January 6, 2011
Clitoraid
Kate Thomas
BOBO-DIALOUSSO, BURKINA FASO // Africa’s first clinic designated for the reconstruction of female genitalia will open in Bobo-Dialousso this year. The clinic will offer free reconstructive surgery to women from across West Africa.
About 70 per cent of Burkina Faso’s seven million women are victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), a deep-rooted practice in West Africa. The ritual, common in a stretch between Senegal and Benin, can cause complications such as serious infections, excessive bleeding and stillbirths.
Mariam Banemanie, the director of Voices of Women, a Burkinabé non-governmental organisation that is paying for the clinic with Clitoraid, an NGO based in Las Vegas, said about 90 per cent of Burkinabé women in their 20s feel no sexual sensation. “Currently reconstruction is only available in the capital for a fee upwards of 160,000 CFA [Dh1,200]. That option isn’t available to every woman, which is why we’re excited about the construction of the clinic in Bobo-Dialousso,” Ms Banemanie said. “Burkina Faso is fast becoming the crossroads for genital reconstruction surgery in Africa.”
Thousands of African women between the ages of 18 and 70 have expressed interest in undergoing the surgery in Burkina Faso, according to Marissé Caissy of Clitoraid. Some plan to travel to Bobo-Dialousso from such neighbouring countries as Ivory Coast and Mali for the operation. Ms Caissy said sexual sensation is restored in about 90 per cent of cases. Recovery takes at least six weeks.
When the clinic opens in October, Abi Ouardé, 24, will be one of the first women through its doors.
Ms Ouardé carries herself like a woman in a hurry. She drives a shiny new Yamaha moped, slings a leather bag over her shoulder, wears a sleek black dress and bejewelled heels that match the royal blue of the mudguards. As she skids to a halt and shimmies off the moped, heads turn. She looks every inch the liberated West African woman.
But something is missing from Ms Ouardé’s life and she is eager to restore it. At the age of four she became a victim of genital mutilation. “Because sexuality is taboo in Burkina Faso, circumcised women are not supposed to talk about the fact that they don’t feel any sensation. It’s seen as something we just have to put up with,” she said.
Three years ago, Abibata Sanon, 36, became one of the first women in West Africa to undergo the procedure at a private clinic in Ouagadougou. She has since become a symbol of the fight against FGM. “Having the surgery seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a stand against FGM,” she said. Ms Sanon’s longtime boyfriend was eager for her to have the surgery and even helped pay for it. But women say the fact that many men still favour the practice is the biggest hurdle in the battle for gender equality in West Africa.
“Some men believe that a woman will never stray if her ability to feel pleasure is removed. It’s time for our voices to be heard. People are beginning to understand the concept of women’s liberation. Women deserve to feel good about themselves,” Ms Banemanie said.
Although FGM is banned in several West African countries, including Ghana and Burkina Faso, it remains widespread. The practice was deemed illegal in Burkina Faso in 1996, but rights groups say perpetrators have switched tactics to avoid detection, targeting toddlers and babies whose cries do not raise suspicion.
Ms Banemanie said once the restoration clinic opens, its presence might even serve as a deterrent. “If cut women are able to restore themselves, perhaps people will realise that it’s no longer worthwhile to continue with the cutting,” she said.
Since having the surgery, the effect on Ms Sanon’s life has been remarkable. A few months after undergoing the procedure, she told her mother, who backed her father when he took her to be cut as a baby, about the operation. “The reaction of my 70-year-old mother shocked me. She was very supportive and even now she keeps asking me when the clinic will open. I wonder if she wants to have the surgery herself.”
And then there is the effect on her personal life. “Until I had the operation, it was my boyfriend that called the shots. Now our relationship is more equal.”
Showing posts with label genital cosmetic surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genital cosmetic surgery. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) affects up to 140 million Women Globally
September 1, 2010
Nancy Koener / The Examiner
Nancy Koener / The Examiner
FACT:
1. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is more than just the equivalent to male circumcision. It involves several variations of crude surgical procedures to alter the genitalia of young women and girls for reasons of culture, religious, or social practices for non-medical reason. There are no personal hygienic or health benefits.
1. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is more than just the equivalent to male circumcision. It involves several variations of crude surgical procedures to alter the genitalia of young women and girls for reasons of culture, religious, or social practices for non-medical reason. There are no personal hygienic or health benefits.
2. Approximately 100 million to 140 million females are currently affected by the consequences of this practice. These complications include: shock, severe bleeding, short-term and long-term urinary tract infections, difficulty in passing urine, massive scarring, inability to experience orgasm, painful sexual intercourse, complications in childbirth and newborn fatalities from a externally-restricted birth passage.
3. FGM is practiced on young girls between infancy and the age of 15. It is often associated the puberty rites. Sixty-five to ninety percent of affected women are from eastern, north-eastern, or far western regions of Africa.
3. FGM is practiced on young girls between infancy and the age of 15. It is often associated the puberty rites. Sixty-five to ninety percent of affected women are from eastern, north-eastern, or far western regions of Africa.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Female Circumcision Victims Seek Out Colo. Doctor
August 31, 2010
Catherine Tsai / The Associated Press
TRINIDAD, Colo. — This picturesque southern Colorado town known for decades as the sex-change capital of the world — thousands of gender-reassignment operations have been performed here — is becoming a beacon for victims of female genital mutilation.
Dr. Marci Bowers has performed about two dozen reconstructive surgeries on mostly African born women victimized as children by the culturally driven practice of female circumcision. Bowers is believed to be one of the few U.S. doctors performing the operation.
Bowers, who underwent a gender reassignment operation in the 1990s at age 40, said she relates to what her mutilation patients describe as a loss of identity, of not feeling whole.
"It took me so long to get there in my own life. I know what the feeling is like, seeking my own identity," she said.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Pioneering op gives female circumcision victims hope
September 2, 2009
By Olivia Sterns
For CNN
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Every day thousands of girls endure forced circumcision. It's a controversial cultural tradition common in parts of Africa, South America, Middle East and Asia and that regularly results in infection and even death.
The health dangers involved in this procedure, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), are increasingly well-known and have lead to international efforts to ban the practice.
FGM is also the topic of the forthcoming film "Desert Flower," the true story of Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie.
The film, released later this month, tells the story of Dirie and her struggle with her own circumcision at the age of five. A former Bond Girl, Dirie has become a leading voice campaigning against FGM.
As traumatic as the physical consequences may be, victims say severe psychological and sexual problems also often develop from FGM that deserve attention too.
One Senegalese woman who was cut as a young girl describes living with FGM as a "wound that tortures me everyday of my life."
But a new treatment pioneered by a French doctor, Pierre Foldes, offers hope for victims of this practice.
Dr. Foldes began working with victims of female circumcision almost 30 years ago while volunteering in Burkina Faso.
"I met a population of women suffering from mutilation. Some of them asked me if I could fix things that were painful," he explained, referring to scar tissue that frequently develops over the clitoris.
"When I came back to France I realized there was absolutely no data on this, no technique."
Since then Foldes has developed a simple reconstructive procedure that removes the painful tissue and actually reconstructs the clitoris by cutting the ligaments to expose the original root.
After six to eight weeks, he says the area begins to appear normal. After six months feeling begins to come back.
"The results are getting better and better," Foldes told CNN. "72 to 75 percent [of patients] are back to normal sexuality after 18 months.
