Vaginal rejuvenation: The quest for a shapelier vagina

CLEVELAND
============
Anatomy by Scalpel: The quest for a shapelier vagina.

By T.K. Kim
Published: July 4, 2007

The feeling arrived a decade ago at the age of 30, when she saw a picture of a naked woman.
"That's when I noticed I was a little different," says Kelly, who's embarrassed to use her real name. The vaginal lips -- the labia -- on the woman in the picture didn't protrude like hers. Was she different?
Her question soon evolved into anxiety. Then shame.
"It was embarrassing," she says. "I've never been married, so when I was dating, I was always hesitant about a man seeing me for the first time, because I thought it was abnormal."
It wasn't something she could talk about. Not to boyfriends. Not to other women. Not even to her doctors. She preferred to keep her shame private.
There was also a practical side to her discomfort. Her labia would chafe from friction when she jogged. Riding an exercise bike was out of the question. She was constantly adjusting herself. "I felt like a man."
Then there was the awkwardness of sex. Sometimes her labia would get caught on her partner, leaving her to wonder if she was a freak.
"I just didn't want to bring attention to it," she says. "I felt I just looked different from other women . . . This was the center of my womanhood, and to bring negative attention to it, that was just too much to even consider. It was so private, and the way that I felt about it was so intense."
Her boyfriend didn't even notice, and wouldn't have thought anything if she'd never brought it up. For the longest time, she didn't. "I wasn't complaining about it," he says.
But by age 40, her anxiety got the best of her. On a visit to a plastic surgeon to discuss breast reduction, the question came up. Is there anything else you're concerned about?
Actually, yes.
She told Dr. Daniel Medalie about the physical discomfort, how embarrassing it was to wear tight pants.
He asked if he could examine her.
No. She was too self-conscious.
Medalie brought out a book filled with pictures of vaginas and asked her to point out which one looked like hers. "I was relieved that there were other women out there that I had something in common with, that I thought was so abnormal," she says. "You think you're alone."
She made an appointment. She finally told her boyfriend.
"That was a whole new thing I had to go through -- understanding why," he says. "Why does someone have this [procedure]? Is it vanity? Is it something psychological? Is it physical? I'm just sort of a deer in the headlights."
Vaginal surgeries have been around for decades. Labioplasty grew out of men wanting to be women. Other procedures were born to improve function, not form.
Vaginoplasty, for example, was developed for women who gave birth. On occasion, the muscles of the vaginal walls wouldn't heal right, leaving them loose.
Doctors figured out how to tighten them. It's supposed to help women better enjoy sex. But both procedures remained obscure, while the plastic surgery industry expanded in the '70s and '80s.
Then came the rise of VCRs and the internet. Suddenly, even good girls who would never grace porn shops had home access to them. What once could be observed only with a quick glance in a locker room could now be "paused" and stared at on a screen.
Many women were seeing other vaginas for the first time. Anxiety became a native byproduct. Is mine too big? Are my lips too long? Is my boyfriend OK with it? How come these porn stars don't look like me?
So they started talking to their doctors.
The popularity of both vaginal lip reduction and tightening began where such things usually do -- in L.A. and New York.
But like all trends, it's slowly worked its way to Flyover Country. Today, more and more women are coming up with $6,500 to $8,500 -- and enduring three hours of outpatient surgery -- to have their anxieties cured.
In the past year, Medalie -- who works at MetroHealth Medical Center -- has been fielding mounting queries. "Probably in a week I get about five e-mail inquiries . . . I have a little bit of a backlog."
He even gets a couple notes a month from women asking about hymenplasty, which surgically "revirginizes" women by replacing the hymen. He doesn't do the procedure. Not many doctors do. But it's all part of the growing industry of vaginal restoration.
The growth prompted Elyria's Dr. Kevin Wisler to fly to Beverly Hills to study laser vaginal rejuvenation under gynecologist David Matlock, who's been featured on the reality show Dr. 90210. Now Wisler's opening up his own institute at Elyria Memorial Hospital.
Of course, no such trend is without its critics. Getting a surgery because of physical discomfort is one thing, they'll say. Getting it because a woman on a sex tape has a vagina like a teenager is another.
In a report by British Medical Journal last month, authors warned of unknown risks with labioplasty -- especially when doctors are cutting around nerve endings. "It should be thought of as the last resort, not the first port of call," they wrote.
Beth Haiken, who wrote Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery, says it's all part of our increasing pursuit of artificial enhancement. "It plays into the market," she says. "One surgeon called it 'happy surgery.' You're not dealing with things like cancer.
"There's a part of me that thinks that if that's the only thing you have to worry about, you have a pretty nice life," she adds. "And B: There's got to be a better place to spend your money. Get bigger pants."

