The influence of porn is driving ain increase in labiaplasty

[QuentinSummers]

This article makes me sad for women and simultaneously feel the need to cross my legs.
Surgery to puff up your outer labia? Wtf?

www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/embodying-barbie-cosmetic-gynecology-on-the-rise-in-canada-1.4176187

If labiaplasty had been available and affordable in the 70s, 80s and 90s, women would have had it.

Leilaniii - it's awful that you can't get treatment without having to pay through the nose. It wouldn't be cosmetic surgery in your case - and actually even if it was purely cosmetic you shouldn't have had to suffer this way.

You didn't have the 1980s-style PE showers, I take it, PratStick? Very hard to avoid getting the occasional eyeful of your schoolmates' privates when you had to endure that twice a week.

We had showers, you find a discreet spot somewhere in the direction of the ceiling and you stare at it until the torture is over

Do girls who have undergone FGM and need restructuring fall into this labiaplasty category?

How true!

You still tended to get the odd glimpse, though, and that's quite enough for a girl already feeling hideously uncomfortable about the fact that she doesn't look like the diagram in the Biology textbook to see that neither does she look like all her friends.

Yes, it can be that obvious.

It's probably much more obvious now as you've got nothing to cover it. A good muff hides a multitude of sins.

We weren't even allowed to wrap towels round ourselves in the changing rooms ( dodgy PE teacher) so we were all very well aquatinted with each others bodies.

If labiaplasty had been available and affordable in the 70s, 80s and 90s, women would have had it.

Well some would no doubt, but the manufacturing of demand through deliberately undermining people's (mostly women's) self-esteem and then selling it back to them in the form of surgery has intensified dramatically since those days.

Hence the male surgeon in the BBC article pulling out the self-esteem argument. And why would people have low self-esteem regarding their genitals in the first place? Well yes for a small proportion of people it might be comparisons in the school showers. But it is also very conveniently manufactured by the normalisation of pornography and I think it would be very wrong to dismiss that

I couldn't agree more about the manufacturing of demand and its intensification.

I'm not trying to defend porn btw - I just think blaming it alone for cosmetic labiaplasty lets dodgy surgeons off the hook.

I agree, I do think we were a lot more accepting of ourselves back then as there wasn't the perfect image we were all meant to look like.

But this is still a tiny, tiny proportion of teenagers wanting such surgery. Maybe they ARE all the ones who would previously have died a little inside at every shower, and can't cycle or wear jeans without huge discomfort.

Not everything is about attractiveness to the male.

I've read lots in magazines about this sort of surgery in the UK over the last few years,and about women not teens. They tend to be women who have no confidence after an unkind comment from a partner so it's very much to do with looking good for a male. There was a BBC programme recently about a woman who had it done and instantly regretted it as one side was 'perfect' and the other side took ages to heal and she had on going problems. Her confidence was shot to bits after her ex partner kept pointing out she wasn't 'neat and tidy.'

I spent the whole programme wishing she's get counselling rather than surgery and grow her bush so it would be a complete non issue

A quick Google says it's the fastest growing plastic surgery procedure in the USA, UK and Australia.

Eh, well, yes, women can be insecure about their bodies without male intervention.
But when I was weirded out about how my genitals looked after puberty, I just shrugged it off, as, well, no one would see it anyway.

If, between puberty and first appointment with a gynecologist, I had had sex with an okay boy, he wouldn't have commented, so I would still not have considered it an issue.

Nowadays, the status quo is sex with completely pornsick boys, who think they know what a vulva is supposed to look like, or viewing porn yourself.

There's a difference between a vague feeling of "Huh, that looked different before, not sure I like that new look" and "Oh my god, I am horribly ugly, how can I live with that?!"

And I blame porn for the former turning into the latter. To have surgery on such a sensitive body part, you must be really desperate. Not just a bit unhappy about your looks.

I really don't get the can't cycle,do sports excuse.I have quite large labia minora but have never had a problem, they're not made of erectile tissue and stick out regardless and so are fine in even the flimsiest of knickers and I wear jeans all the time.
I have only see one of these done on a young teenager who used this excuse,and laboured it but her labia where not that big.Also your anatomy is still developing at that age
My daughter skips around the house naked at times but I have no idea whether she has taken after me as she has a neat muff.
As to the showers and shared changing rooms it never occurred to me to look at others muffs,I think most of use were surreptitiously checking to see if our boobs where the same.

Sure, and if it's no problem to you, you wouldn't consider having surgery!

Let's just say that, for some of us, the traditional MN position of sitting on the fence could be... uncomfortable.

The word "neat" in relation to labia makes me cringe. I don't know why.

This type of insecurity is fuelled not only by porn culture but also by 'meme' culture on social media (and the general misogyny that goes along with it)... I have seen so many 'memes' like the one below posted by comedy pages on Twitter and Instagram - with hundreds of thousands of followers - making fun of 'meat flaps' and declaring how disgusting they are. Even equating having large labia with being a 'hoe' 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

The saddest thing about these vile posts is that it's always men posting them, but in the comments you will find 100% of the female commenters agreeing - "eww so gross no guy should touch a girl with a 🐱 like that". And I guarantee many of the girls commenting are actually girls who feel insecure about their own ladyparts as a result of these kind of posts.

I admit these sorts of memes (and the captions and comments) have made me question my own and feel insecure, to the point where I started googling about labiaplasty. When I mentioned it in passing to DH he told me not to be so ridiculous; why on earth would I even consider putting myself through pain and health risks over something so trivial that doesn't bother him or hinder our sex life at all. Just as with male parts, they come in all different shapes and sizes. Unfortunately I fear many women wouldn't have such supportive partners on this issue though - perhaps they would even actively encourage them to get 'Barbie-fied' down there. I truly despair.

Ah, see I've seen memes like that which celebrated difference. I thought they were quite funny. I can well imagine them being derogatory though - there are some absolute idiots out there.

A hundred years ago you'd have all of your pubes, pit hair and leg hair. The beauty industry started telling women arm pit hair and leg hair were gross and unhygienic, so it becomes the fashion. Our mothers then 'choose' to shave those bits even though it's not really a choice, it's the done thing or you've got a 'dirty' body. But they had pubic hair, proper bushes .

But 100 years ago, women went around in long skirts and some variety of stockings and boots, with long sleeves. Even at the beach, opaque stockings were part of the kit! Between then and now, it's become acceptable to show female legs and armpits, but not if they're hairy. Extending that concept to pubic hair and even genital configuration though, that's carrying it to a hideous extreme!

I had a short relationship with a man with a waxed scrotum. I couldn't fucking look at it, it was the biggest passion killer ever as my lads were not long out of nappies.

I cannot fathom how removing all your pubic hair is anything but gross. To change your sex organs to look how they did when you were pre-pubescent is icky as fuck and its utterly baffling that its socially acceptable bordering on the social norm. The last irl conversation I had about this was with a group of 40+ women and one 25 year old. The 25 year old was genuinely stunned that we all just made do with a trim.

I know waxers in the thread have already taken offensive at this and I ummed and ahhed at being so forthright with my view on this but actually I don't care. I am not immune to society, I want to look nice, I wear make up sometimes etc. It's all bowing shitty pressure and indulging patriarchy but this isn't that. It doesn't make you look taller, thinner or more tanned. It isn't easier to maintain. It makes your sexual parts look like that of a child. That's it, that's all it achieves. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule maybe to do with certain health conditions but otherwise- fuck this shit.

Yes, quite!

To be fair miffer I find having the undercarriage waxed makes sex feel nicer but not nice e ough to justify the pain and expense. Don't know why people entirely wax the mons. That is childlike in my opinion