"We are working very hard on the evolution of the program and are involved in treating patients for up to two years," said Foldes, who currently operates on 80-100 women each month at a hospital outside Paris.
"The surgical procedure is only a small part of the whole problem. We have a whole team with psychologists that follow up with patients for months."
Dr. Foldes estimates he has operated on more than 3,000 women at his hospital in France. Because female genital mutilation is a crime in France, Dr. Foldes was able to get the French public health system to reimburse the cost of the operation and now roughly 70 percent of his patients receive treatment for free.
"It's like a rape," Foldes says, comparing the brutality and trauma involved in female circumcision. "It's very important to deal with the aggression and emotions to progressively get back to normal sexuality."
Over the years Foldes says has encountered some steep resistance against his work and has even received multiple death threats.
According to him, the threats "are coming from radical Islamic people," and that more than once men have come to his office with knives, but he will not be deterred.
An estimated 130 million women have undergone female circumcision. The procedure is typically performed in unsanitary conditions and often results in infections and fistula, an open wound that can develop in victims of FGM between the vagina and the anus after a failed childbirth.
Increasingly international organizations and governments are working to ban FGM, despite protests from religious and cultural groups hoping to defend the practice.
By Olivia Sterns
For CNN
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Every day thousands of girls endure forced circumcision. It's a controversial cultural tradition common in parts of Africa, South America, Middle East and Asia and that regularly results in infection and even death.
The health dangers involved in this procedure, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), are increasingly well-known and have lead to international efforts to ban the practice.
FGM is also the topic of the forthcoming film "Desert Flower," the true story of Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie.
The film, released later this month, tells the story of Dirie and her struggle with her own circumcision at the age of five. A former Bond Girl, Dirie has become a leading voice campaigning against FGM.
As traumatic as the physical consequences may be, victims say severe psychological and sexual problems also often develop from FGM that deserve attention too.
One Senegalese woman who was cut as a young girl describes living with FGM as a "wound that tortures me everyday of my life."
But a new treatment pioneered by a French doctor, Pierre Foldes, offers hope for victims of this practice.
Dr. Foldes began working with victims of female circumcision almost 30 years ago while volunteering in Burkina Faso.
"I met a population of women suffering from mutilation. Some of them asked me if I could fix things that were painful," he explained, referring to scar tissue that frequently develops over the clitoris.
"When I came back to France I realized there was absolutely no data on this, no technique."
Since then Foldes has developed a simple reconstructive procedure that removes the painful tissue and actually reconstructs the clitoris by cutting the ligaments to expose the original root.
After six to eight weeks, he says the area begins to appear normal. After six months feeling begins to come back.
"The results are getting better and better," Foldes told CNN. "72 to 75 percent [of patients] are back to normal sexuality after 18 months.
"We are working very hard on the evolution of the program and are involved in treating patients for up to two years," said Foldes, who currently operates on 80-100 women each month at a hospital outside Paris.
"The surgical procedure is only a small part of the whole problem. We have a whole team with psychologists that follow up with patients for months."
Dr. Foldes estimates he has operated on more than 3,000 women at his hospital in France. Because female genital mutilation is a crime in France, Dr. Foldes was able to get the French public health system to reimburse the cost of the operation and now roughly 70 percent of his patients receive treatment for free.
"It's like a rape," Foldes says, comparing the brutality and trauma involved in female circumcision. "It's very important to deal with the aggression and emotions to progressively get back to normal sexuality."
Over the years Foldes says has encountered some steep resistance against his work and has even received multiple death threats.
According to him, the threats "are coming from radical Islamic people," and that more than once men have come to his office with knives, but he will not be deterred.
An estimated 130 million women have undergone female circumcision. The procedure is typically performed in unsanitary conditions and often results in infections and fistula, an open wound that can develop in victims of FGM between the vagina and the anus after a failed childbirth.
Increasingly international organizations and governments are working to ban FGM, despite protests from religious and cultural groups hoping to defend the practice.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Official Medical Quackery - "Preventative" Sexual Mutilations
August 22, 2009
By James DeMeo
Growing International Crimes of Sexual Mutilations:
Both tribal and modern societies do them.
While proclaimed as a "cancer preventative", the surgical removal of women's sexual organs based upon flawed "genetic" testing methods is quack-junk science, and is no different from African Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), except that it is wrapped up with "medical" magic and superstition, rather than purely "moral-taboo" justifications. In fact, one could say, the Africans are closer to the truth, in that they openly proclaim female sexual organs (clitoris, labia) are "ugly, dirty, offensive, and ought to be cut out". The MD's doing this form of Western FGM won't say that so directly, but wrap their sadism in the language of "science".
Below is the Abstract of a paper I gave on the subject some years ago -- my only correct to it would be, to note this is not just an American phenomenon, but has similar expressions in hospital surgery world-wide. Such as the introduction of female genital mutilation procedures into hospitals within the Muslim world, something that should be classified as no different from branding of slaves with a red-hot iron (done in "hospitals" to make it "sanitary") and opposed by every decent physician and international health organization.... but isn't:
James DeMeo PhD: "Modern Horrific Medicine: Unnecessary Sexual Surgery", Presented to the 3rd Int. Symposium on Circumcision, National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers, Washington, DC. 1994.
One of the more telling methods for understanding the urge to mutilate the genitals of young males and females is to view the problem cross-culturally. There is a cross-cultural pattern recorded in the anthropological literature, demonstrating that cultures which engage in genital mutilations also have, in general: high levels of political hierarchy, premarital sexual taboos, subordinated female status, taboos regarding vaginal, hymenal, and menstrual blood, male dominance over childbirth matters (couvade), an emphasis upon military glory, high levels of alcoholic aggression, and belief in a moralistic high god. The argument is raised that the sadistic energy directed towards the sexual organs of children is but only one expression of a larger cultural component of sadistic energy more generally directed at sexual functions, especially childhood and female sexuality. From the cross-cultural and other scientific evidence, one can make an extended critique of other ritual sexual mutilations not generally considered to be in the same category as genital mutilations. Unnecessary surgeries upon the sexual organs of women in modern American hospitals are critically reviewed from this new perspective, wherein the same medical shamans who perform painful and unnecessary genital mutilations on children -- the obstetrical/gynecological specialists -- are given similar critical decision-making roles for a variety of other generally unnecessary but often routine and common sexual mutilations: episiotomy, Cesarean section childbirth, and hysterectomy all have been criticized by health reformers for their generally unnecessary nature, and for the subsequent problems they create for the women subject to them. Here, we view them as expressions of culture-wide sexual anxiety and sadism. For the patient, such sexual mutilations dampen or extinguish sexual feeling, thereby relieving the individual of sexual anxiety. For the medical surgeon, the mutilations provide an outlet for scientifically rationalized sadistic urges. Carrying the critique farther, the current "epidemics" of breast and prostate cancer are critically reviewed as expressions of epidemic mass sexual hysteria and sexual anxiety, lacking in a solid scientific foundation. The absence of serious investigation of natural healing methods, the broadening of diagnostic criteria to define larger numbers of healthy people into the "sick" category, and the use of medical-police tactics to imprison and suppress health reform dissenters, are reviewed as critical components in the "scientific" rationalization of traditional hospital mutilations as "treatment". This analysis is particularly relevant where cultural propaganda regarding the "unhealthy" nature of the normal breast is used to justify "enhancement" mutilations, or where unscientific "genetic" screening methods are employed to convince anxious but otherwise completely healthy women into having "preventative" breast-amputation mutilations. Other high-tech screening methods, such as mammography and other forms of x-ray when used for diagnosis in the absence of independent clinical evidence of pathology are critically reviewed as factors in the "elevation in cancer rates". In short, American medicine is awash in a host of various forms of unnecessary, scientifically invalid and barbaric ritualized genital/sexual mutilations. Most of these are as bad or worse than anything practiced by other cultures, such as infibulation of little girls in Africa. While this latter African practice has attracted much attention and criticism in the American press, circumcision of baby boys, and other "modern medical" mutilations, have not.
