Girls as young as 9 asking for labiaplasty because of porn ☹️

[Labiarynth]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/03/vagina-surgery-sought-girls-young-nine-pornography-doctors-reveal/

Aibu that this is all sorts of wrong?! There are girls in the world being forced into FGM. There are causes around the world to stop this from happening yet "In 2015-16, more than 200 girls under 18 had labiaplasty on the NHS, and over 150 of the girls were under 15."

The doctors who carried out these "operations" are just as bad as the people who cut off girl's clitorises or sew them up illegally. 😡😡

beyond well exactly. You can't solve mind problems with genital surgery. The mind problems are likely to increase with every effort to appease them in fact.

Teens who are in 'emotional distress' about their labia have a wealth of problems....including their parents and the society they live in.

None of them can be solved with a knife.

There has been a massive increase in demand for labiaplasty in the past since 20 years or so since shaving off all your pubic hair has become fashionable (and also the availability of internet porn). Pubic hair kind of cushioned and hid labia but now they are exposed. My friend is a gynaecologist and is very peed off at how many young women come to her clinics looking for this when she should be seeing and treating patients with fibroids, PCOS, endometriosis and spotting cancers on the NHS. Over her 30 years of work she has seen a few women who really needed surgery - e.g. one flap massively longer but mostly those who need surgery have complications and scarring issues around tears and incisions made during child birth.

How on earth did women lets themselves be pressured to look like pre pubescent girls?

its no different from having extremely large breasts and getting them reduced on the NHS as a teen..... no its often not a medical issue (altho it sometimes can be with super super large breasts) but it can be very uncomfortable and distressing and can limit physical activity for some girls to have breasts that large. Im sure its the same for labia. Im sure that if the labia were actually within the realms of average size then no one would operate.
People are fine with kids having minor surgery for things like cleft palates or fused fingers even if its purely for cosmetic reasons. Why is this different just because its a vagina?
Yes we should all work towards helping kids be comfortable in the body they were born in. But if they arent, because theres something out of the ordinary about it, and they are becoming more and more distressed by some aspect that could easily be sorted by a minor surgery then really id agree with doctors in letting them have it.
Some kids may accept and love whatever is unusual about their bodies and thats great but some may react with real distress. I dont think that with something that out of the ordinary such as partially fused or extremely large labia that therapy is always going to work in making them feel better.
I have quite large labia that ive never had any problem with and dont see as an issue..... If your labia were noticeably huge though and causing you real discomfort.... I might consider having surgery for that.
I have extremely small breasts as well but i wouldnt consider having them made larger..... however if they were visibly odd, as in one much bigger than the other then i deffo would consider surgery.
I dont think most girls want to have surgery to look like porn stars I think they probably just want to blend in and why shouldnt they if they can and that is what they want? Its quite a lot to hang on anyone to fly the flag for body acceptance if they could simply have a bit of surgery for free on the nhs and not have to endure the distress they were going through. Why should they suffer if they dont have to?

Of course this is difficult to judge without knowing what these girls labia were actually like. I do have faith that the medical profession would not operate on average looking labia just because a girl wanted to look like a porn star though.

"Im sure its the same for labia"

The paediatric gynaecology consultant on the news disagrees with you

And cleft palate and fused finger repairs aren't just cosmetic?

Have many 9yo's actually got large/long labia? Mine didn't 'grow' until I was around 14 and I was physically mature.

beyonddrinks one of them does. But clearly many dont as they are preforming these surgeries. Clearly entire teams of medical staff have decides these surgeries are for the best. In terms of the mental and physical well being of the girls.

And "bit of surgery for free on the nhs" - th NHS isn't free, we pay for it.

This has become a trend i think, but i can understand girls being distressed because they think they look different
When i was a teenager i hated getting undressed and in showers at school, most of the other girls or all the others didnt look like me
When i first had sexual relationships i would never let anyone see me,i thought
I really thought there was something wrong and odd
Maybe if schools included these kind of things in their sex education it would let girls and boys see it more as normal

beyonddrinks they are sometimes mostly cosmetic obviously there are varying degrees. I dont think having extra large labia reduced is 'purely' cosmetic either, not if its large enough to cause irritation and emotional distress because you can see it through underwear etc..

If nine year old girls are wanting this as a result of porn, surely the question then posed is why are nine year old girls viewing porn?

What year olds have even heard of porn? Not mine.

