(AFP) – Until recently, confidential: Aesthetic treatments of the intimate area are becoming increasingly popular, raising questions about the perception of “normality” and posing medical risks.
According to the International Society of Aesthetic Surgery (ISAPS), more than 95,000 labiaplasties (surgery and/or injections on the lips) and more than 50,000 vaginoplasties were performed worldwide in 2015.
Five years ago they hardly existed anymore, today they are the 19th and 22nd most frequently performed operations.
Nearly 9,000 labiaplasties were performed in the United States in 2015, up 16% from the previous year.
This procedure usually involves a laser reduction of the labia minora (also called nymphoplasty).
“If you had told me about this in the 1980s, I would have thought you were crazy,” admitted Renato Saltz, a plastic surgeon near Salt Lake City (USA) and president of the International Society of Aesthetic Surgery (ISAPS), in an interview AFP.
“Women are now much more concerned about the appearance of their genitals,” observed Nolan Karp, a surgeon in New York and board member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), of the Internet effect.
“How many naked women did a woman see in her life before the Internet existed?” According to the surgeon, “today people understand what is normal, what is beautiful and what is not.”
A “normality” that is difficult to determine since the appearance of this part of the female anatomy can vary.
If we consider a sex to be “normal” in which the labia minora does not “overflow” over the labia majora, then only 20% meet this criterion, confirms Nicolas Berreni, gynecologist and obstetrician in Perpignan, during the IMCAS Congress of Aesthetic Medicine in Paris.
– “A Barbie penis” –
This search for the “perfect” anatomy is “worrying,” says Dorothy Show, former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC).
The modeled female genitals “have no hair and are very flat,” like those of little girls. An illusion that is far from reality, she told AFP.
She is concerned about the use of this practice on adolescent girls whose physical development is not yet complete. During puberty it often happens that the labia minora become more prominent before the labia majora grow again.
However, according to a study published in 2005 on a sample of just 50 women, the length of the labia minora varied between 2 and 10 cm and its width between 0.7 and 5 cm.
In addition, it is “surprising that surgeons claim that surgery can make it possible to preserve female genitalia with a 'normal' appearance,” the authors emphasized, calling for these results to be passed on to women considering surgery.
But the hype continues and if some women really suffer from the friction of their enlarged labia minora, this argument is often just an excuse for aesthetic concerns.
“In 40% of cases, women who request a nymphoplaty and complain about pain lie,” estimates Dr. Berreni. “What they want is a Barbie penis where you can’t see the labia,” he adds.
The operation is not without risks: chronic pain, bleeding, infections.
“During healing, there is a risk of nerve endings becoming jammed in the scar tissue, which leads to pain,” emphasizes Dr. Shaw.
According to the SOGC's Guide to Good Practices in Genital Cosmetics, published in 2013, there is no evidence that these procedures improve sexual satisfaction or self-esteem.
The document calls for ensuring that the acts carried out do not resemble genital mutilation.
Dr. Berreni emphasizes that we have little perspective and that it appears that “nymphoplasty ages very slowly,” with cases in which the tissue becomes fibrous and retractable and has a swollen appearance.
A less risky alternative: injecting hyaluronic acid to puff up the large lips, which then cover the small ones, he adds.