http://www.clevescene.com/2007-07-04/news/anatomy-by-scalpel




WASHINGTON D.C.
==============

Cosmetic Surgery's New Frontier
Procedures Popularized In L.A.'s 90210 Come to D.C.'s 20037

By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 6, 2007; HE01

Christopher A. Warner says he considers himself something of a maverick, a caring physician willing to challenge medical orthodoxy in order to help women.
That's why the 39-year-old board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist recently opened the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Washington in a red brick townhouse off Washington Circle. There, he is building a business as the first area physician to perform controversial procedures that use a laser to enhance sexual gratification by repairing tissue damaged by childbirth, to give women a "youthful aesthetic look" or to make those who are not appear to be virgins.
Warner's fledgling rejuvenation practice, experts say, exemplifies physicians' entry into what some have termed the "last frontier" of plastic surgery -- a realm where medical ethics collide with culture, commerce and technology.
In response to this growing interest, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons began tracking vaginal rejuvenation in 2005 and recorded 793 procedures that year. That figure is widely regarded as low, because many doctors who perform these operations are gynecologists, whose primary professional association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, does not keep such statistics.
While numbers are elusive, both critics and proponents of the procedures agree they are increasing. David L. Matlock, the flamboyant California gynecologist who invented or popularized many of these surgeries, says he has performed more than 3,000 in the past 12 years and has trained 140 doctors in a dozen states and 20 countries, including Argentina, Korea and Australia. His trainees -- Warner among them -- have established vaginal rejuvenation centers in New York, Atlanta, Detroit and San Antonio.
The proliferation of such surgeries, fueled in part by the growing popularity of cosmetic surgery and of reality television makeover shows such as the E! network's "Dr. 90210," alarms critics, who say there is no evidence they are safe or effective, because they have never been studied scientifically. Some say the procedures foster -- or create -- insecurity while doing little to treat the underlying causes of female sexual dissatisfaction.
"I'm asked about these procedures a lot," said sex therapist Laura Berman, who directs an eponymous clinic for women in Chicago. "We're in a culture, unfortunately, where most women are falling down a slippery slope with plastic surgery. It's very disturbing."
To doctors who perform the operations, usually in surgery centers or in their offices rather than in hospitals, such criticism is shortsighted. Warner, a graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine who started an ob-gyn practice in 2000 and also maintains an office in Southeast Washington, said his goal is to empower women. "I see these procedures as taking care of my patients," said Warner, whose laser operations are performed in a downtown surgery center affiliated with MedStar Health.
Warner was trained by Matlock, who promotes the surgeries over the Internet, on television and through a public relations firm he owns.
Warner said he spent $80,000 on a medical laser and training courses given by Matlock, a regular on "Dr. 90210" who tightly controls the dissemination of the procedures through licenses and through trademarks for their names such as "Designer Laser Vaginoplasty." Warner said he has conferred frequently with Matlock in setting up his laser practice, which is expected to move into bigger quarters in the spring. Warner says calls to his practice increase dramatically after each of Matlock's television appearances.
Matlock is himself a controversial figure. He has been disciplined by the Medical Board of California for what he says is a "misunderstanding" with racial overtones and sued for malpractice 10 times in the past decade for what he characterizes as "nuisance cases."
One of the most vociferous critics is Thomas G. Stovall, a past president of the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons. "There is absolutely zero scientific literature that supports . . . the notion that firing a laser of any kind will tighten [vaginal] muscles," said Stovall, who calls the surgery "a ripoff."
"Most sexual gratification has nothing to do with your vaginal muscle tone," said Stovall, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Tennessee at Memphis. "It's really a heresy promoting this. But sex sells."
Each laser procedure costs about $3,000 to $9,000, and many women undergo several simultaneously. These surgeries are also often performed with other cosmetic surgeries, such as liposuction. They are rarely covered by insurance.
Berman said she has treated about 15 women who have undergone vaginal procedures to improve their sex lives and developed complications such as painful intercourse.
St. Louis plastic surgeon V. Leroy Young, former chairman of the emerging trends task force of the plastic surgeons' society, said the hype surrounding these procedures underscores a lack of regulatory oversight. There is, Young noted, no counterpart to the Food and Drug Administration when it comes to surgery. Because of the Internet, he said, "much of this stuff can be developed and is almost immediately on the market."
Operating on or near sensitive vaginal tissue, Young added, is inherently risky and can cause scarring, nerve damage and decreased sensation.
"The question I have is, is this being done for the benefit of the woman -- or someone else?" Young asked. Some women undergo the surgery, he said, because a man has told them, "Honey, you don't look like the girl in the movie."
