Do you still tell Johnny and Susie jokes? I learned a very true one years ago. Little Johnny, being a mean boy, says to Susie: I've got something you don't have and he shows her his penis. She runs in the house crying to her mother, "Johnny has a wee wee and I don't". Her mother tells her, "don't you worry about that, with what you've got you can get all of those that you want". That is sooo true but it seems a lot of young girls don't realize it.
You may want what he has, but he wants what you have way more. So you are in control. Don't ever let a guy do anything to you that you don't like or don't want him to do. Don't do anything to or for him that you don't want to do. Love is doing things with your partner that you both enjoy doing.
Teenage boys will lie like h*ll to convince you to give them what they want. Don't hate them for it, it's their hormones talking. Young boys have things going on inside their bodies that they have no control over. You must have seen a guy walking around school holding books or something in front, trying to hide an erection. They get erections they don't want and didn't ask for and it's very embarrassing. Those are caused by the same body system that controlls breathing and heart beats and are completely involuntary. He didn't even have to be thinking about a girl for it to happen. You have similar things happen but not so noticeable. When you see a guy you like, your nipples probably stand out. If you're wearing a bra, nobody else is going to see them so it won't embarrass you.
So, yes, they're hornballs but they can't really help it.
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The OB/GYN that performed the surgery (11-11-09) cut out a chunk of tisse towards the middle of each labia and then stitched them back together. At first glace (and although swollen), it looked like he did a good job and that it would look really good once it healed completely. After 2-3 weeks, I noticed that the sutures (particularly on the left side) were coming undone and the two pieces of each labia were not "sticking" and/or healing together properly. After 3-4 weeks, the labia had completely come un-sutured on the left and had partially come un-sutured on the right (looking like a FORKED tongue...NOT CUTE)!
SO, I went in (practically hysterical) and he stitched up (on 11-30-09) the left side that had completely come undone. The numbing medication didn't work and I felt every stitch. I typically handle pain well, but was in tears after the procedure and cried all the way home (it was very painful)! He assured me that it was "fixable" but I became very depressed about it. He asked that I give it a few weeks to heal, but after Christmas it was apparent that it was again doing just the opposite. I went back in on December 28th after the labia had come unstitched yet again...the two sides of the tissus is just not fusing together at all and it is freaking me out! He said that he wanted to do an operation to repair it, but I don't want him to even touch my labia again after all of this!
So, I went to see a plastic surgeon. He is unsure if he can fix it and make it look "normal" again (I mean there will be scarring down the middle of my labia...that certainly is not normal, but thinks it is possible. He wants to attempt to stitch it back up but I am deathly afraid that it won't work yet again (for the third time). I don't want to have to go through another painful, expensive surgery if this doesn't work. I am thinking of having him remove the bottom part of the labia (which is maybe 1/2 the size of the upper piece of the labia) and then just reshaping the upper piece to make it look KINDA normal. I wanted to know if anyone else had the same problem with the two pieces NOT fusing and/or healing properly! This might be my only alternative in an attempt to look somewhat normal, but before I make a decision on which way to do I need some advice!!
Thanks!
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if your blessed with large labia please realize they are a very rare pleasure, small labia are kind of boring
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Did it heal or did you go to the plastic surgeon?
I hope you resolved the problem.
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Like so many others I feel I was not well informed by my doctor about this surgery or how to take care of it after! I don't know if what is happening is normal or not but from the information I have found online I am assumming it is. At first I had a horrible foul odor that I have never had before along with black and blue bruising and horrible swelling! I went in to see the doctor and he told me that its normal and part of the healing process. Now the smell has gone but there is a milky discharge! Should I assume this is a normal part of the healing process too and will the pain ever subside? I have a very high pain tolerance but this is ridiculus!
To anyone that is comtemplating having this surgery please do your research and my advise to you is ---IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT!! I regret my decision in every way and I hope this gets better! I am so worried that its going to affect my relationship with my husband in all aspects. He has been absolutely wonderful and I know he loves me, I just pray that things will be able to go back to normal or better for us when this is all healed cuz I don't know what I'd do without him!
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visit PLEASE send them request for labia minora reconstruction emails. They need to know there is a problem like ours!! They need to focus on this area. If thay will get many emails, they can discover this problem and imroove our lives. This is the only think that keeps me alive. I have had a very bad days...The only prayer for 4 years for me was: IF I COULD TURN BACK THE TIME> They I start my reserch, and get a hope.
***edited by moderator*** web addresses not allowed
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Would love to hear about others' experiences with this surgery and their outcomes, as well as anyone who has pursued legal action as a result of a botched labiaplasty.