By James DeMeo
Growing International Crimes of Sexual Mutilations:
Both tribal and modern societies do them.
While proclaimed as a "cancer preventative", the surgical removal of women's sexual organs based upon flawed "genetic" testing methods is quack-junk science, and is no different from African Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), except that it is wrapped up with "medical" magic and superstition, rather than purely "moral-taboo" justifications. In fact, one could say, the Africans are closer to the truth, in that they openly proclaim female sexual organs (clitoris, labia) are "ugly, dirty, offensive, and ought to be cut out". The MD's doing this form of Western FGM won't say that so directly, but wrap their sadism in the language of "science".
Below is the Abstract of a paper I gave on the subject some years ago -- my only correct to it would be, to note this is not just an American phenomenon, but has similar expressions in hospital surgery world-wide. Such as the introduction of female genital mutilation procedures into hospitals within the Muslim world, something that should be classified as no different from branding of slaves with a red-hot iron (done in "hospitals" to make it "sanitary") and opposed by every decent physician and international health organization.... but isn't:
James DeMeo PhD: "Modern Horrific Medicine: Unnecessary Sexual Surgery", Presented to the 3rd Int. Symposium on Circumcision, National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers, Washington, DC. 1994.
One of the more telling methods for understanding the urge to mutilate the genitals of young males and females is to view the problem cross-culturally. There is a cross-cultural pattern recorded in the anthropological literature, demonstrating that cultures which engage in genital mutilations also have, in general: high levels of political hierarchy, premarital sexual taboos, subordinated female status, taboos regarding vaginal, hymenal, and menstrual blood, male dominance over childbirth matters (couvade), an emphasis upon military glory, high levels of alcoholic aggression, and belief in a moralistic high god. The argument is raised that the sadistic energy directed towards the sexual organs of children is but only one expression of a larger cultural component of sadistic energy more generally directed at sexual functions, especially childhood and female sexuality. From the cross-cultural and other scientific evidence, one can make an extended critique of other ritual sexual mutilations not generally considered to be in the same category as genital mutilations. Unnecessary surgeries upon the sexual organs of women in modern American hospitals are critically reviewed from this new perspective, wherein the same medical shamans who perform painful and unnecessary genital mutilations on children -- the obstetrical/gynecological specialists -- are given similar critical decision-making roles for a variety of other generally unnecessary but often routine and common sexual mutilations: episiotomy, Cesarean section childbirth, and hysterectomy all have been criticized by health reformers for their generally unnecessary nature, and for the subsequent problems they create for the women subject to them. Here, we view them as expressions of culture-wide sexual anxiety and sadism. For the patient, such sexual mutilations dampen or extinguish sexual feeling, thereby relieving the individual of sexual anxiety. For the medical surgeon, the mutilations provide an outlet for scientifically rationalized sadistic urges. Carrying the critique farther, the current "epidemics" of breast and prostate cancer are critically reviewed as expressions of epidemic mass sexual hysteria and sexual anxiety, lacking in a solid scientific foundation. The absence of serious investigation of natural healing methods, the broadening of diagnostic criteria to define larger numbers of healthy people into the "sick" category, and the use of medical-police tactics to imprison and suppress health reform dissenters, are reviewed as critical components in the "scientific" rationalization of traditional hospital mutilations as "treatment". This analysis is particularly relevant where cultural propaganda regarding the "unhealthy" nature of the normal breast is used to justify "enhancement" mutilations, or where unscientific "genetic" screening methods are employed to convince anxious but otherwise completely healthy women into having "preventative" breast-amputation mutilations. Other high-tech screening methods, such as mammography and other forms of x-ray when used for diagnosis in the absence of independent clinical evidence of pathology are critically reviewed as factors in the "elevation in cancer rates". In short, American medicine is awash in a host of various forms of unnecessary, scientifically invalid and barbaric ritualized genital/sexual mutilations. Most of these are as bad or worse than anything practiced by other cultures, such as infibulation of little girls in Africa. While this latter African practice has attracted much attention and criticism in the American press, circumcision of baby boys, and other "modern medical" mutilations, have not.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The 'Perfect' Porn Vulva: More Women Demanding Cosmetic Genital Surgery
August 12, 2009
By Rebecca Chalker, AlterNet
Women are risking their lives to achieve an unrealistic and unnecessary ideal.
Type "labiaplasty," "vaginoplasty" or any of nearly a dozen female genital cosmetic surgeries into any search engine, and a flurry of doctors' Web sites will pop up touting the self-esteem, sexual enhancement, comfort and fashion benefits of female genital cosmetic surgery.
These sites, typically decorated with airbrushed pictures of lovely women in various states of undress or even nude, are replete with before-and-after photos of trimmed-down labia and gushing quotes from satisfied customers.
Many of these sites promise ecstasy, plus: "Laser vaginal reconstruction can accomplish what ever [sic] you desire."
Some patients seem happy with the results.
"When my husband and I had sex, well, it was like nothing I've ever experienced before," a 40-year-old woman reports, six weeks after a three-hour combination labiaplasty, vaginoplasty and clitoral unhooding, costing at low estimate of $15,000 (a high estimate: at least double that). "I had an orgasm probably within three minutes. … I feel like I've found what I had lost ... I feel like I'm 25 again!"Her surgeon reports this case study as "Strengthening Our Love For Each Other."
Dig a little deeper though, and you find stories tinged with grief and regret about genital "enhancement" surgeries gone wrong.
"Had the surgery 1/07," one woman reports. "Can't say enough [about] how much I regret it. The problems I had it done for can't even compare to the pain and discomfort I'm having now. The surgeon, who has extensive experience, doesn't know why this is happening."
One of the newest wrinkles in the business of sex is the explosion of genital cosmetic surgery.
Not surprisingly, women constitute 90 percent of patients requesting these surgeries. Both physician and popular Internet sites prey on women's sexual insecurities by promoting appearance and alleged sexual benefits, but pay scant attention to the wide range of normal genital appearance, the variability of sexual response and possible harm.
The New View Campaign Working Group on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery, a project that I participated in, identified unresearched claims made about female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS) and analyzed how the rhetoric used by the body-modification and sexual-medicine industries has co-opted core feminist concepts of empowerment, self-determination and choice for profit.
Our review of medical, academic and popular literature, and a survey of physicians' promotional materials provides a disturbing picture.
There are nearly a dozen genital "remodeling" procedures.
The most popular by far is labiaplasty, the trimming of one or both sides of the inner lips or labia minora, or cutting out a V-shaped wedge. As a part of the clitoral system, the inner lips are sexually sensitive, so removal of this densely innervated tissue to get better sex seems, well, counterintuitive.
The next most popular surgery is vaginal tightening: vaginoplasty or vaginal rejuvenation, which involves removal of part of the vaginal lining and tightening tissue and muscles surrounding the vaginal opening.