And Nawal Nour, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School, is no fan of what she calls "designer vaginas."
"I have always believed that empowerment is via the brain, not the body," Nour said.
What Women Want
"Every single one of these procedures was developed" at the request of women, Matlock said. "All these patients have gynecologists. Why are they coming to me?"
Warner, who has operated on 18 patients, said he does not consider the lack of published studies to be problematic.
"Life isn't all about studies," Warner said. "These are real problems that don't require 50 people to research the same topic. Women are telling us that it's working." He said the laser surgery he performs can also fix stress urinary incontinence, leakage of urine that sometimes occurs after childbirth.
In Berman's view, much of the demand is fueled by ignorance or desperation.
Most women, she said, have no concept of what is normal when it comes to genital appearance or functioning. "We are particularly vulnerable to believing there is something wrong," especially if a partner says something negative, she said. She added that many women do not realize that incontinence often can be successfully treated with far less invasive methods such as exercises, biofeedback and medication.
Matlock says the exercises don't work and that laser rejuvenation is a modification of standard operations called anterior and posterior repair to fix a sagging bladder or rectum. But, he added, laser rejuvenation "goes way beyond" these procedures.
Gynecologists say that some women do report improved sexual satisfaction after standard repairs. But they note that this is incidental to the functional reasons for surgery, which carries inherent risks.
'I Did It for Both of Us'
Critics and supporters of vaginal cosmetic surgery say the mainstreaming of graphic images, including pornography, is fueling demand.
Warner and Matlock say that patients frequently request "a nice sleek look" similar to images seen in Playboy magazine and on some cable TV channels. "Women tell us they want to look like they're 18 again," Matlock said.
David Sarwer, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Center for Human Appearance, said he believes some of these patients could have body dysmorphic disorder, a psychiatric condition that affects between 7 and 15 percent of plastic surgery patients. The disorder is characterized by an obsessive focus on a minor or nonexistent physical flaw.
"Maybe some of these individuals would be better off changing the way they think about their bodies than the bodies themselves," Sarwer said.
Some women, including 32-year-old Lisseth Figueroa, an office manager in Los Angeles, say rejuvenation surgery helped rescue a foundering marriage.
Figueroa said she suffered from stress incontinence after four pregnancies and felt she was being rejected sexually. Two years ago, after hearing a friend extol the virtues of surgery, she borrowed from her mother and her boss to help pay Matlock's $15,000 fee; her husband gave her $8,000.
"I did it for both of us," said Figueroa, adding that their marriage has improved as a result of laser rejuvenation and a procedure she said Matlock suggested to beautify her genitals. "Before the surgery I felt really old . . . and ugly. Since the surgery that's changed. I'm very happy with it -- and so is my husband."
Sometimes rejuvenation is a family affair. Julie Barragan, a 31-year-old single mother who lives outside Los Angeles, underwent vaginal surgery several months after one of her relatives. Another family member followed suit.
Last July, Barragan had what Matlock calls his "Wonder Woman Makeover": several vaginal procedures, breast implants and a breast lift, abdominal liposuction and a "Brazilian butt augmentation," which involves reshaping the buttocks through a combination of liposuction and fat injections.
The surgery, Barragan said, has "definitely given me more confidence. . . . I haven't had any regrets."
Warner's wife, Sharon, who is also his office manager, said that after delivering three children, she wants rejuvenation surgery, which she likens to other age-defying procedures like coloring her hair.
Ready for Marriage?
There is little dispute that one procedure, known as hymenoplasty, is performed primarily for the impression it will make on men.
The surgery, which takes about 30 minutes, restores the hymen, the membrane that typically covers the vagina prior to first intercourse. Surgeons say there is a growing demand for the surgery, particularly among women of Middle Eastern and Hispanic descent -- cultures where female chastity can be a prerequisite for marriage.
Warner, who charges $3,000 for the procedure performed in his office under local anesthetic, has done several, he said. In one recent case, a college student was scheduled to return to Egypt to be examined by a gynecologist as a condition of her arranged marriage.
She has recommended Warner to several friends who have scheduled this surgery, he said.
Sometimes the surgery is done for other reasons. "I've been performing this on and off for years," said Marco Pelosi II, a Bayonne, N.J., gynecologist who says the "revirginization" operation has become increasingly popular as a gift for men. Pelosi estimates he has done about 150 hymenoplasties in the past two years.
Some of his patients, Pelosi said, are celebrating a new relationship or second honeymoon.
Tennessee's Stovall said he thinks the procedure is ridiculous. "Sex is more in your head and in your relationships. And for most women, losing their virginity was not the most pleasant experience."
Berman said that hymenoplasty thrives on credulousness and that patients "fall prey to these surgeons who say, 'I can make you look perfect.' "
"It's one more thing we can feel insecure about," she observed. "We women are just suckers for that." ·

