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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Labiaplasty... to make spin class more "comfortable"???

150 replies

NormaNameChange · 16/03/2018 20:18

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/plastic-surgery-labiaplasty-soulcycle-spin-exercise-women-a8178751.html

So apparently...Labiaplasty ties into grooming trends where women want everything to be clean and neat and streamlined

Now, I'm all for clean and neat but...AIBU to pass on the labiaplasty?

OP posts:
HairyBallTheorem · 17/03/2018 11:38

How did we allow porn to get us so fucked up that we now imagine our sex lives taking place in front of an imaginary panel of judges holding up signs giving marks for technical merit and artistic impression? What happened to two people who fancy each other trying mutually to give each other a good time?

If ever there was part of the body where the Bauhaus maxim of "form follows function" should be in operation, surely it's one's genitals. What they do should be much more important than what they look like.

Re long/non-existent labia - I really suggest people go and take a look at the great wall of vagina link I posted upthread. There is no normal! The range of natural variation is absolutely huge. And any man whose response falls short of abject gratitude at being allowed to be up close and personal with your genitals, no matter what they look like, is not a man you should be having sex with.

Gwenhwyfar · 17/03/2018 11:43

"
But not okay to expect others to come to the same conclusion re their own bodies."

I have as much right as anyone else to express my opinion though.

willsa · 17/03/2018 11:46

Phew...just phew.. I'm an adult with enough sexual experience to evidence that I'm normal.
Teenager, with no real life experience and you bet I would have mutilated myself while frothing and foaming about feminism, free choice and the like ( only real motive being self-loathing and fear of inadequacy ).
Phew.. I just missed this time and age by 10 years or so...

Gwenhwyfar · 17/03/2018 11:47

"I've done spinning and I thought being fitter would have made it more comfortable. "

It's the seat that's painful (even if you don't have a labia issue). Not sure how being fitter would change that.

PestFromTheWest · 17/03/2018 11:50

Well I still don't understand.

LimonViola · 17/03/2018 12:01

You do have the right to express your view, G. Fully agree with that :)

And any man whose response falls short of abject gratitude at being allowed to be up close and personal with your genitals, no matter what they look like, is not a man you should be having sex with.

Just to clarify, should our response as a woman when faced with a penis also be abject gratitude just to be so up close and personal?

HairyBallTheorem · 17/03/2018 12:11

Limon - the situation is complicated by the power dynamics in society. Men (in general, in the sense of more likely to, obviously not all of them) are coming at this from a porn saturated position where they are expected to be pursuer, dominant, even enact acts of unwanted and unasked for sexual violence as part of "normal sex" (cf the many threads on here about women doing OLD and finding that the men they encounter now expect to be able to come on their faces or put hands round their throat on a first sexual encounter without actually asking first).

Women in general are not going into sexual encounters with the prior belief that they will be the ones passing judgement on their partner's suitability, expecting to dominate their partner, expecting to coerce their partner into unwanted sex acts. (See for example the BMJ survey into young people's attitudes to anal sex referenced in this article. For me the really chilling thing was that the young men pressuring their partners into anal sex applied that pressure while knowing that their partners did not want anal sex and would probably find it uncomfortable and painful).

In an ideal world both sexes would approach sex from a position of mutual respect. We do not live in that ideal world. Given the power imbalance, women don't actually need to be told to be nice, men do (unfortunately).

splink · 17/03/2018 12:18

As a man I know the pain of genitalia interfering with spin class.

Now, I'm not sure how 'in the way' moderately large labia get, but probably not as much as a couple of testicles and a modest sized penis.

As I attend spin class about once a week, I decided that removing my genitalia, meat and two veg, would be worthwhile.

I have no regrets. Sitting is much more comfortable. I am also experiencing much less ache following spin class.

I am slightly concerned about the aerodynamic impact my ears are having on my monthly half hour swimming session.

VioletteValentia · 17/03/2018 12:23

As I attend spin class about once a week, I decided that removing my genitalia, meat and two veg, would be worthwhile.

Labia aren’t actually useful or needed for sex, so the comparison is redundant. The closest thing is a foreskin, and even that’s stretching it.

soulrider · 17/03/2018 12:35

If men are wearing supportive underwear/cycling shorts, they'll not be sitting on their testicles in spin class. Testicles can be pulled to the front in a way labia cannot.