Thanks!
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I do have a question, though. I have enlarged labia on one side only - my own fault. I discovered when I was a little kid that I had some fantastically stretchy skin. Unfortunately after I stretched it as far as I could, I also found that it wouldn't go back. It was permanent. Over the years this has caused me so much aggravation that I have considered tying a rubber band around the extra flesh to cut off the circulation and remove it myself. I have a lot of trouble in sports because of the irritation and have always been more sedentary than the average person. I only recently thought that my labia might actually be part of what keeps me from enjoying athletics. I don't care about getting them altered for cosmetic reasons, I just wanted to be able to ride a bike or kick a ball comfortably. Even jogging is a pain in the arse.
It's also a hygienic concern for me. The extra flesh has developed lots of tiny folds from being chafed over the years. Lint and bits of toilet paper stick in the folds and all over my super-stretchy skin. The stretched out part is just getting bigger and blobbier as time goes by, and it is so annoying! It is a lot of effort to keep clean, I often have an odor, and it's embarrassing. I don't wonder at all why some women would rather just get it cut off. In my case I wouldn't want to remove the whole thing, just the irritated part. I haven't had sex yet, so I don't know what to expect there, but I've heard that this sort of thing can make for really uncomfortable sexual relations, too. I can see how it might. What can I do? From the perspective of those who have had the surgery and regretted it, what would you do? My doctor thought I was nuts to ask about surgery. I don't think she has any clue how this condition has affected me over the years.
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First, I want to say that anyone who dares to blame women who have been mutilated by these procedures has no place posting in this forum. Getting mutilated by a doctor we should be able to trust, especially when they are our primary care ob-gyn, constitutes an incredibly traumatic experience. The morbidity of suffering from such a trauma is significant, and is compounded by comments that blame the victim, or discount the experience only make it more painful for us who are suffering. Such comments demonstrate a great deal of ignorance of the relevant issues surrounding this procedure. Before making hurtful comments, I would ask people to think first if you ever worried or felt self-conscious about your labia or any body part for that matter. I would ask people to consider if they have ever considered cosmetic surgery because of it. You may say, "well I would only consider it if it was safe." Or you might be completely against cosmetic surgery, then ask yourself what lengths you have gone to for beauty. Try to understand how a naive young woman might see surgery as just as safe as, say, straightening your hair, or wearing makeup. I seriously doubt there is a woman who's gone her entire life without wearing makeup. Now imagine, you find out your makeup is toxic. But you didn't know. Let's say it's FDA approved but they made a mistake. Think about it. Now back to labiaplasty. Imagine that you are barely 18, you're a virgin and a prude on SSRI's (and for one reason or another don't masturbate), you know little of female anatomy, and not for lack of trying or stupidity (an SAT score of 1540 isn't stupid now is it?), you have no reason to doubt yourself, or your surgeon father who has asked his colleagues about the surgery and hears "people do it all the time" and "it's no big deal." Imagine you have no reason to doubt your doctor either, as he was former president of the Texas Medical Association and has been recommended as the best ob-gyn surgeon by his peers. You think you're deformed because your labia are bigger than most of labia in pre-op photos on the internet. You don't know what guys think because you've never asked. You tried to talk to your mom about it but she just yelled at you and told you it was "supposed to be ugly down there." You're scared. You just want to be normal. You're obsessed with your looks. You just want to be beautiful. Try to think if you ever made a bad decision when you were a teenager, and now imagine that it cost you the ability to have a normal sex life.