Comments:boodmans@washpost.com.

The March of Progress

In April, Los Angeles gynecologist David Matlock licensed his 2-year-old G-spot-enhancing technology to 35 other doctors around the country to help spread the benefits of collagen injections that swell the so-called Grafenburg Spot (a supposedly pleasure-registering zone which is, at best, tiny and hidden, but according to some doctors, nonexistent). With the patient's help, the doctor guides the 3-inch needle to the most promising location, and one injection renders the G-spot the size of a coin. Many patients claim their sex lives are greatly enhanced, but no peer-reviewed research has yet been done. [San Francisco Chronicle, 6-3-07]

PROFILE
==========


David Matlock rejects criticism of his mix of marketing and medicine, which he says earns him $12 million a year. (By Cynthia Leal)



Not Your Average Physician: 'I Understand the Value of Branding'

By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 6, 2007; HE05


While some physicians pride themselves on their business acumen, few are as unabashedly entrepreneurial as David Louis Matlock, the board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist regarded as the driving force behind vaginal cosmetic surgery.
Even fewer approach what Matlock says is his $12 million annual income from his medical practice and other business ventures. That figure is more than 45 times higher than that of the average obstetrican-gynecologist, according to a 2006 survey compiled by the American Medical Group Association.
Matlock said he operates each week on about 10 patients who wait months for an appointment. Many are drawn by his regular appearances on the E! network makeover TV show "Dr. 90210." (On the show and in interviews, Matlock gives his age as 47, but records show he is 55.) Matlock says most of his earnings are derived from patient fees and royalties. According to SEC filings, he owns stock options in a company that makes the lasers that he requires trainees, whom he calls "associates," to buy.
Recently Matlock formed a television production company that is trying to sell a reality show called "DocStars," featuring him.
"I've always been a successful businessman," said Matlock, who received an MBA in health care from the University of California at Irvine in 2000. "I understand the value of branding."
Matlock said his licensing agreements are necessary to protect his intellectual property rights. "I understand how to capitalize on an opportunity. Why should I give it away?"
But critics say the surgeon's unorthodox methods are antithetical to widely accepted medical practice.
Prospective patients, said Thomas Stovall, a past president of the Society for Gynecologic Surgeons, have no way of evaluating Matlock's claims because his results have not been peer-reviewed or published: "They go on the Internet and up pops this Web site and they read a few testimonials and think it sounds great." .
"Even if it doesn't violate ethics, it's sleazy," said V. Leroy Young, a St. Louis plastic surgeon, referring to what he calls Matlock's "hypermarketing." Young said he considered Matlock's patient fees, which can run to $50,000 for the package of procedures dubbed the "Wonder Woman Makeover," to be "astronomical" and "indecent."
Officials at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have not taken a position on laser vaginal surgery. In 2004, its ethics committee expressed concern generally about patients' ability to give informed consent as well as "the use of a business model that aims to control the dissemination of scientific knowledge."
Matlock rejects such criticisms. He said he plans to publish studies soon, but not in peer-reviewed journals that would require him to disclose his techniques. His patients, he added, sign a consent form detailing more than 40 potential complications, including incontinence and intractable pain.
Matlock said he thinks his critics are jealous of his financial success. "I'm a monopoly," he said. "A monopoly can charge what they want. I'm using the same business principles as Microsoft."
In recent years Matlock's activities have attracted the scrutiny of the Medical Board of California, records show.
In 1998 the board sought to revoke his license, charging him with insurance fraud, dishonesty, creation of false medical records and gross negligence in connection with his treatment of two patients.
In 2000 Matlock signed a settlement agreement with the board that placed him on probation for four years but did not require an explicit admission of wrongdoing. Two years later his request to terminate the probation was denied after an administrative law judge found that Matlock had tried to "mislead the Board" by not disclosing that he had been sued for malpractice while he was on probation and had "clearly withheld information." His license was fully restored in 2004.
Matlock said the disciplinary action was the result of a misunderstanding. "It was completely unfair, and I honestly think race had something to do with it," said Matlock, who is black.
In the past 10 years, records show, Matlock has been sued for malpractice 10 times in Los Angeles County Superior Court. According to ACOG, ob-gyns are sued an average of 2.6 times during their careers.
Matlock said that five of the lawsuits were settled at the recommendation of his insurance company, with payments ranging from $8,000 to $150,000. In a sixth case Matlock said he refunded a patient's $6,500 liposuction fee after she was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Hospital for a cardiac problem that arose during surgery. Two cases were dropped by the plaintiffs before trial, he said, and two others were resolved without payments.
Lawsuits, he said, are a risk for doctors in his specialities. Matlock said the largest payment made to settle a case on his behalf was $225,000 paid in 1993.
"The average payment for an ob-gyn is $500,000," Matlock said, adding that the lawsuits brought against him were "nuisance cases." ·


