More and more teenage girls are having their vaginal labia modified or redone. A phenomenon that worries many specialists, especially because this operation can cause “a decrease in sexual sensation, numbness, pain or scarring”.
Have you ever heard the term labiaplasty or nymphoplasty? This is the new trendy surgery, which does not consist of having the earlobe of the ear, but the vulva. More precisely to have the size of the labia majora or labia minora reduced or changed. And for the past fifteen years, this trend has continued to gain momentum. If the phenomenon is still very weak in France, it affects more and more adolescent girls in the United Kingdom and the United States, temple of cosmetic surgery.
In July, the BBC published an article according to which more than 200 British minors (including 156 under the age of 15) had undergone labiaplasty in 2015-2016. The United Kingdom’s health organization, the National Health Service, however, does not recommend this intervention to those under 18, their genitals not being permanently formed, especially if the patient requests the operation for purely aesthetic reasons. .
“But young women know that they will have a better chance of having this operation if they say that it disturbs their sexual relations, their practice of the sport. They have the impression that it will make them normal”, explained the general practitioner Paquita. from Zulueta to the British channel. “I see young girls of 11, 12 or 13 who think they have a problem with their vulva. That it is not the right shape, the right size. In fact, they seem disgusted by their privacy.”, she lamented, recalling that the genitals can have various shapes and colors while being perfectly normal.
Over 80% of labiaplasties in young girls in the United States in one year
In 2016, it is the American daily The New York Times who was worried about this growing trend among American teens following the publication of figures from the American Society of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery: 400 girls aged 18 and under would have had a labiaplasty in 2015, against 222 in 2014, an increase of 80%. The media also recalled that these data did not include the procedures performed by gynecologists. Indeed, in the past, labiaplasty was only seen as a rejuvenation of the vagina after childbirth or in older women. “When the patient is menopausal or in the peri-menopausal period, we also offer lipofilling (removal of the fat from the patient and then this is injected into the labia majora to give them volume) of the labia majora”, explains the Dr. Mohamed Derder, cosmetic surgeon in Paris, in Current Women.
So why such a craze among young Anglo-Saxons? Some doctors make the link with waxing or shaving more and more pubic hair which therefore reveals more and more lips. In addition, adolescent girls being more and more exposed to porn, they are constantly confronted with sexes that they imagine “perfect”: smooth, shaved and symmetrical, with no protruding lip. “A lot of women see porn movies where everything is ‘clean’, and that’s what they want. I can’t explain this request other than by saying: it’s our society that wants that”, commented the Canadian surgeon Carlos Cordoba in February 2015 at the information site Press.
But beyond the worrying social questions it poses, this operation is not without physical risks. Indeed, “the lips have a lot of nerve endings. So there could be a decrease in sexual sensation after the operation, numbness, pain or scarring,” explained Dr. Julie Strickland, president of the American College of Gynecologists. and obstetricians, following a meeting on the subject in January 2017. Following the latter, the specialists had issued directives to American doctors via a document asking the gynecologists to evaluate all the alternatives to labiaplasty to alleviate the patient’s discomfort or discomfort. And possibly to screen for dysmorphophobia, or the obsessive fear of being ugly or deformed.
More vigilant doctors in France
In France, however, we are still far from all that. “Here, surgical medicine responds to rigorous procedures and we operate less easily than in the United States. Doctors are very vigilant about the age of patients. They are few to consult at 14 or 15 years old to ask for this. type of intervention “, explained the surgeon Marc Abecassis to The Dispatch in 2015.
In detail, a labiaplasty or nymphoplasty costs between 1500 and 3000 € (with lipofilling). Its reimbursement is possible if the surgical act is performed for a non-aesthetic medical purpose. This limits coverage to reductions in the enlarged labia minora, that is, when they are 4 cm or more. “However, there is an exception to the rule when a woman suffers from serious psychological disorders, related to the appearance of her genitals; this must be proven by a psychologist and approved by the medical insurance consultant. cases, reimbursement for surgery for enlarged vaginal lips is dependent on the psychological report, “explains the site mutuals.pascheres.org, comparator of mutuals.
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