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 12:35

@PestFromTheWest dare I suggest that if you don't understand how labia could make someone uncomfortable during spin or other physical activities it's because you personally don't have that kind of body? Why do you disbelieve that others do? I don't remember ever experiencing this kind of discomfort (my labia only ever protruded a few milimetres) but I can very easily imagine how others might. Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean it isn't real

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 12:37

@splink if you're really a man you have no place at all making light of the pain and discomfort female bodies can cause

Kokeshi123 · 17/03/2018 12:40

I think there must be legitimate medical reasons for this in many cases, especially after difficult vaginal deliveries.

Doing it to look more like porn, though.....? Not good.

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 12:49

@Kokeshi123 "Doing it to look more like porn, though.....? Not good." I agree but to shed some more light on the process from the POV of someone who had it done for just that reason - I truly, genuinely believed I was a freak. It haunted my every waking moment and even my dreams. I rarely think of it now as it was more than 18 years ago, but it is incredible how within only about a year of having it the internet managed to so fully convince me something normal (I now actually suspect MOST women have protruding labia? At least based on the few vulvas I've seen) would make me unlovable forever. It was mostly porn but also other media; e.g. have you EVER seen a woman with longer labia in a painting or a film? Even all the supposedly empowering stuff about looking at your vulva with a mirror confused me as i could see mine without, since it stuck out. I think rather than being judgy about the women and, let's be honest, often basically children (I had JUST turned 18) who have this done we should concentrate on ensuring the next generation of girls has a better idea of what "normal" really looks like and how wide a range it encompasses

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 12:51

@HairyBallTheorem has been talking a lot of sense in this post.

VioletteValentia · 17/03/2018 12:55

have you EVER seen a woman with longer labia in a painting or a film? Even all the supposedly empowering stuff about looking at your vulva with a mirror confused me as i could see mine without, since it stuck out.

This is really true. I said earlier that I had no idea what labiaplasty was about at first because I thought all fannies looked like that. It’s a bit ridiculous to not show those who have longer labia.

DioneTheDiabolist · 17/03/2018 13:05

You didn't think people would get dizzy after an hour of twirling around?
Yes, but I thought that was part of the experience.Blush I loved twirling as a child.

UnimaginativeUsername · 17/03/2018 13:40

I still think the problem is the poorly designed saddles on the spin class bikes, not anyone’s anatomy. But somehow we seem to be in a world where the logical solution is to surgically alter the woman to suit the bike rather than to provide bikes with suitable saddles.

Obviously I’m talking about the people who are doing it simply to improve their spinning class experience (as discussed in the article).

JestFromTheWest · 17/03/2018 13:42

Well I laughed at splink and think he makes a good point.

I don't understand how labia interfere with spinning at all and I have done spinning class.

And now I am even more convinced that the procedure is unnecessary when you bear in mind that spin classes are usually more popular with men. Their testicles don't seem to prevent them from spinning.

VioletteValentia · 17/03/2018 13:48

Does it actually damage anyone to have their labia surgically removed? Is it dangerous? Hardly.

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 13:51

@JestFromTheWest "I don't understand how labia interfere with spinning at all and I have done spinning class."

you come across as wholly lacking in both imagination and empathy

not everything is about whether you understand it or not

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 13:53

@VioletteValentia yes some women have fairly life altering complications including total loss of sensation even in the clitoris, intolerable pain during sex etc so it's an operation best avoided unless necessary for comfort or health

VioletteValentia · 17/03/2018 13:57

Sloth from labiaplasty? I didn’t know that, fair enough.

SlothSlothSloth · 17/03/2018 14:00

It seems we are talking about two different things here that are nothing to do with one another:

  1. women who have the procedure due to extreme discomfort and inconvenience caused in day to day life. We do not need to discuss these women any further. Stop questioning these women's right to a life-improving procedure and believe them when they talk on this thread about their experiences of their own bodies.

  2. women who have the procedure as they've become convinced their totally normal bodies are monstrous. This is so sad and is awful to live through. And it's undeniably a symptom of our increasingly pornified culture. Please talk to your daughters so they don't go through this terrible anxiety and possibly even subject themselves to unneeded surgery over it. The wall of vagina seems like an excellent place to start.

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow · 17/03/2018 14:02

Surely all surgery should only be where absolutely necessary?

I’m sure there are people who says they have this for reasons such as cycling or comfort but at the end of the day it is almost always due to the porn culture and ensuring women are as close to that as possible

It’s fucking depressing