CHICAGO
=========



Beyond Botox
More women seek self-enhancement through stripper classes, intimate grooming and surgery


By Lisa Anderson
Tribune national correspondent

July 11, 2007

NEW YORK -- Emboldened by tumbling taboos and enabled by advancing technologies, women are going well beyond Botox in the quest to enhance their appearance and explore their sensuous side.
Erotic accouterments, cosmetic enhancements and activities once blushingly associated with Playboy playmates and exotic dancers now comfortably fit into the repertoire of corporate lawyers and soccer moms. Even the most intimate cosmetic surgery is as easily accessible and openly discussed as an episode of "Desperate Housewives."
Some consider this a healthy reawakening of the seductress innate in every female. Others bemoan it as further evidence of the over-sexualization, or "stripperization," of American girls and women.
Either way, it's happening, it's proliferating and it's a growing business.
Out of the strip clubs and into the strip malls, classes in striptease and pole and lap dancing are popping up around the country for women who want to learn to look hot while they burn calories.
On June 18, Toronto-based Flirty Girl Fitness made its U.S. debut in Chicago's West Loop, kicking off what it plans as a national franchise chain featuring such classes as "Chair Striptease," "Hottie Body Boxing," "Booty Beat" and, of course, pole dancing.
"I've had doctors, attorneys, pharmacists, police officers and housewives. Women from [ages] 19 through 68 take my classes," says Mary Ellyn Weissman, owner and instructor of Empowerment Through Exotic Dance Ltd. in Chicago Heights.
And then there are matters of intimate personal grooming. In 21st Century America, young women increasingly favor body waxing to remove pubic hair in styles ranging from the barely there "Brazilian" to its extreme cousin, the "full Brazilian." Some apply hair dye as well.
Nancy Jarecki, founder of bettybeauty inc. "the first-ever color for the hair down there," has sold nearly 100,000 units of her growing line of betty color kits since the New York company marketed its first product last September. This fall betty is to launch in Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands, said Jarecki.
California surgeon David Matlock, a pioneer in so-called boutique cosmetic gynecologic laser surgery, has developed the trademarked Designer Laser Vaginoplasty cosmetic procedure for women unhappy with the external appearance of their genitalia and the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation technique to tighten vaginal tissue. The surgeries average one hour and cost between about $6,000 and $8,000. Both procedures are marketed as enhancing women's sexual experience.
Defying reality, fighting back
Increasingly, women, particularly Boomers, are interested in reviving sensuality that may have wilted under the pressures of work and family.
"This started, I think, in the late 20th Century, and it has ratcheted up. That's what is really interesting to explore: Why is it women are so willing to invest time and energy and money in everything from coloring their nipples to decorating their pubic hair and, then, changing their genitals?" asks social historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg, a professor emerita of human development and gender studies at Cornell University and author of "The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls."
She cites two factors. Over the past 25 years the concepts of beauty and health have become conflated. For example, the idea that being thin is not only "beautiful" but "healthy," she says.
"I also think there is a demographic thing here. More and more American women expect to be gorgeous and sexual athletes into their 80s," she says.
It's great (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). But is it realistic? Many women seem willing to try. Stacey Smith, a Chicago police officer, is one of them. Smith loves her pole-dancing classes at Weissman's Chicago Heights studio.
Getting her groove back
"It's a blast. I dress like a man every day. I wear men's clothes, and I work with mostly men. Then I come home, and I'm mommy to four. And I'm a master's student in public safety administration. So, I don't have a whole lot of time to be feminine. This kind of helps to get your sensuality back, not to mention physical fitness," she says.
"Another influence is just hitting menopause. They're trying to fight back. We all know we need to work out more as we reach menopause," says Weissman, 47. "What better way to do it than kill two birds with one stone and reclaim our sensuality?"
Kerry Knee, 36, who founded Flirty Girl Fitness in December 2005 with her 32-year-old sister Krista, agrees. "I think every single woman, I don't care who she is, how old she is, wants to be sexy. They want to be thought of as sexually attractive creatures, but no one ever teaches you how to do that," she said, noting she finds the increase in confidence among clients striking.
Jarecki, a movie producer, came up with the betty product line after watching Roman women leave hair salons with doggie bags of dye for their nether regions. Her best-selling kit is FUNbetty, a hot pink hue particularly popular in Middle America, she says, adding, "Who knew?"
"Our new demographic is older people. People are dating again and at an older age," says Jarecki, noting many buy betty not "just for the gray, but for fun."

