Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery Threatens Women's Health

Vaginal cosmetic surgery is on the rise: the number of surgeries per year more than tripled in the United States between 2005 and 2008.  Why would a woman want cosmetic surgery on her vagina, and, um, *uncomfortable squirm* what would that entail?

Women seek vaginal cosmetic surgery because they feel insecure about the size or color of their labia (too big, too dark, too floppy), they want to tighten their vaginal muscles after childbirth, they want to graft fat onto their labia or remove fat from their labia or, rarely, they want to undergo "revirginization": a procedure that stitches up membranes to recreate the sense of a hymen.

The psychological and cultural implications of this are disturbing enough. The vagina is one of the most individual, personal, idiosyncratic parts of a woman's body. The need to homogenize it to make it appear "prepubescent" (as psychologist Lih-Mei Liao describes pop culture depictions of vaginas in an interview with the BBC) and "pretty" according to porn mag standards is indicative of the degree to which popular culture and its constant bombardment of images of "perfect" women's bodies attack women's individuality.

But not only does vaginal cosmetic surgery indicate the intensity of societal pressure on women to conform to one homogeneous ideal, it also threatens women's health. The BBC and The Wall Street Journal have published articles about how vaginal cosmetic surgery can lead to the same complications during childbirth as female genital circumcision (one Jezebel commenter actually witnessed these complications from vaginal cosmetic surgery during a childbirth she observed in nursing school), and how they can cause sexual dysfunction, pain, problems urinating, and a host of other side effects that have ultimately led the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to issue a warning about vaginal cosmetic surgeries.

This has apparently had little to no effect on the doctors performing these surgeries, however, who scoff that the operation is just "removing a bit of loose flesh" and insist gynecologists and obstetricians need to stop "terrorizing" women with these disturbing facts.

Angela Bonavoglia from the Women's Media Center attended the first-ever global conference on vaginal cosmetic surgery, and came away stunned that, not only did the doctors have no established answer to whether or not the surgery would actually enhance sexual performance (a claim regularly made on their websites), they were also blithely unconcerned about the potential risks of the procedures.

Particularly powerful is Bonavoglia's comparison of the predominantly male doctors' reactions to images of bloody, cut up vaginas (total imperviousness) with their reactions to a bloody, cut up penis (shock, horror, gasps). Interesting.

It's appalling to think that doctors who are in charge of a surgery that could leave women with complications during childbirth and sexual dysfunction are shrugging off these potential dangers as non-existent or inconsequential. This is a problem that needs to be combated on two fronts: the first, a cultural and social one, in which women are helped to feel comfortable and confident with their individual bodies, and secondly a physical one, in which accurate and reliable information is provided to them about the risks of vaginal cosmetic surgery.

Photo credit: Atrayu