labial reshaping?

[merchimerch]

I've know about the rise in cosmetic vaginal surgery for a while, and every time I see an article on it I feel sad. Here's the most recent:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article4211836.ece

I find this an interesting trend from the society that got SO up in arms about vaginal cutting/excision in non-Western countries (which is, admittedly, a very different thing and serves a very different purpose). But really, why are we so concerned about knives cutting others' vaginas, but we're all to happy to cut into our own for the sake of beauty?

I'm disturbed by this trend.

I'm disturbed by the need for some women to trim their labia minora to porn-star petiteness. I wish there was a way for us to appreciate vaginal diversity as much as I wish our culture was more tolerant of diversity (instead of just giving it *lip service*).

I'm disturbed that waxing is now considered standard and that so many women either sculpt their pubic hair into odd shapes or remove it completely. The option currently seems to be between post-modern pubic hair coiffures or the pre-adolescent none-at-all approach.

Neither are acceptable to me, and now I'm afraid that vaginal cosmetic surgery is going to become some kind of accepted norm as our current treatment of pubic hair has.

It scares me that this surgery is tauted as empowering for women to enjoy better sex, since they will no longer feel ashamed of the appearance of their loose canals and flabby lips. This doesn't fall far from the "your parts are dirty" rhetoric of decades past, with the subtle difference being that now a woman with "offensive" labia can purchase herself acceptable parts.

I like the originality of my girl parts -- I don't want them to look like porn parts. How can we nudge the culture a bit more toward appreciation of women and their sexual parts, rather than homogenization and control?

Comments

[nonseqmenagerie.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of your points, but this paragraph is kind of frustrating to read for me.

I'm disturbed that waxing is now considered standard and that so many women either sculpt their pubic hair into odd shapes or remove it completely. The option currently seems to be between post-modern pubic hair coiffures or the pre-adolescent none-at-all approach.

I'm concerned that many women feel that they have to wax or shave to have their vulvas considered beautiful, and I get downright pissed if people insist on their partners shaving and/or waxing without consideration for their feelings and preference. But I'm also rather tired of being told (or having it implied) that because I shave, I'm obviously being influenced by these negative factors and that my shaven vulva is obviously pre-adolescent. I shave, or don't shave, depending on what I feel like at any given moment. I enjoy the feel of my skin when my vulva is shaved, and I happen to think that my vulva is pretty, and shaving lets me and my partner(s) see the coloration there better. It has advantages if I'm in the mood to play with wax, as well. And there's sometimes I nice anticipation generated if I'm shaving for a specific purpose.

I don't demand my partners shave or wax or grow - my general philosophy is if they're letting me have access to the fun bits, they get to choose how they like the fun bits. I have no actual preference to other people's hairstyles (or lack thereof). As a muffin enthusiast, I'm just as happy to feel hair as I am just the bare skin, so it's really up to my partner. If they try shaving or waxing, I'll comment that it feels nice, but I will also comment on the niceness of the fur.

So yes, there needs to be more things like the Everyday Vulvas project, and they should get out there so people are more aware of the differences and that these differences are, in fact, normal and not bad. I think being body-positive is a very good thing. But it should include all types of vulvas, smooth or not, I'd say.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Surely the question is, what pressures do people feel? I'm male, and I don't shave anything. The second time I took a razor to my face I went, nope, this is not for me, and now the most I do is (slightly grudgingly) to use scissors every few weeks to keep my moustache out of my tea. Here in San Jose, to my pleasant surprise, this seems to be acceptable; the northern-European-looking people here don't seem to mind much, and most other people seem to range from interested to enthusiastic. But in Montreal, where I lived until recently, people would shout at me on the street. So routinely so that I've had friends comment that it makes them uncomfortable.

Well, I've had that all my adult life, and if they can't see the value in me, that's their loss and (I strongly suspect) my gain. I have my own friends. But that said, it's a degree of social pressure that I don't think anyone should need to withstand for something that does so little harm to others, and the fact that almost all men do shave their faces (whether in whole or in part) when it is such an unpleasant thing to do makes it pretty clear that the psychological effect is, well, effective.

So I don't feel it's inconsistent that I can be impressed by artistic feats of facial topiary, feel it completely acceptable if someone wants, of their own free will, to be clean-shaven, and at the same time be extremely disturbed by the clear statistical evidence that everyone is getting their minds messed with.

And as above, so below.

(And a hundred times more so for the parts with nerve endings, and the ones that won't grow back.)

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

Your penultimate paragraph seems to hit the point square on the head.

And, I'm now in San Jose at least 1ce a week visiting my Bosnian - would you like to grab a cup of tea at some point?

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I agree that my statement was a bit extreme, and in practice I think that people should do with their pubic hair what they will (so long as they harm none).

Mostly I'm just reacting to negative comments about my natural growth that I've gotten in my most recent forays into the dating pool. It seems like the assumption is now that a woman will wax/shave/trim/scuplt/depilate before allowing someone access to her nether regions and that assumption and the resulting expressions of shock/dismay/disgust are what I'm railing against.

If all people were as understanding about their partners choices in terms of pubic hair as you are, then obviously there wouldn't be an issue. But as the last year of dating has proven to me, it is an issue - it's a huge issue.

Also, it may not be a media influenced issue for you, but I think it is for many.

[nonseqmenagerie.livejournal.com]

And there I agree - there should be more of a range in the media (both mainstream and porn), and people shouldn't expect their partners to do things their partners don't wish to do.

However, when so many discussions about shaved vs. unshaved basically boils down to me or my partners favoring pre-adolescents, or me being a dupe, I do take a bit of umbrage.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

no I don't think you're a dupe, but I'm worried that preteen girls growing up now are going to be pressured into shaving/waxing their pubic area much in the way that I was pressured into shaving my legs starting around the 6th grade.