lbanderson@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune




AUSTRALIA
==========

TO TUCK AND TIGHTEN?

by Sunny Burns

For many women their vagina’s appearance is just as important as their face, skin and hands. So it is little wonder it is the latest body part to become the subject of cosmetic surgery.
The latest designer vaginal surgery is known as labioplasty – or the liposuction of the mons pubis. It is claimed the treatment makes a woman feel more confident in the bedroom and in a bikini.
It is proving particularly popular for women after childbirth. Giving birth can leave the labia enlarged and swollen, causing women some sense of discomfort at their appearance.
But the procedure – like all forms of cosmetic surgery – is not without its critics. Last year the British Medical Journal published an article by senior lecturer Ronan Conroy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland who claimed the practice was the western equivalent of female circumcision.
However leading Sydney cosmetic surgeon Dr Kourosh Tavakoli said labioplasty is becoming popular in today’s society – with many lesbian women having the procedure done or asking about it.
“This is now a common procedure. It essentially cosmetically configures the outer part of the vagina by tidying up the inner vaginal lip (labia minora) and sometimes the outer lip (labia majora),” he said.
“Once the plastic surgeon fully understands the patient’s desire, the procedure entails a light general anesthetic with removal and re-fashioning of the labia minora.”
The 45-minute procedure costs between $5000 and $6000. Dr Tavakoli said there are only minimal side effects, including bleeding and infection, and that the healing process takes about six weeks.
Dr Tavakoli said the results are positive, although scarring does occur. That scarring, he said, is almost invisible after 12 months.
“Physically the outer vaginal area looks much neater and tucked in,” he said. “Psychologically patients become much more confident with intimacy as they are no longer self-conscious.”
Dr Tavakoli said that women between the ages of 18 and 50 were having or considering the procedure.
Other vaginal cosmetic procedures increasing in popularity include vaginal tightening, the lifting of the clitoral hood and hymenplasty, or the reconstruction of the hymen.
So what makes a perfect vagina?
“A neat labia, firm and taut skin and a very slight bulge or convexity,” Dr Tavakoli said.
If you’re having issues with your vagina’s appearance it is recommended you first consult your gynecologist.

