Let’s Educate Women About Genital Pride: Self-Esteem & Confidence is Sexy!
Although I am all about choice when it comes to a woman having Botox or plastic surgery, or using dye to color her hair, this latest trend is more than upsetting. It’s called “vaginal cosmetic surgery” and I was reminded of the subject most recently via a documentary, entitled, The Perfect Vagina.
It was disturbing to watch this video and the extremes that some women go to in order to feel good about themselves. Instead of encouraging these kinds of drastic transformations, we should be supporting each other to accept our individual differences, including those that make us unique and interesting. This issue also speaks to the damaging effects of the practice used in women’s magazines to airbrush, rather than educate women, about self-esteem. My new mantra is: body acceptance and confidence is sexy!
The documentary film that inspired this post is not easy to take. It made me uncomfortable and curious, but mostly angry. Evidently vaginal cosmetic surgery is growing in popularity, both here and abroad.
Although it has been erroneously called vaginal surgery, it really involves the labia minora, or the inner labia, the external female genitalia that is part of the vulva. It seems as though some women believe that the length of the inner labia should be reduced so it is not longer than the outer labia. Those having the surgery claim the procedure would give them more self-confidence, by improving the appearance of their genitalia.
The medical term for this surgery is Labiaplasty, and the average cost ranges between $5,000-10,000.
Why do women need another thing to stress over or another body part to disparage? If you’re wondering, like I was, where this influence started, some point to pornographic magazines and films. This leads me, and the author of the article who found the documentary, to wonder when did waxing and shaving become popular? According to sex researcher Dr. Debra Herbenick, “young women’s pubic hair has been steadily disappearing over the past decade and that younger women tend to shave it off while older women choose to wax.”
Along with risks of any time of surgery, a query of men’s feelings about the appearance of women’s vaginas brought an overwhelming, “Who cares.” As one respondent put it, “I’d much prefer that she is comfortable with herself versus being neurotically insecure enough to get surgery.”
I agree with this quote: “Perhaps we should stop reading and watching so much porn, stop perusing beauty magazines and comparing our vaginas. A little more self-love couldn’t hurt.”
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