I had my annual gynecologist appointment this past week. Aside from your run-of-the-mill stuff, I mentioned to her that I'd recently seen The Perfect Vagina, a 2008 documentary out of Britain.
The documentary itself got going based on the producers coming across the factoid that the fastest-growing elective surgery in the U.K. was vaginal surgery, that is to say, labiaplasty, hymen reconstruction, vulvoplasty, etc. The documentary is really quite moving - as well as eye-opening. (Be prepared to see vagina. A lot of it. Also, you get to watch a labiaplasty procedure performed on a 21-year-old.) (Yeah. 21.)
Anyway, my doctor and I got to talking about the fact that this has grown into its own industry here in the U.S. as well. She did her residency in L.A. and saw a bit more of it there, but she practices here on the Upper East Side, so still sees her fair share. She hadn't seen this documentary, but shook her head at the idea of a 21-year-old having cosmetic surgery on her labia, and generally at the idea that the visual definition of the vagina ought to be anything less varied than the visual definition of the human face.
So very many people visit this blog through my Brazilian wax post (a post I almost delete about every other month, mind). With bathing suit season approaching, I have the urge to fight against the cultural insistence that women's bits have to look just a certain way, an insistence I am reminded of every time I log into my IP tracker and see thousands of hits a month pouring in to the wax post, a post I wrote to be funny, and a post that people from all over the world read presumably for information.
So, Women's History Month may be over for another year, and I may be a good three years late to the game with this documentary, but, again. The Perfect Vagina. You have a perfect vagina. Don't believe me? Watch it.
I cannot, CANNOT, handle the concept that I need to do things to my genitals to make them more attractive. Isn't there anything the patriarchy can't just leave be, leave mine and mine alone? HaHa! Foolish woman, you can join the army, but now you have to worry about what your genitals look like! HAHAHAHAAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, (a) how many people are even seeing it, and (b) if someone is seeing it and their reaction is anything other than "Nice of you to let me see it", they shouldn't be seeing it.
I never felt so free as the day I went full on bush. Although I do still shave the bikini line. My acts of defiance are rather carefully modulated. And invisible to most people.
(b) if someone is seeing it and their reaction is anything other than "Nice of you to let me see it", they shouldn't be seeing it.
ReplyDeleteThis.
It's interesting to see what they do, too, in soft core mags: they actually photoshop models' genitalia to be more discreet, and frankly, more little-girl-like. (You can find this stuff around on vimeo, and if you haven't seen enough vagina after watching The Perfect Vagina, it's interesting to see how much they actually change.) So forget looking at magazines to get a realistic view of "average" vaginas. (Well, forget looking at magazines to get a realistic view of an "average" point anywhere on the female body.)
Wow I had no idea this type of stuff even existed. It speaks volumes about society as a whole and where we place our values. Of all the things to worry about and all the things to spend money on, getting plastic surgery on ones vagina. It's pretty surreal.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to pipe-up CN and say that I came across your blog due to your Brazilian Wax article whilst looking for information and found it endlessly funny; and now I read you regularly! Don't delete it, think of all the fans that might miss your writings by not finding that post!
ReplyDelete