Designer Vaginas?! You've Got To Be Kidding, Right? Right!??

From: Designer Vaginas-Simone Weil Davis

“Labiaplasty [. . .] trimming away labial tissue and sometimes injecting fat from another part of the body into the labia that have been deemed excessively droopy” (287). When I first read this description of the procedure, my own vulva clenched up in fear. I can’t understand why women want to have this procedure done, though reasons have been given; women claiming that they want their labia to be prettier, more like the labia they see in pornography, and less ugly. Less like one’s personal anatomy and more like a mass-produced good readily available at your next doctor’s visit. How can a woman think her labia are “abnormal,” when they’re what she was born with? From my perspective, nip/tucking one’s labia is more akin to female genital cutting and female circumcision than making it more aesthetically pleasing. Who has the right to decide what is and isn’t “normal” in terms of a vulva’s appearance?

When Congress passed the criminalizing of circumcising a minor female in 1996 (290), the congressional leaders should also have taken into consideration the rise of the popularity of plastic surgery amongst females at that time. An insightful person could have suspected that labiaplasty would be the closest procedure to female genital cutting, but only slightly crossing the border from cosmetic surgery. The anti-FGO laws make mention of the “rituals” and customs of cutting African immigrant bodies and criminalize them (290), but cosmetic surgery in that specific area isn’t even approached. It’s still legal for a doctor to tell his female patient that her labia are droopy, unappealing, and above all, unsexy. This same doctor then goes on to advise his patient to get the wholly unnecessary procedure. I’m likening labiaplasty to FGOs in African countries because of the amount of pressure women feel to have this procedure done in order to please men. In America, some women believe that if they have their labia tightened up just a little, then men will be jumping into these women’s beds, enjoying their new physiques. However, in those still existing African countries where female circumcision is still okay, it’s encouraged, if not enforced by law. In both of these patriarchal societies, the ideal for feminine beauty now goes so far down below the waist; it has even struck women where they live. A woman’s vulva (all parts included) used to be her own, at least in America. In Africa it’s been such a tradition for women to be circumcised at a young age, that it’s actually abnormal if the procedure isn’t done. Why, then, are American women submitting to this tribal-like attitude men are projecting that women’s labia should be tight and pretty, and it’s a woman’s job to please the men in her life, so she must get labiaplasty? Though there, clearly, are women who claim that they are nip/tucking their way to a happier and more comfortable lifestyle, the question still remains where they got the information and idea about these surgeries in the first place. It’s more than likely that some male driven fantasy that needed to be executed planted the seed of idea. I’d like to conclude by agreeing with the following quote from Davis: “it is imperative that both consent issues and vaginal modifications themselves be considered on a continuum that is not determined along hemispheric, national, or racial lines” (293). Essentially, ladies, take a look at what’s really going on when thinking about having your pussy cut up and tightened, even just a little bit.