A Look at Labiaplasty

The first time I caught sight of an ad for "Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation," I knew I was in LA. The ad featured a barely bikini-clad woman with back and neck arched to suggest that summit of all sensations. "You won't believe how good sex can be!" Singing the praises of a Dr. David Matlock of the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Center in Los Angeles, the ad invited me to "Call today for a complimentary consultation with our Board Certified Gynecologist." And financing was available. That's a relief.

A few weeks later I had in my hands a press release about a "New Trend in Plastic Surgery for Women," which informed me that "a growing number of women are joining a new trend in plastic surgery to improve the appearance of their outer vaginal area." Curious, and more than a little nauseous, I read on and quickly learned that "Dr. Alter has developed a new procedure for reducing the size and shape of the inner lips of the vagina," called labiaplasty. According to the release, the good doctor was more than willing to tell me all about it.

So now there's a problem with women's lower lips? I'm still threatening to buy the boobs that were supposed to be my birthright, and now I'm invited to grab a mirror and take a good look. As a friend and fellow admirer of the plastic in Pamela said, "but my pussy is perfect!" My sentiments exactly. We'll buy boobs, but get cut near our clits? Hell no! So why all the buzz about modifying muffs?

With a name like Dr. Alter, I figured he was where I'd start my voyage into the apparently budding industry of designer vaginas. Dr. Matlock has a full-page ad, but Dr. Gary Alter has a publicist.

Sexual-Enhancement Surgery

Costing anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000, a sample of the snipping, injecting, clipping, and stitching from the burgeoning world of Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (or, as Cosmo refers to it, "sexual-enhancement surgery") includes: vaginal tightening (similar to the husband's knot -- the stitching up of the torn or stretched vagina after child birth), the liposuction and lifting of lips that have begun to lose the battle with gravity, the "repair" of the hymen, the clipping of elongated or asymmetrical inner lips, unhooding the clitoris for more friction, and injecting fat (taken from the inner thigh) into lips thought too thin.

According to press material, the most common procedure is labiaplasty. Labiaplasty is the trimming of the labia minora, the flaps of skin that form the inner lips of a woman's genitalia. Based in the Mecca of makeovers, Beverly Hills, Dr. Alter is one of the few board-certified urologists and plastic surgeons practicing in the United States. After 10 years as a urologist, he "saw various problems that were not being addressed by anybody. Plastic surgeons don't know much about genitals."

"The [original] procedure, that's still in all the medical literature, is when you have these labia minora that are sticking out, is to just kinda cut 'em off. So, you have this long suture line and the raggedness of the sutre line simulates the edge of a labia. But to me, that was very unnatural. I thought, as a plastic surgeon, there has to be a better way to do this." So, he developed labiaplasty.

"It's the combined training that makes a difference. You can make an ear smaller without losing the shape by taking various triangles out of the ear, the edge of the ear, and then you bring the ear together, so it keeps the same shape." Ears? The normal edges of the labia are left intact, and according to the before and after shots on his site (www.altermd.com), the new labia look "natural." No, the photos have not been altered, just the flesh. And the after shots do look "natural," but it would be easy to argue that the before shots look natural as well. After all, these women were born with what is bared in the before shots. Isn't that natural? When talking about plastic surgeons and the women who pay them, natural is up for debate.