It wasn't even a question. All the girls on my swim team started doing it, and it was clear from TV and all the silly Nair commercials that in order to be a normal woman I had to remove the hair from my legs.

I've since rethought such things, but I wish I'd never started down the leg-shaving path. It seems that young girls are already being taught that their vaginas are dirty, smelly places that they shouldn't look at or mention. When you add the burden of hair removal to that, well it makes me nervous.

I wish the Cunt Coloring Book was part of sex education programs nationwide, and I agree about the Everyday Vulvas project.

[nonseqmenagerie.livejournal.com]

I think if we got past the "vaginas are dirty smelly places unless you use product X to make it smell like flowers," you'd probably actually find less worry about pubic hair. The general line of reasoning I've seen for that is "Vagina is smelly - hair keeps smells - no hair equals clean."

If we can get the former taken out of the equation, or at least pounded in that the scent of a healthy vagina is a good thing, you'd probably find less concern about hair.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

That rings quite true, and the same could probably be said of armpit hair as well.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

and with the pre-adolescent thing...I realize that it is an extreme statement that is often bandied about, but I do think it is valid that the media is pushing an image of the desirable woman as pre-pubescent. I usually talk about this in terms of all over body hair, but also in terms of hip girth and chest.

Truly womanly bodies are remarkably scarce in the media, and when they show up it is usually as the brunt of a joke or some other form of ridicule.

[nonseqmenagerie.livejournal.com]

Deleted previous comment because I was uncomfortable with my tone. I'll try to think of a more calm way of saying things when I calm down some.

[prizmdonna.livejournal.com]

I find labial reshaping to be a disturbing trend, as well. I don't know if this is accurate, but it seems to me that the whole thing went something like this: No one looks at their vaginas, and has no idea what other vaginas look like, and just assumes their vagina was normal. Then it evolved to people looking at and appreciating their vaginas. There were books showing beautiful labia looks of all shapes and sizes. Then people started to look at their vaginas, and wonder if theirs was normal or pretty. Once women were looking at their vaginas, comparisons and criticisms quickly followed. Bizarre.

Anyway, one minor point. I don't know why people have this idea that porn promotes tiny labias. Due to the nature of my former job, I've seen more porn than most people will see their entire lives, and let me tell you, there is NO "standard" look for labias in porn. None. They range just like in normal life. There are some fetish titles that pick girls with specific looks (big labia lips, for example), but that's true of any body part (big boob porn, tiny tit porn, long legs, round butt, super skinny, curvy girls, etc.). While there does seem to be some weird societal leaning towards "petite" labia these days, don't put that on porn, because it's misplaced.

Well, that's my $0.02, anyway. :-)

- donna

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting to hear. I don't claim to be a porn officianado, and you've certainly got the insider's perspective, but all the porn I've seen in the last 5 years or so has featured shaven or partially shaven pubic hair (possibly waxed) and women with fairly petite labia (both minora and majora).

I am encouraged that there is big labia fetish porn, though kinda sad that the variation seems to place it into the fetish category.


I don't think porn necessarily started the obsession with petiteness for women, but it has certainly promulgated it, IMO.

The patriarchy has been obsessed with making women disappear for centuries; I see this as just the latest disturbing strategy.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

and I think porn has become a more visible subset of the media lately (which is not necessarily a bad thing). I think the mainstreaming of "raunch culture" is producing some interesting effects.

The shaving and surgery issues both connect to the media images of ideal women, and porn does play a part in that image--a larger part, it seems, than it has in the past.

[prizmdonna.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I meant my reply to go to the OP, not as a reply to your post.

- donna

[sps.livejournal.com]

If you'll excuse me (once again) running off in a random direction, I notice also that the country that uses its "war on drugs" as an excuse to, well, intervene on other people's territory, is the same one where the juice bars all seem to be pushing cocktails of dubious herbal extracts with claims of all kinds of dramatic cognitive effects. Asking people about this, they say, "ah, but these ones are natural" (as, I gather, cannabis and opium are somehow not?).

And of course, while you can no longer spank children, you can evidently pierce them to your heart's content.

Disrespect for logic, disrespect for the body, somehow it's part of a pattern where the crazy left and the crazy right come together. Maybe it's just as simple as the politics of power: that it benefits the few if the many lose all faith in themselves, physically, mentally and morally, and just go where they are led.

Or maybe I'm just becoming a paranoid old coot. I hope so!

In any case, I couldn't agree more, variation is good!

[mehitabelmmoss.livejournal.com]

I have never encountered this pressure to wax personally - maybe it is my age or who I generally hang with. But I see it rampant in the younger lesbian community - some of the advice journals here have frequent questions on shaving, waxing, etc. Many have been asked by gfs or are getting ready for their 1st experience with a woman and are worried that their hair will turn someone off.
Luckily most of the advice is to do what you want or to just keep trim enough to keep detangled. But it is amazing to me how many women are going for the pre-pub 'look'.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I think that the idea that it is standard is very much generational. There have always been sub groups that seem to lean toward hair removal and those who tend to prioritize the natural look.

What amazes me is how the norm has shifted, and I feel like it shifted for those just a few years younger than me. And it's not just women's bodies--I was shocked at how obsessed my little brother was about hair removal as a young adolescent - he was always plucking chest hair and I think he even wanted to get rid of his armpit hair (right now I have no idea what his grooming practices are).

[mehitabelmmoss.livejournal.com]

And my son (14 today) is delighting in any sign of extra manly hair!

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

hurray! (both for birthdays and the celebration of hair growth)

[iyindo.livejournal.com]

I am mortified by the thought of labial re-shaping... absolutely mortified.

[groblek.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm disturbed by that one.