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| eye - 07.20.00 |
| LOVE BITES |
In all the years of being surrounded by other women in the bars you've worked at, have you ever heard of women who had to surgically fix their vaginal lips because they were not appealing or just very uncomfortable? I've watched porn movies where a high percentage have very nice lips -- do they get them fixed or what? -- ALEXANDRA
Vaginal-lip surgery has been a topic of interest in the women's mags for a couple of years now, but the first place I saw it was, yes, stripping, probably about six years ago. After having seen women who have had their asses sucked off or bootied up, their facial lips coloured in permanently, their noses and chins shaved, their tits enlarged or reduced, their ribs removed and their cheeks implanted, I was still aghast to discover this was another popular surgery. "Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick, what next?" I thought. "Glow-in-the-dark textured breast implants?"
I am a big fan of chunky-beef curtains (they're like raw oysters, my favourite food), but women I've spoken to who have had this surgery say they did it because they'd been mortified. Mortified that their inner labia dangled down like a penis, mortified that a giant labia goes along with the assumption that they have a giant, cavernous vagina. People just get all bent out of shape over the big vagina. I love the idea that people equate it with being a slut. As though any penis -- never mind many -- could stretch out a pussy like that. As though being a slut is a bad thing.
The very idea of actually choosing a different vagina also seems hilarious to me. I imagine marching into a plastic surgeon's office with a Hustler magazine and saying, "That's the one I want!" My pal Dr. Stubbs says that although some women have it done for practical reasons, all of his patients say their primary concern is cosmetic. "Labia minora reductions," he explains, "can be done for painful sex -- they are large and pull in during penetration -- or in disabled patients who regularly require catheterization and the large labia makes this nursing procedure difficult, or in patients with dermatitis/hygiene problems. Labia minora reduction is common in my office -- about one a month -- but uncommon in most other practices. Radical labia minora reduction, along with clitoral unhooding, can cost up to $3,000. I have only done three labia majora reductions. Complications are rare and, if they occur, are similar to general risks of all surgery -- bleeding, infection, poor scars, etc."