she practically yells into the phone: “We have catered to men’s desires forever! We have lied to them and fooled them for centuries! Enough!”
Good Medicine chat room: conversations with Dr. David Matlock who does designer vaginas
C Health: “Designer Vaginas available in Toronto” http://www.caldercup.com/Health9902/05_makeover3.html
That Little Bastad
ABC News.com
CBS 2 Special Assignment “Sex Laser”
Copyright 2001 Africa Resource Center, Inc.
Citation Format
, Media articles on Designer Vaginas (2001). GENITAL LANDSCAPING, LABIA REMODELLING AND VESTAL VAGINA: FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION OR FEMALE GENITAL COSMETIC SURGERY?. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: 1, 1.