Why can't we just leave our genitals alone?

Baby boys aren’t the only ones whose genitals meet up with surgical instruments. Two profoundly different populations of females also currently undergo female genital surgery, and both are controversial.

The first is so controversial that we don’t even know what to call it. It used to be called ‘female genital mutilation’, but some found that term disrespectful of cultural practices, so now it is often referred to as ‘female genital cutting (FGC)’. The term ‘female circumcision’ is also common, if somewhat inaccurate. FGC is practiced throughout the world, most commonly in Africa.

Many people are vehemently opposed to this cultural practice. Objections include the concern about performing such a procedure on children who cannot give consent, pain experienced during the procedure, and risk of complications. These arguments form an interesting parallel to those espoused by opponents of infant male circumcision.

I once attended a session on female circumcision at an AIDS conference in Uganda, Africa. The room was filled with well-educated, professional African women and I expected to hear outrage about this barbaric procedure. When those stately and intelligent women spoke, however, I was utterly stunned by what they said. The overwhelming view was that female circumcision was an appropriate practice – they were only concerned that anesthesia be used so it wouldn’t be so painful. “I would circumcise my daughters, of course I would”, one woman said. They said that circumcised women “looked better” and expressed concern that an uncircumcised young woman “would never find a husband.”

They clearly felt that the female vulva is unattractive in its natural state. This unfortunate point of view has a modern equivalent -- labiaplasty.

Labiaplasty is all the rage. Women with perfectly normal external genitalia are paying their plastic surgeons handsomely to “pretty up” their vulvas. Check out the before and after pictures on the web (sorry, you’ll have to find your own links this time), and you’ll see that most of the ‘befores’ look like women you might know and most of the ‘afters’ have an uncomfortable resemblance to little girls.

Granted, some women seek out this procedure because of abnormally enlarged labia that cause them pain. But that is not the whole story. There are plenty of women who are surgically altering this most private part of their body simply because they are unhappy with how they look. I guess this isn’t all that different than enlarging your breasts or shrinking your nose, but somehow it feels different to me. Women already criticize our bodies mercilessly, but we didn’t used to have to worry about how pretty we were between our legs.

Why don’t we just appreciate our genitals for all that they do for us and stop worrying about how they look?

Dr. C.
www.insightmedicalconsultants.com
(photo courtesy of images.howstuffworks.com)