The question about the development of scar tissue and disruption during future vaginal births is typically left unaddressed.
Reduction of the glans or tip of the clitoris (clitoropexy) for is done for purely aesthetic purposes. The only function of the glans is sexual sensation, so trimming can in no way enhance sexual pleasure. The protective clitoral hood (or "unhooding") is rarely requested, but is often offered (for additional cost) along with labiaplasty. The idea that reduction or removal may enhance clitoral sensation is pure mythology.
Hymen restoration or repair (hymenoplasty) is done to provide the illusion of virginity when the hymen has been broken through normal activities or intercourse. Some women are having hymenoplasty as a "Valentine's present" to their lovers.
Removal of a tough or "imperforate" hymen for functional reasons is variously called hymenotomy or hymenectomy.
The wildly controversial "G shot" is an injection of a quarter-sized dollop of human-engineered collagen through the vaginal wall into the urethral sponge, the spongy tissue surrounding the urethra.
Developed and franchised by Dr. David Matlock of Dr. 90210 fame, this procedure must be redone every few months. According to Matlock's Web site, and unpublished data, this injection results in "enhanced sexual arousal and sexual gratification for 87 percent of normal sexually functioning women."
Many women sing the praises of the shot: "After my G shot, I get sexually aroused performing yoga." But comedian Margaret Cho reported no sexual enhancement at all and says it felt like she was "sitting on a hemorrhoid donut."
Other procedures include pubic mound reduction, reducing or poofing up the outer lips or labia majora and "building up and strengthening" the perineal body.
Regarding the ecstatic reviews, psychologist Carol Tavris notes that "One of the most well-documented findings in sociology is called the 'justification of effort' effect: The more time, effort, money and pain that people invest in a procedure, program, surgery, or other activity, the more motivated they are to justify it.
"How easy would it be for you to find a Marine willing to say that cadet hazing and suffering were unnecessary and brutal?" Or "… to get George Bush to say 'Gee, I guess going to Iraq was a bad decision?' "
All women by far are not enthused. "Perhaps the only rejuvenation going on is the doctor's wallet," an anonymous contributor to the Wall Street Journal blog opined. On Women's Health News, Rachel Walden observed "… spending $3,500 to $20,000 cutting up your hoo-ha isn't going to fix what's wrong with you."
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists noted in 2007 that these "procedures are not medically indicated, and the safety and effectiveness … have not been documented. No adequate studies have been published assessing the long-term satisfaction, safety and complication rates," although the college dropped the ball by failing to institute regulations or sanctions.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons informally agrees with this policy, but does not have a formal policy of its own.
Women may believe that their doctors are proficient in these techniques, but ob-gyns, family-practice physicians and urologists are promoting and performing these lucrative surgeries with minimal training.
By Matlock's estimation, doctors in all 50 states, and around the world, operate as "franchisees" of his business. Although he has been asked repeatedly for documentation on safety and effectiveness, Matlock has refused to publish any outcome studies, citing his need to "protect his intellectual property."
The most reliable evidence of the possible negative after-effects of genital surgeries is reported in follow-up reports on children with intersex conditions. In many cases, labia reduction removes sexually sensitive tissue, may cause lifelong hypersensitivity or numbness, pain on intercourse, infection, adhesions and scarring.
Some doctors acknowledge the downside of these putative enhancement procedures.
"We have seen many unfortunate examples of terrible, scarred, uneven results of labiaplasty from other physicians who have attempted labia-reduction surgery with typically poor results, which are usually permanent," Dr. Robert Roh, a New York City gynecologist, reports on his Web site.
Dr. Red Alinsod, an Orange County, Calif., gynecologist, concurs: "The numbers of patients requiring labiaplasty revisions have dramatically increased over the past several years. It is not a common procedure but one that is steadily on the rise as more surgeons attempt to perform labiaplasty surgery without knowledge of the basic tenets of aesthetic vaginal surgery."
No guidelines for "normal" genital appearance exist. An article in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Jillilan Lloyd and colleagues notes that "Previous work has defined the labia minora as hypertrophic [enlarged or overgrown] … if the maximum distance from the base to edge was [greater than] 4 centimeters." After careful measurement of 50 volunteers ages 18 and 50, these authors report "wide variation in all parameters assessed," with the width of the labia minora varying from 7 to 50 centimeters in width.
Describing protuberant labia minora as "looking like a spaniel's ears," French surgeons reported a high patient satisfaction rate for 98 women who answered a post-operative mail questionnaire.
Although they defined labia minora hypertrophy to be greater than 4 centimeters, they concluded "… we believe that hypertrophy of the labia minora is definitely a mere variant of normal anatomy." The 7 percent dissatisfaction rate was caused by poor aesthetic or functional result, or unrealistic patient expectations. The authors concede that "… 40 percent of the patients did not respond to the questionnaire, or were lost to follow-up, thus giving a potentially lower satisfaction rate."
Normal female genitals are virtually invisible in the popular media, except through pornographic sources. Lloyd and her colleagues note, "With the conspicuous availability of pornography in everyday life, women and their sexual partners are increasingly exposed to idealized, highly selective images of the female genital anatomy."
In 2005, shock-jock Howard Stern went live on the E Channel and found that the frequent appearance of porn stars enhanced ratings. Houston, a popular porn star and strip club dancer, appeared on Stern's show and talked about reducing her labia to look better on film. Carlin Ross, of www.dodsonandross.com remembers how Stern milked the topic.
"He could see that the porn stars were good for ratings, and they would bring their labia trophies cast in clear resin like an award and auction them off on Ebay."
Surgeons have also noted the impetus behind this trend. "Some women just want to look 'prettier,' like the women they see in [pornographic] magazines or in films," one New York City ob-gyn says. Another doctor reports that his patients want their vulvas to look like "the playmates of Playboy."
Based at least partially on the porn model and on the invisibility of normal genitals in the media, on Web sites, in chat rooms and women's magazines they are establishing a narrow norm and aesthetic ideal.
These negative messages feed a long history of misogynist genital disgust, and misinformation creates an environment of dissatisfaction and a demand for female genital cosmetic surgeries that would fall within the definition of female genital mutilation articulated by the WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA in 1997:
Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for nonmedical reasons. … In some forms of Type II … only the labia minor are cut.
Women's right to choice is a core feminist concept, but choice made in the vacuum of the deficient discourse on FGCS is little more than wishful thinking.
The entrepreneurial medical and media narratives do not provide a useful understanding about the appearance and function of the female genitals, hence, informed consent is impossible.
Sexual attraction, response and pleasure are complex interactions of psychological and physiological processes that change with age, partners and experience, and regardless of the perceived short-term benefits of genital surgeries, reconfiguring the genitals is unlikely to have significant impact on sexual fulfillment.
And it's not just grown women that are drawn to the procedure.
Hosting a chat room on the subject, the Web site scarleteen.com elicited this hyperemic query: "i dont think this is normal can i just cut my labia off." ... "hello whats the younest age you can have labiaplasty sugery?" [sic]
Click here for more information on female genital cosmetic surgery and on the New View Campaign's fall protest.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Designer Vaginas: Is Female Circumcision Coming Out of the Closet?