Info: www.drtavakoli.com.au
http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=6744




COMMENTS
=========


Christina Hoff Sommers:

The problem with American feminists

Preoccupied with their own imagined oppression, they are of little help to the women of the world who most need it

03:27 PM CDT on Sunday, June 17, 2007

The subjection of women in Muslim societies – especially in Arab nations and in Iran – is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.
If you go to the Web sites of major women's groups – such as the National Organization for Women, the Ms. Foundation for Women and the National Council for Research on Women – or to women's centers at our major colleges and universities, you'll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam.
It is not that American feminists are indifferent to the predicament of Muslim women. Nor do they completely ignore it. For a brief period before 9/11, many women's groups protested the brutalities of the Taliban. But they have never organized a full-scale mobilization against gender oppression in the Muslim world. The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women's issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority. Why not?
The reasons are rooted in the worldview of the women who shape the concerns and activities of contemporary American feminism. That worldview is antagonistic toward the United States, agnostic about marriage and family, hostile to traditional religion and wary of femininity. The contrast with Islamic feminism could hardly be greater.
One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women's movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order.
Take psychology professor Phyllis Chesler. She has been a tireless and eloquent champion of the rights of women for more than four decades. In a recent book, The Death of Feminism, she faults the feminist establishment for "embracing an anti-Americanism that is toxic, heartless, mindless and suicidal." The sisterhood has rewarded her with excommunication.
But Ms. Chesler is right. In the literature of women's studies, the United States is routinely portrayed as if it were just as oppressive as any country in the developing world. Here is a typical example of what one finds in popular women's studies textbooks (from Women: A Feminist Perspective, now in its fifth edition):
The word "terrorism" invokes images of furtive organizations. ... But there is a different kind of terrorism, one that so pervades our culture that we have learned to live with it as though it were the natural order of things. Its target is females – of all ages, races, and classes. It is the common characteristic of rape, wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment. ... I call it "sexual terrorism."
The primary focus is on the "terror" at home. Katha Pollitt, a columnist at The Nation, talks of "the common thread of misogyny" connecting Christian Evangelicals to the Taliban. And on most American campuses there are small coteries of self-described "vagina warriors" looking for ways to expose and make much of the ravages of patriarchy.
Soon after 9/11, Ms. Pollitt wrote the introduction to a book called Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror . It aimed to show that reactionary religious movements everywhere are targeting women. Says Ms. Pollitt:
In Bangladesh, Muslim fanatics throw acid in the faces of unveiled women; in Nigeria, newly established sharia courts condemn women to death by stoning for having sex outside of wedlock. ... In the United States, Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists have forged a powerful right-wing political movement focused on banning abortion, stigmatizing homosexuality and limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex.
Ms. Pollitt casually places "limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex" and opposing abortion on the same plane as throwing acid in women's faces and stoning them to death. Her hostility to the United States renders her incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them. She has embraced a feminist philosophy that collapses moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency.
Eve Ensler, lionized author of The Vagina Monologues, takes this line of reasoning to equally ludicrous lengths. In 2003, she gave a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in which, like Ms. Pollitt, she claimed that women are oppressed and subordinate across the globe: "I think the conditions are exactly the same," she said.
Though Ms. Ensler's perspective is warped, her courage and desire to help are commendable. She went to Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban and smuggled out now-famous footage of a terrified woman in a burqa being executed by a man with an AK-47. But her "feminist theory" obliterates distinctions between what goes on in Afghanistan and what goes on in Beverly Hills:
I went from Beverly Hills where women were getting vaginal laser rejuvenation surgery – paying $4,000 to get their labias trimmed to make them symmetrical because they didn't like the imbalance. And I flew to Kenya where [women were working to stop] the practice of female genital mutilation. And I said to myself, "What is wrong with this picture?"
A better question is: What is wrong with Eve Ensler? These two surgical phenomena are completely different in both scale and purpose. The number of American women who undergo "vaginal labial rejuvenation" is minuscule, and they are seeking relief from physical irregularities that cause them embarrassment or inhibit their sexual enjoyment. By contrast, more than 100 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation. The practitioners, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, believe that removing sensitive parts of the anatomy is the best way to control young women's sexual urges and assure chastity.
These are priorities?
On February 20, 2007, a Pakistani women's rights activist and provincial minister for social welfare, Zilla Huma Usman, was shot to death by a Muslim fanatic for not wearing a veil. And he had a second reason for killing her: She had encouraged girls in her community to take part in outdoor sports.
