Showing posts with label cosmetic surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cosmetic surgery. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

You look fine. You really do. All of you.

It is no longer enough to hate your breasts, face, stomach, legs, nose, ears and lips enough to get them sliced and diced or injected with poison. It's no longer enough to have society tell you that your body is so very unacceptable that you should risk your life having major surgery in order to make it fit patriarchal 'rules' about thinness, pertness, tightness, hairlessness and perfection.

Now, you have to apply the same thinking to your vagina. Are the muscles stretched? Are your labia too big - or too small? Is your mons pubis too big - or too small? Ditto clitoris. Well, you can have those cut up too.

That article actually says,
So, if you or your partner is not satisfied with your vagina, a rejuvenation procedure can work wonders.

Your partner? If s/he is not happy with your vagina, that is entirely their problem! And is not ever a good reason for you to have it chopped up. In fact, if they are criticising your vulva or vagina, they certainly don't deserve you.

Amy Clare's review of a Channel 4 programme about 'designer vaginas' is worth reading.

I have had surgery twice this year, and the fear and pain associated with them made me think a lot about, and seriously question, why people would put themselves through that voluntarily. Just how strong are society's pressures, that they cause women to go through massive pain and lots of health risks, to get a smoother face or less saggy boobs?

When a woman chooses to have cosmetic surgery, I feel sad. Until we live in a society where what we look like is not used to oppress us, I question how much free choice we ever really have to make these decisions.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Designer Vaginas

I'm watching a documentary called The Perfect Vagina, about the rising trend of women having cosmetic surgery on their vaginas.

It is the fastest growing area of cosmetic surgery, and seems to be predominantly due to women's concerns about the size of their labia minora. In a medical research paper referenced in the programme, we learn that labia minora range in size from 20mm to 100mm, so naturally there is a lot of variation, but it seems that the vaginas we see, especially in porn, are 'perfect' and contained and neat, with small labia minoras, and this is making many women insecure. To the point of wanting surgery to reduce theirs.

Girls of 14, 15 and 16 are enquiring about the surgery, and the numbers seeking it are unprecedented.

The operation is called a labiaplasty and it is done under local anaesthetic, the woman being awake while her labia are sliced off. It can take three months for the vagina to recover after surgery.

The presenter, Lisa Rogers was clearly moved and alarmed by the attitudes she came across, from women, from men and from medical professionals. We also saw her own changes throughout the film.

She continually wanted women to love their bodies, and their vaginas, and could see clearly that cutting bits off and stitching bits up was not any kind of answer to the problem of us feeling so pressurised by our pornified society that even intimate parts of our bodies do not look 'right' and must be brutally modified.

The whole programme made me incredibly sad. It strikes me that hating our vaginas is yet another way that our patriarchal society infiltrates our minds and destroys women. Piece by piece.