Reposted from July 2, 2009
By Gbemisola Olujobi
As a circumcised and sexually fulfilled African woman, when I consider the fuss that female circumcision has attracted to Africa over the years and the wind of labiaplasties and genital rejuvenations currently sweeping across Europe and America, I cannot help but ask in the words of Dr. Deborah Tolman, professor of social welfare at Hunter College School of Social Work, “What happened in the last three years to make [these] women’s labias so big that they can’t walk around with them?”
I was watching an episode of “Dr. 90210” on E! Entertainment Television recently. A young American woman was getting a labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction. She said her labia “didn’t look nice” and her clitoral hood was “uncomfortable,” especially when she was having sex. I didn’t know what to think.
I was circumcised (read labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction) when I was 9 days old, in line with the tradition of the Yoruba of western Nigeria. And thanks to the “enlightenment” of Euro-American NGOs, I grew up lamenting what I thought was my irreparable loss and thinking I would definitely have been better off with my genitals intact. Imagine my confusion at the spectacle before me on television.
I have since seen more labiaplasties and clitoral hood reductions on “Dr. 90210.” I am an avid fan of the show and confess to being totally smitten with the effervescent Dr. Robert Rey. But the more of these procedures I see, the more I ... well, wonder. What are labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction if not female circumcision? Female circumcision, also known as female genital cutting (FGC) or the more demonized female genital mutilation (FGM), is defined by the World Health Organization as “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.”
FGC is practiced throughout the world, but seems to be more widely practiced in Africa than anywhere else. Not all ethnic groups in Africa practice female circumcision, though it is found in 28 of the continent’s 53 countries.
The WHO identifies three broad types of female circumcision. Type I circumcision is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce or clitoral hood. Type II circumcision is “partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora. Type III circumcision involves narrowing of the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and repositioning the labia minora and/or the labia majora, with or without excision of the clitoris. This type of circumcision is also known as infibulation or pharaonic circumcision. It is the most extensive form of FGM, and accounts for about 10 percent of all FGM procedures identified in Africa.
And what are labiaplasty, clitoral hood reduction, vaginoplasty and the other procedures classified as female genital cosmetic surgery? Labiaplasty is plastic surgery of the labia majora and/or the labia minora, which are the external folds of skin surrounding the structures of the vulva. The procedure involves reducing the size of one or both sets of labia. Clitoral hood reduction is an operation which repositions the protruding clitoris and reduces the length and projection of the clitoral hood. Vaginoplasty is the surgical modification of the female vagina. The most frequent vaginoplasty procedure is the narrowing of the vaginal opening to make it firmer.
These operations involve cutting that includes full or partial amputation of the labia or clitoris, as well as procedures to narrow or tighten the vagina—all hallmarks of circumcision and infibulation.
Now, from what I understand, some Euro-American women are becoming so disturbed by the appearance of their genitalia that they are asking plastic surgeons to modify them. But how did this new worry start? Or, as professor Tolman puts it, “What happened in the last three years to make [these] women’s labias so big that they can’t walk around with them?”
Physicians and mainstream mass media report that the widespread viewing of pornography has increased demand for labiaplasty. As more people see the shortened labia of pornographic actresses, they are getting the idea that trim genitals are the ideal. Human sexuality expert Bonnie Zylbergold argues in an article that women are getting the HD version of their vulvas outside a biology class for the first time. And “while women might not be trading notes on their vaginal proportions,” says Zylbergold, “they have become increasingly comfortable with mainstream pornography and that leads to one dimensional representations of what vulvas look like.”
Just as the phenomenon of Playboy magazine in the 1950s spread the craze for breast enlargements in the ’60s and ’70s, an increasing number of women are going to plastic surgeons with pictures of spread-eagled models in magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse and saying, “I want those clit and lips,” very much as some women have been ordering Angelina Jolie’s mouth and Jennifer Lopez’s butt in surgeons’ “supermarkets.”
Call it “labia envy,” says New York writer Louisa Kamps. A host of plastic surgeons are aggressively offering women relief from this new form of envy.
Kamps quotes Dr. Gary Alter, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, as saying: “Some women have this feeling they’re not that pretty down there. If you really think you’re deformed, you’re going to be less open to a sexual relationship. Before, it was the dark ages, because nobody really cared, or knew, what it looked like. But now, with Penthouse and all these magazines that show vaginas—I mean, they really show it—you have women, not just men, looking. And they start making aesthetic judgments.”
Many surgeons are against these procedures and some have even called the doctors who perform them “fraudulent.” Among those who disagree with that criticism is Dr. Scott W. Mosser, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in San Francisco who has been performing labiaplasties for the past four years. He insists that anything that is distracting enough to interfere with a person’s quality of life or lifestyle is something that should be addressed.
Sex expert Zylbergold asks, “What’s with all the women who truly feel as though FGCS [female genital cosmetic surgery] will better their quality of life? Are we simply to ignore them? Tell them that they don’t really know, or understand for that matter, what they really want?”
One woman who responded to a post on labiaplasty at colbertnation.com wrote: “I used to talk about this [surgery] all the time. There are times I still want to do it. My right inner labium is larger than the left, even larger than the outer labia (it looks like a tongue sticking out). It’s bothered me my whole sexual life and I always used to talk about getting it removed so it looks more symmetrical. Not to mention it sometimes gets stuck during intercourse and is painful every now and then. I even threaten to do it myself. I can see why some women might want to get it done, and I feel if that’s the way they want it, fine. Porn might have something to do with it, but I think there are women out there who want to get it for their own satisfaction.”
Researcher Karen Roberts McNamara reports that accounts of this medical trend in mainstream media quote doctors and patients alike as describing the new beauty standard for the vulva as “neat” and “clean.” McNamara cites a Boston Globe article in which a 25-year-old student from California, a patient of Dr. David Matlock, describes her postsurgery genitalia as “cleaner” and “more hygienic.”
Acclaimed champion of what he calls “vaginal rejuvenation,” Dr. Matlock proffers what he considers to be the definition of vulvar beauty as a “nice, clean look.” He claims that his laser rejuvenation will “effectively enhance the vaginal muscle tone, strength and control, decrease the internal and external vaginal diameters, as well as build up and strengthen the perineal body.”
Now, unless something really drastic happens to make women like the one at the ColbertNation site accept their asymmetrical and protruding genitalia and ignore the Matlocks and Alters, labiaplasty and clitoral hood reductions (call them clit and lip jobs, if you will) may yet become the staples that nose and boob jobs have metamorphosed into.
According to the California Surgical Institute, labiaplasty has become more common. In the United Kingdom, the number of labiaplasties doubled between 2000 and 2005. And in Germany, as psychologist Borken Ada Hagen and gynecologist Heribert Kentenich report in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, labiaplasty (known there as labienreduktion) has become the third leading cosmetic plastic surgery—right after face-lifts and breast augmentation.
Patient satisfaction has also been significant. A recent two-year study on 407 labiaplasty patients between the ages of 13 and 63 indicates that they appear to be happy with the procedure. Dr. Alter, the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and urologist, performed a procedure known as the Alter V technique on all 407 women.
According to an article on the study, printed in the December 2008 issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 98 percent of the patients reported they would have the surgery again. Seventy percent reported increased self-esteem, while 71 percent claimed to have improved sex lives. The study found only 4 percent of subjects reporting complications.
So where does this leave Africans who have been hounded for years by Euro-American NGOs and donor agencies to abandon “the barbaric and primitive practice” known as female circumcision?