The plight of women like Ms. Usman does not figure in the National Organization for Women's "Six Priority Items," although global feminism is one of the 19 subjects it designates as "Other Important Issues." NOW hardly mentions Muslim women, except in the context of the demand that the U.S. military withdraw from Iraq. So what sort of issue does the flagship feminist organization consider important?
NOW has just launched a 2007 "Love Your Body" calendar as part of its ongoing initiative of the same name. The body calendar warns of an increase in eating disorders and includes a photograph celebrating the shape of pears. There is also an image of the Statue of Liberty with the caption, "Give me your curves, your wrinkles, your natural beauty yearning to breathe free."
To breathe free, college women are encouraged to organize "Love Your Body" evenings. NOW suggests they host "Indulgence" parties: "Invite friends over and encourage them to wear whatever makes them feel good – sweat suits, flip flops, pajamas – and serve delicious, decadent foods or silly snacks without the guilt. Urge everyone to come prepared to talk about their feelings and experiences."
This is pathetic. To be sure, serious eating disorders afflict a small percentage of women. But much larger numbers suffer because poor eating habits and inactivity render them overweight, even obese. NOW should not be encouraging college girls to indulge themselves in ways detrimental to their well-being. Nor should it be using the language of human rights in discussing the weight problems of American women.
The inability to make simple distinctions shows up everywhere in contemporary feminist thinking. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, edited by geographer Joni Seager, is a staple in women's studies classes in universities. Ms. Seager, formerly a professor of women's studies and chair of geography at the University of Vermont, is now dean of environmental studies at York University in Toronto. Her atlas, a series of color-coded maps and charts, documents the status of women, highlighting the countries where women are most at risk for poverty, illiteracy, and oppression.
One map shows how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Uganda: Both countries are shaded dark yellow, to signify extremely high levels of restriction. Ms. Seager explains that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman for his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because, Ms. Seager says, "state legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001."
Extreme becomes the norm
Hard-line feminists such as Ms. Seager, Ms. Pollitt, Ms. Ensler and the NOW activists represent the views of only a tiny fraction of American women. Even among women who identify themselves as feminists (about 25 percent), they are at the radical extreme. But in the academy and in most of the major women's organizations, the extreme is the mean. The hard-liners set the tone and shape the discussion. It is a sad state of affairs.
The good news is that Muslim women are not waiting around for Western feminists to rescue them. The number of valiant and resourceful Muslim women who are devoting themselves to the cause of greater freedom grows every day.
They have a heritage to build on. There have been organized women's movements in countries such as Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt for more than a century. And many women in Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia already enjoy almost Western levels of freedom. But as radical Islam tightens its grip in places like Iran and rural Pakistan, even some devoutly religious women are quietly organizing to resist. Mehrangiz Kar, an Iranian human rights lawyer and a researcher at Harvard Law School, predicts that "a feminist explosion is well on its way."
The feminism that is quietly surging in the Muslim world is quite different from its contemporary counterpart in the United States. Islamic feminism is faith-based, family-centered and well-disposed towards men. This is feminism in its classic and most effective form, as students of women's emancipation know. American women won the vote in the early 20th century through the combined forces of progressivism and conservatism. Radical thinkers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull and Alice Paul played an indispensable role, but it was traditionalists like Frances Willard (president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union) and Carrie Chapman Catt (founder of the League of Women Voters) who brought the cause of women's suffrage into the mainstream.
The women who constitute the American feminist establishment today, however, are destined to play little role in the battle for Muslim women's rights. Preoccupied with their own imagined oppression, they can be of little help to others – especially family-centered Islamic feminists. The Katha Pollitts and Eve Enslers, the vagina warriors and university gender theorists – these are women who cannot distinguish between free and unfree societies, between the Taliban and the Promise Keepers, between being forced to wear a veil and being socially pressured to be slender and fit. Their moral obtuseness leads many of them to regard helping Muslim women as "colonialist" or as part of a "hegemonic" "civilizing mission." It disqualifies them as participants in this moral fight.
In reality, of course, it is the Islamic feminists themselves who are on a civilizing mission – one that is vital to their own welfare and to the welfare of an anxious world. A reviewer of Canadian human rights activist Irshad Manji's manifesto celebrating Islamic feminism aptly remarked, "This could be Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare." Ipso facto, it should be our fondest dream. And if, along the way, Islamic feminism were to have a wholesome influence on American feminism, so much the better.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "The War Against Boys" and co-author of "One Nation Under Therapy." Her e-mail address is sommers22@ aol.com. A longer version of this essay originally appeared in The Weekly Standard.