Load of bollocks.

wanting to blend in how many labias are they blending in with? How many people actually see your labia? Just you and whomever you're intimate with right? I don't think it can be peer pressure as your besties don't normally look at your vag! So, firstly sex shouldn't be on young girls' agenda and secondly, having surgery to appeal to a sexual partner should not at all be the way we should be encouraging anyone to think.

I find this really sad, but believable. I was around this age when I thought my labia were weird and disgusting. One side was noticeably larger than the other. It bothered me for years and years before I ever became sexually active. I remember researching the surgery at 16 and confiding in my mum that I wanted to save up and have it done when I was 18.

She told me that it was something she would support if I REALLY wanted to do it, but that as a midwife she had seen thousands of vaginas and not one of them had been 'perfect' but neither had any been ugly, all just different. I was sexually active at 14, and neither of the two sexual partners I had before the age of 16 (when I told my mum I wanted it done) had ever commented on it.

I then had a few more sexual partners from the age of 16 and once again, no one commented on it. No one thought it was a problem, it didn't seem to put anyone off, and I realised that I was only self-conscious about it because I worried what other people thought. It took a while but I soon realised that anyone who complained about my body when I was sleeping with them did not deserve to have sex with me (and I'm glad to say that has never happened). I generally find that most men are just happy to be given the opportunity .

I saw this on the news this morning and mentioned to DH that I had wanted to do it when I was 9 or 10 and he was really upset about it when I explained all of this to him, that I spent half my childhood self-conscious about something that really is a non-issue.

My child was shown porn at six by a slightly older friend whose surfing wasn't monitored. I very much doubt there many are nine year olds who don't at least know what it is, I think you're possibly being naive if you are sure your child doesn't

No, I'm not naive at all. And you should have been watching your child at 6 not letting them view porn on a much older friends phone/computer/whatever.
You're in no position to criticise.

Cleft palates causes problems with feeding, and I imagine fused fingers would cause difficulties with fine motor skills, so they are for medical reasons.

Even if they are for purely cosmetic as our face and hands are on full view, if there's a problem, the child is more likely to get stares and/or bullying. Highly unlikely for an area that 99.9% of the time is hidden under clothing.

carouselfish well exactly so im going to assume that its because the labia are so big that its causing irritation when the girls are doing sport etc or its so big that it shows through underwear. Then some girls may become upset by it even without any concern over sexual partners or having seen any one elses labia.
I think in the case of 9 year old girls that scenario is actually far far more likely than it being because they have seen a porno!!

Even if they have seen a porno I doubt that at that age theyd really join up the dots and associate the grown womens labia with their own. If that were the case why arent they all clamouring for boob jobs??
I saw a porno when i was about 11 at a friends party. I certainly didnt assume my body should look like the womans at 11. I may have internalised to some extent that that is what you should look like as an adult woman... but i didnt suddenly think 'i should look like that now'
So i just find it very very very unlikely that girls that young are having surgery because they are watching porn. I think thats just a massive clickbait headline designed to stir up moral panic.

I wasn't there, six year olds go to their friends houses sometimes. Or do you watch your child 24/7?

I can't find the words for this.
Highly inflammatory journalism
Headline says "nine year olds" suggesting multiple 9 year olds. There is just no way.
Then there are no quotes from doctors about even a single 9year old.

There may be a rise in 16-21 year olds, I could believe that, which is bad enough.

veuvelies i agree! I could believe that girls in their late teens may be trying to have this surgery because of porn however I dont for a second believe that any doctor would preform this surgery on a 9 year old without really valid reason, even if it wasnt purely medical but had an element of the cosmetic... it would have to be because the labia were really out of the ordinary and was causing distress... not because a 9 year old wandered into their office saying she wanted to look like the women in pornos.
Its just an attention grabbing headline.

Apart from school and nursery and sleeping I did watch my DC 24/7

Doesn't everyone. I certainly never took my eyes off them.

Even now I know exactly where they are and what they are doing

They did a report on six year old children being given anti-depresants, it turned out that they were being given for medical reasons, other than depression, because ADs can be used for things other than depression.

Once again what is supposed to be a quality newspaper is using a clickbait headline.

My six year old doesn't go to places where he can be shown porn, no. That's not normal.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the 9 year olds have actually seen any porn. But 9 year olds are living in a culture where porn has become increasingly normalised - as we all are.

9 year olds are not somehow exempt from assimilating cultural norms