Could it be that some ancient Africans saw flesh and blood versions of these before-and-after photos and decided, long before what is now known as cosmetic surgery came into being, that women would be better served with something close to what is now being called the “Toronto Trim.”
The term comes from Toronto plastic surgeon Robert Stubbs, by way of health reporter Krista Foss. Stubbs has done more than 205 labia minora shortenings on women aged 14 to 60. His style of trimming the hood of the clitoris as well as the lips of the vagina has been nicknamed the Toronto Trim.
The appropriately named Dr. Stubbs reports that these trims are not done on women who experience pain from their labia. Rather, they are done for cosmetic reasons. “Women don’t want to compete with men with something large between their legs. They want something small, neat and tidy and tucked up out of the way.” Again with the “neat and tidy.”
Linda, a woman in her mid-20s, said her labia minora had always bothered her. “It was physically uncomfortable, and I didn’t find it very aesthetically pleasing,” she said. She went to Stubbs and got a Toronto Trim for $4,500.
Patricia, a 32-year-old mother of two from New York City who had her labia shortened, also had worried that “it was all hanging.” So she looked for a surgeon, who fixed it, and she says “it’s nice and it’s neat now.”
Bernard Stern, the Florida doctor who performed Patricia’s labiaplasty, says he has operated on all kinds of women, including Las Vegas showgirls, exotic dancers, a Playmate of the Year, doctors, nurses, midwives, attorneys, professional athletes, marathoners, junior Olympians, equestrians, Pilates instructors and personal trainers. His patients have included an 82-year-old and a 16-year-old, as well as a 19-year-old and her 40-year-old mother.
Stern claims that most of his patients could not live with their genitals. “Quite honestly, most of the people that come in here have stuff that’s just unbelievable. There’s no doubt, I mean [the labia are] totally uneven, one side’s huge, the other’s not. ... For some of them, this is a life-changing procedure.”
According to the surgeon, “The women feel undesirable or unpretty. Even if nobody sees it, they see it.” Stern also claims that for many, a labiaplasty or vaginal tightening can “save their marriage.”
Now, my grandmother performed these “procedures” all her life. As early as 5 a.m., mothers would line up in our backyard with their baby sons and daughters to be circumcised by her expert hands. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, circumcision is done in early infancy.
Grandma took special care and pride with female babies. She would do her job deftly and pass the screaming baby to her mother saying, “Your daughter has been beautified.” The satisfied mother would then go back home and cook a celebratory chicken feast to mark the occasion. For some reason, no such feasts were cooked to mark a male baby’s circumcision.
So, how is my grandmother different from these board-certified plastic surgeons and urologists?
I cannot defend the circumcision knives Grandma inherited from her grandmother as being sterile. I also cannot claim that the palm oil she used to soothe the circumcision wound, the lime juice she used to “sanitize” the circumcision site, and the snail slime she swore would make the wound heal properly were up to WHO standards. But when I read the reports of labiaplasty patients, I cannot help but have a proud smile on my face when I recall my grandmother’s declarations after every baby girl’s circumcision: “She has been beautified and made clean.” How could she have known that this was going to be the refrain of board-certified surgeons in Europe and America after “beautifying” their women patients?
As it turns out, the reasons given for female circumcision on the one hand and female genital cosmetic surgery on the other are not totally different. Practitioners of female circumcision couch its functions in culture and religious obligation. According to professor Aisha Samad Matias, they usually say things like “It makes you clean, beautiful, better, sweet-smelling,” or “You will be able to marry, be presentable to your husband, able to satisfy and keep your husband, able to conceive and bear children.”
These reasons are not far from those given by women in Euro-America who seek the “nice, clean and neat” ideal of vulvar beauty through labiaplasties and clitoral hood reductions.
According to Dr. Virginia Braun, a psychologist at the University of Auckland who specializes in women’s health and sexuality, the narratives of women who have undergone FGM and FGCS are similar. In both cases, Braun argues, women say, “It is important to me to have genitals that look normal, that look appropriate, that are right.”
The big difference between female circumcision and FGCS hovers around self-consent and voluntarism. A great fuss is made about the rights of female circumcision “victims” by activists who see it as a form of child abuse or gender oppression. Writer Ifeyinwa Iweriebor, however, argues that this misrepresentation totally occludes the essential truth: that circumcision is not performed on girls (or on boys) to oppress them or do them any harm. For the practitioners, the procedure is carried out for the noblest of reasons, the best of intentions and in good faith. Maybe all those taboos surrounding female circumcision in African cultures were formulated as a way of ensuring that women went through this painful process to achieve the “nice clean slit” that is now being marketed by Euro-American plastic surgeons.
At the end of the day, it looks like female circumcision and FGCS are done for very much the same reasons. According to Simone Davis, professor and gender theorist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, among the key motivating factors raised by African women who favor female genital surgeries are beautification, transcendence of shame and the desire to conform. These clearly matter as well to American women seeking cosmetic surgery on their labia, says Davis.
And according to McNamara, although most plastic surgeons usually insist that the women they treat seek the procedure to enhance their own sexual satisfaction, some concede that many women have a consultation at the urging of their husbands, boyfriends or partners who want increased sensation for themselves.
These procedures—vaginoplasty, labiaplasty, hymenoplasty, female circumcision or genital mutilation—all have one thing in common. In McNamara’s words, they “highlight the constructedness of the sexed female subject because her body requires constant maintenance to adhere to gender requirements.”
The good news for labiaplasty patients (read victims) is that though they may regard female circumcision as foreign and incomprehensible, what they are doing is altering their genitalia to conform to a certain set of notions and expectations about what genitalia should look like if they are to be appropriately feminine and desirable.
Remember Dr. Alter? He says, “With Penthouse and all these magazines that show vaginas—I mean, they really show it—you have women, not just men, looking. And they start making aesthetic judgments.”
Such aesthetic judgments are the moving force behind the disciplinary pressures of Western beauty standards. Think of anorexia, bulimia, “a cracker a day” diets, gastric bypass surgery, lap-band surgery and other such horrors. These things are done “voluntarily” and with “self-consent” by people who have been pushed to the wall by societal ideals about what a woman’s body should look like.
So why has the West been demonizing “Africans and their barbaric culture of female circumcision” all these years? In actual fact, according to Davis, one could regard Western female consumers who consent to the procedures and even finance them to be even more oppressed and bound by normative gender than their African counterparts, because there is no actual external policing. In this case, she argues, American women are reminiscent of philosopher Michel Foucault’s “docile bodies,” who, on their own, fill the role of enforcers of their own subjection under the matrix of gender.
Davis quotes Soraya Mire, a Somali filmmaker, as saying, “In America, women pay money that is theirs, and no one else’s, to go to a doctor who cuts them up. ... Western women cut themselves up voluntarily.”
Somalia is a hotspot of infibulation and an action spot for Western anti-circumcision activists. Many Somali women and girls, as well as women and girls from other parts of Africa, have fled their homelands and gone into exile in Europe and America to escape circumcision and infibulation.
Imagine Mire’s confusion, and mine as well. Imagine the indignation of millions of Africans who have been forced to abandon this rite of passage only to wake up one day and find out that Euro-American women are sneaking, behind our backs, to circumcise themselves and their daughters. One of Florida surgeon Bernard Stern’s patients was a 19-year-old whose 40-year-old mother had her labiaplasty six months after she had hers.
This truly is a strange world!
