Labiaplasty

[amg]

And regarding the "range of normal" comments in several posts... again, I support the questioning about how does one know? Many of the girly mags/web-sites (which are the easiest place to find pix and make comparisons) are "touched up" (scuse the almost-pun)... uneven lips, extra wrinklybits and even colours are edited... and this gives completely "neat" but completely unrealistic ideas of "perfect"...

And Eaglewalker... its not just Africa that still mutilates girls (sometimes as young as 3) and women's genitals... it also happens in some parts of Asia, and in some parts of the Middle East... often without the use of anaestheticor hygiene as we know it in Western hospitals.

I read somewhere that the reason girly mags have women with smaller labia was because of some law that decided larger labia were more provocative and so were too suggestive to have in the magazines...and so over the years people have been "programmed" to see only the one type as the ideal woman's genitalia. I'll have to see if I can find where I read that - I'd done a Google search one day after reading that some plastic surgeons are offering labiaplasty as a cosmetic procedure. I think it's one of the signs of the huge effect mass media has on our lives Before, no one knew what labia were "supposed" to look like, so there was no right or wrong way to look. Now we have to look like the women in magazines, because isn't that how the "beautiful" people look?

However I can see how someone might want to get it done if there was a definite physical reason. That's a delicate area, and constant irritation might make it more prone to infection, wouldn't you think?

A little addendum...heard a documentary on the radio a while ago...genital mutilation often involves removal of the entire clitoris and the stitching up of the vagina - a bit more extreme than labiaplasty - although both make me want to cross my legs!

PS - why is this discussion under nutrition??