By Gbemisola Olujobi
As a circumcised and sexually fulfilled African woman, when I consider the fuss that female circumcision has attracted to Africa over the years and the wind of labiaplasties and genital rejuvenations currently sweeping across Europe and America, I cannot help but ask in the words of Dr. Deborah Tolman, professor of social welfare at Hunter College School of Social Work, “What happened in the last three years to make [these] women’s labias so big that they can’t walk around with them?”
I was watching an episode of “Dr. 90210” on E! Entertainment Television recently. A young American woman was getting a labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction. She said her labia “didn’t look nice” and her clitoral hood was “uncomfortable,” especially when she was having sex. I didn’t know what to think.
I was circumcised (read labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction) when I was 9 days old, in line with the tradition of the Yoruba of western Nigeria. And thanks to the “enlightenment” of Euro-American NGOs, I grew up lamenting what I thought was my irreparable loss and thinking I would definitely have been better off with my genitals intact. Imagine my confusion at the spectacle before me on television.
I have since seen more labiaplasties and clitoral hood reductions on “Dr. 90210.” I am an avid fan of the show and confess to being totally smitten with the effervescent Dr. Robert Rey. But the more of these procedures I see, the more I ... well, wonder. What are labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction if not female circumcision? Female circumcision, also known as female genital cutting (FGC) or the more demonized female genital mutilation (FGM), is defined by the World Health Organization as “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.”
FGC is practiced throughout the world, but seems to be more widely practiced in Africa than anywhere else. Not all ethnic groups in Africa practice female circumcision, though it is found in 28 of the continent’s 53 countries.
The WHO identifies three broad types of female circumcision. Type I circumcision is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce or clitoral hood. Type II circumcision is “partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora. Type III circumcision involves narrowing of the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and repositioning the labia minora and/or the labia majora, with or without excision of the clitoris. This type of circumcision is also known as infibulation or pharaonic circumcision. It is the most extensive form of FGM, and accounts for about 10 percent of all FGM procedures identified in Africa.
And what are labiaplasty, clitoral hood reduction, vaginoplasty and the other procedures classified as female genital cosmetic surgery? Labiaplasty is plastic surgery of the labia majora and/or the labia minora, which are the external folds of skin surrounding the structures of the vulva. The procedure involves reducing the size of one or both sets of labia. Clitoral hood reduction is an operation which repositions the protruding clitoris and reduces the length and projection of the clitoral hood. Vaginoplasty is the surgical modification of the female vagina. The most frequent vaginoplasty procedure is the narrowing of the vaginal opening to make it firmer.
These operations involve cutting that includes full or partial amputation of the labia or clitoris, as well as procedures to narrow or tighten the vagina—all hallmarks of circumcision and infibulation.
Now, from what I understand, some Euro-American women are becoming so disturbed by the appearance of their genitalia that they are asking plastic surgeons to modify them. But how did this new worry start? Or, as professor Tolman puts it, “What happened in the last three years to make [these] women’s labias so big that they can’t walk around with them?”
Physicians and mainstream mass media report that the widespread viewing of pornography has increased demand for labiaplasty. As more people see the shortened labia of pornographic actresses, they are getting the idea that trim genitals are the ideal. Human sexuality expert Bonnie Zylbergold argues in an article that women are getting the HD version of their vulvas outside a biology class for the first time. And “while women might not be trading notes on their vaginal proportions,” says Zylbergold, “they have become increasingly comfortable with mainstream pornography and that leads to one dimensional representations of what vulvas look like.”
Just as the phenomenon of Playboy magazine in the 1950s spread the craze for breast enlargements in the ’60s and ’70s, an increasing number of women are going to plastic surgeons with pictures of spread-eagled models in magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse and saying, “I want those clit and lips,” very much as some women have been ordering Angelina Jolie’s mouth and Jennifer Lopez’s butt in surgeons’ “supermarkets.”
Call it “labia envy,” says New York writer Louisa Kamps. A host of plastic surgeons are aggressively offering women relief from this new form of envy.
Kamps quotes Dr. Gary Alter, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, as saying: “Some women have this feeling they’re not that pretty down there. If you really think you’re deformed, you’re going to be less open to a sexual relationship. Before, it was the dark ages, because nobody really cared, or knew, what it looked like. But now, with Penthouse and all these magazines that show vaginas—I mean, they really show it—you have women, not just men, looking. And they start making aesthetic judgments.”
Many surgeons are against these procedures and some have even called the doctors who perform them “fraudulent.” Among those who disagree with that criticism is Dr. Scott W. Mosser, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in San Francisco who has been performing labiaplasties for the past four years. He insists that anything that is distracting enough to interfere with a person’s quality of life or lifestyle is something that should be addressed.
Sex expert Zylbergold asks, “What’s with all the women who truly feel as though FGCS [female genital cosmetic surgery] will better their quality of life? Are we simply to ignore them? Tell them that they don’t really know, or understand for that matter, what they really want?”
One woman who responded to a post on labiaplasty at colbertnation.com wrote: “I used to talk about this [surgery] all the time. There are times I still want to do it. My right inner labium is larger than the left, even larger than the outer labia (it looks like a tongue sticking out). It’s bothered me my whole sexual life and I always used to talk about getting it removed so it looks more symmetrical. Not to mention it sometimes gets stuck during intercourse and is painful every now and then. I even threaten to do it myself. I can see why some women might want to get it done, and I feel if that’s the way they want it, fine. Porn might have something to do with it, but I think there are women out there who want to get it for their own satisfaction.”
Researcher Karen Roberts McNamara reports that accounts of this medical trend in mainstream media quote doctors and patients alike as describing the new beauty standard for the vulva as “neat” and “clean.” McNamara cites a Boston Globe article in which a 25-year-old student from California, a patient of Dr. David Matlock, describes her postsurgery genitalia as “cleaner” and “more hygienic.”
Acclaimed champion of what he calls “vaginal rejuvenation,” Dr. Matlock proffers what he considers to be the definition of vulvar beauty as a “nice, clean look.” He claims that his laser rejuvenation will “effectively enhance the vaginal muscle tone, strength and control, decrease the internal and external vaginal diameters, as well as build up and strengthen the perineal body.”
Now, unless something really drastic happens to make women like the one at the ColbertNation site accept their asymmetrical and protruding genitalia and ignore the Matlocks and Alters, labiaplasty and clitoral hood reductions (call them clit and lip jobs, if you will) may yet become the staples that nose and boob jobs have metamorphosed into.
According to the California Surgical Institute, labiaplasty has become more common. In the United Kingdom, the number of labiaplasties doubled between 2000 and 2005. And in Germany, as psychologist Borken Ada Hagen and gynecologist Heribert Kentenich report in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, labiaplasty (known there as labienreduktion) has become the third leading cosmetic plastic surgery—right after face-lifts and breast augmentation.
Patient satisfaction has also been significant. A recent two-year study on 407 labiaplasty patients between the ages of 13 and 63 indicates that they appear to be happy with the procedure. Dr. Alter, the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and urologist, performed a procedure known as the Alter V technique on all 407 women.
According to an article on the study, printed in the December 2008 issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 98 percent of the patients reported they would have the surgery again. Seventy percent reported increased self-esteem, while 71 percent claimed to have improved sex lives. The study found only 4 percent of subjects reporting complications.
So where does this leave Africans who have been hounded for years by Euro-American NGOs and donor agencies to abandon “the barbaric and primitive practice” known as female circumcision?
Could it be that some ancient Africans saw flesh and blood versions of these before-and-after photos and decided, long before what is now known as cosmetic surgery came into being, that women would be better served with something close to what is now being called the “Toronto Trim.”
The term comes from Toronto plastic surgeon Robert Stubbs, by way of health reporter Krista Foss. Stubbs has done more than 205 labia minora shortenings on women aged 14 to 60. His style of trimming the hood of the clitoris as well as the lips of the vagina has been nicknamed the Toronto Trim.
The appropriately named Dr. Stubbs reports that these trims are not done on women who experience pain from their labia. Rather, they are done for cosmetic reasons. “Women don’t want to compete with men with something large between their legs. They want something small, neat and tidy and tucked up out of the way.” Again with the “neat and tidy.”
Linda, a woman in her mid-20s, said her labia minora had always bothered her. “It was physically uncomfortable, and I didn’t find it very aesthetically pleasing,” she said. She went to Stubbs and got a Toronto Trim for $4,500.
Patricia, a 32-year-old mother of two from New York City who had her labia shortened, also had worried that “it was all hanging.” So she looked for a surgeon, who fixed it, and she says “it’s nice and it’s neat now.”
Bernard Stern, the Florida doctor who performed Patricia’s labiaplasty, says he has operated on all kinds of women, including Las Vegas showgirls, exotic dancers, a Playmate of the Year, doctors, nurses, midwives, attorneys, professional athletes, marathoners, junior Olympians, equestrians, Pilates instructors and personal trainers. His patients have included an 82-year-old and a 16-year-old, as well as a 19-year-old and her 40-year-old mother.
Stern claims that most of his patients could not live with their genitals. “Quite honestly, most of the people that come in here have stuff that’s just unbelievable. There’s no doubt, I mean [the labia are] totally uneven, one side’s huge, the other’s not. ... For some of them, this is a life-changing procedure.”
According to the surgeon, “The women feel undesirable or unpretty. Even if nobody sees it, they see it.” Stern also claims that for many, a labiaplasty or vaginal tightening can “save their marriage.”
Now, my grandmother performed these “procedures” all her life. As early as 5 a.m., mothers would line up in our backyard with their baby sons and daughters to be circumcised by her expert hands. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, circumcision is done in early infancy.
Grandma took special care and pride with female babies. She would do her job deftly and pass the screaming baby to her mother saying, “Your daughter has been beautified.” The satisfied mother would then go back home and cook a celebratory chicken feast to mark the occasion. For some reason, no such feasts were cooked to mark a male baby’s circumcision.
So, how is my grandmother different from these board-certified plastic surgeons and urologists?
I cannot defend the circumcision knives Grandma inherited from her grandmother as being sterile. I also cannot claim that the palm oil she used to soothe the circumcision wound, the lime juice she used to “sanitize” the circumcision site, and the snail slime she swore would make the wound heal properly were up to WHO standards. But when I read the reports of labiaplasty patients, I cannot help but have a proud smile on my face when I recall my grandmother’s declarations after every baby girl’s circumcision: “She has been beautified and made clean.” How could she have known that this was going to be the refrain of board-certified surgeons in Europe and America after “beautifying” their women patients?
As it turns out, the reasons given for female circumcision on the one hand and female genital cosmetic surgery on the other are not totally different. Practitioners of female circumcision couch its functions in culture and religious obligation. According to professor Aisha Samad Matias, they usually say things like “It makes you clean, beautiful, better, sweet-smelling,” or “You will be able to marry, be presentable to your husband, able to satisfy and keep your husband, able to conceive and bear children.”
These reasons are not far from those given by women in Euro-America who seek the “nice, clean and neat” ideal of vulvar beauty through labiaplasties and clitoral hood reductions.
According to Dr. Virginia Braun, a psychologist at the University of Auckland who specializes in women’s health and sexuality, the narratives of women who have undergone FGM and FGCS are similar. In both cases, Braun argues, women say, “It is important to me to have genitals that look normal, that look appropriate, that are right.”
The big difference between female circumcision and FGCS hovers around self-consent and voluntarism. A great fuss is made about the rights of female circumcision “victims” by activists who see it as a form of child abuse or gender oppression. Writer Ifeyinwa Iweriebor, however, argues that this misrepresentation totally occludes the essential truth: that circumcision is not performed on girls (or on boys) to oppress them or do them any harm. For the practitioners, the procedure is carried out for the noblest of reasons, the best of intentions and in good faith. Maybe all those taboos surrounding female circumcision in African cultures were formulated as a way of ensuring that women went through this painful process to achieve the “nice clean slit” that is now being marketed by Euro-American plastic surgeons.
At the end of the day, it looks like female circumcision and FGCS are done for very much the same reasons. According to Simone Davis, professor and gender theorist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, among the key motivating factors raised by African women who favor female genital surgeries are beautification, transcendence of shame and the desire to conform. These clearly matter as well to American women seeking cosmetic surgery on their labia, says Davis.
And according to McNamara, although most plastic surgeons usually insist that the women they treat seek the procedure to enhance their own sexual satisfaction, some concede that many women have a consultation at the urging of their husbands, boyfriends or partners who want increased sensation for themselves.
These procedures—vaginoplasty, labiaplasty, hymenoplasty, female circumcision or genital mutilation—all have one thing in common. In McNamara’s words, they “highlight the constructedness of the sexed female subject because her body requires constant maintenance to adhere to gender requirements.”
The good news for labiaplasty patients (read victims) is that though they may regard female circumcision as foreign and incomprehensible, what they are doing is altering their genitalia to conform to a certain set of notions and expectations about what genitalia should look like if they are to be appropriately feminine and desirable.
Remember Dr. Alter? He says, “With Penthouse and all these magazines that show vaginas—I mean, they really show it—you have women, not just men, looking. And they start making aesthetic judgments.”
Such aesthetic judgments are the moving force behind the disciplinary pressures of Western beauty standards. Think of anorexia, bulimia, “a cracker a day” diets, gastric bypass surgery, lap-band surgery and other such horrors. These things are done “voluntarily” and with “self-consent” by people who have been pushed to the wall by societal ideals about what a woman’s body should look like.
So why has the West been demonizing “Africans and their barbaric culture of female circumcision” all these years? In actual fact, according to Davis, one could regard Western female consumers who consent to the procedures and even finance them to be even more oppressed and bound by normative gender than their African counterparts, because there is no actual external policing. In this case, she argues, American women are reminiscent of philosopher Michel Foucault’s “docile bodies,” who, on their own, fill the role of enforcers of their own subjection under the matrix of gender.
Davis quotes Soraya Mire, a Somali filmmaker, as saying, “In America, women pay money that is theirs, and no one else’s, to go to a doctor who cuts them up. ... Western women cut themselves up voluntarily.”
Somalia is a hotspot of infibulation and an action spot for Western anti-circumcision activists. Many Somali women and girls, as well as women and girls from other parts of Africa, have fled their homelands and gone into exile in Europe and America to escape circumcision and infibulation.
Imagine Mire’s confusion, and mine as well. Imagine the indignation of millions of Africans who have been forced to abandon this rite of passage only to wake up one day and find out that Euro-American women are sneaking, behind our backs, to circumcise themselves and their daughters. One of Florida surgeon Bernard Stern’s patients was a 19-year-old whose 40-year-old mother had her labiaplasty six months after she had hers.
This truly is a strange world!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)