Labiaplasty procedures are much more risky than most people realize. The popularity of these procedures has grown out of an ignorance of normal female anatomy. Though I fully understand the need for such procedures in extreme cases of hypertrophy, the term "hypertrophy" is mistakenly applied far too often, even among medical professionals who stand to profit from such a diagnosis, and the fact is that many normal women are undergoing these procedures because they simply do not understand how normal they are. Also, ACOG's recommendation that physicians inform all of there patients simply that "there is a wide variation of normal" in response to concerns about labia size is counterproductive for patients who actually just want to know, say, if their anatomy lies within the interquartile range. To say everyone is normal is a naive affront to a patient's intelligence. I know that when I posited this question to my gynecologist back in 2004, I simply wanted to know if I was "like everyone else." Sure, everyone is different, but think how obsessed teenagers are with normal, with fitting in, and apply that to a part of the body that is rarely seen or acknowledged. I know that when I was 18, I had no idea what was going on down there. I was a virgin, and I didn't masturbate because that just didn't seem like a
"ladylike" thing to do. It seems that everyone acknowledges the importance of discussing some of the changes that come with puberty, such as menarche, breast development, hormones, etc. but no one discusses the vulvar development that takes place. As children, we are taught that boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Insufficient emphasis is placed on external vulvar structures. Even the clitoris, for me, seemed shrouded in mystery because, laughably, I couldn't seem to find it. I worried that I was abnormal because my clitoral hood and labia minora protruded, mostly because my labia majora were insufficient to cover them. The funny thing is, if everyone just walked around naked, I'm sure I wouldn't have worried so much. To me it is very sad that women are pursuing labiaplasty often because of the lack of relevant, reliable, consistent information pertaining to female genital anatomy and function. It is even more tragic that many of these women are getting hurt due to the fact that such ignorance prevails not only among patients but among medical professionals as well. A thorough perusal of the scientific literature pertaining to female sexual anatomy and function reveals alarming inconsistency, lack of ingenuity, and poor application of scientific method. The popular literature, with which more people are familiar, is even more misleading. Any web search of "labia" will illicit a number of websites touting the safety and benefits of labiaplasty, while most popular opposition of such procedures is extreme, and polemical at best. Fortunately it seems there is more helpful information out there today then there was back in 2004, when I looked to the internet to assuage my worries of abnormally and found little to refute my worst fears. The following site, for example, would have been reassuring. ***this post is edited by moderator *** *** web addresses not allowed***
In my pathetic naivety I did not think to search for "p***y" or to refer to hardcore pornography websites. I think it's funny how people blame porn for the rise in such procedures - I suppose they mean soft-core porn like Playboy, where things get tucked in or air-brushed, because in hard core porn, there is quite a lot of sizable labia. Take Tori Black for example, she's won AVN top performer 2 years in a row, and she has large labia (and small breasts despite being a bit thick) and no one's complaining. Stoya has quite a lot of labia as well. While their Fleshlights demonstrate quite generous, anatomically correct labia, Ob-Gyn teaching models of pelvic anatomy do not. That's a bit ironic isn't it? It really seems like the only people who ever make derogatory comments about labia size are immature or inexperienced, dorky guys and other women. At the end of the day, guys who love women love vulvas of all shapes and sizes (excluding extreme cases perhaps) simply because they make women feel good. Large labia, small labia - most guys would hardly notice, much less complain - if they care about you, they will love whatever you have. No woman should settle for less than that. Sadly, I think it takes a certain level of maturity to realize this. Sadly, my vulva was mutilated long before I had the chance.
As soon as I turned 18, I underwent a "labiaplasty nightmare." All of my labia were removed to within about 1 mm of my clitoral glans. I've had little success trying to stretch the tiny scarred stubs that remain at the frenulum. Thus attempted stimulation of the ventral side of my clitoris is not helpful and can result in pain, which naturally presents logistical problems. The bifurcation of the labia minora into the clitoral hood and frenulum has been disrupted by scars that extend upward past the glans on both sides. On one side the scar extends to the midline above the clitoris, and a significant portion of tissue is missing from the clitoral hood. Because no care was taken to preserve fundamental anatomical structure, this has disrupted the normal mechanical relationship between the clitoral hood and clitoris. Though I do not believe the clitoris itself was damaged, as this would imply an unreasonably egregious degree of negligence, the impaired function appears to be caused by altered mechanical relationships. By this reasoning, I think this surgery should be safe where such relationships are maintained. However, no attempt has been made to confirm the importance of such relationships, though it is merely an issue of physics, and could potentially be verified via the use of a biomechanical model, which could easily be developed given the necessary resources. Sadly, no one has done this, and there is very little emphasis on the functional importance of the labia and clitoral hood. Such emphasis would likely save a lot of women from undergoing labia surgeries, and a lot of surgeons from botching them out of ignorance.
There is a lot of misinformation out there about labia size variation and development. The perceived standard of so called "beauty" for labia minora is counter to any biological or evolutionary explanation. Whereas other standards of beauty are associated with femininity and fertility, such as breast size (though only to a certain degree according to studies), waist-to-hip ratio, etc., the so called ideals for labia size are opposite. The labia minora increase in size during puberty in response to rising levels of estrogen. Conversely, they tend to atrophy with menopause. Back when I was 17 and trying to determine the beauty ideal of labia, it seemed to me "the smaller the better" was a fair conclusion. This is ludicrous when you think about who actually has the smallest labia: old ladies, little girls, women with diseases such as lichen sclerosis, etc. Also it is not fair to judge the beauty of the labia when a women is unaroused. I mean, how many women think flaccid penises are attractive? Seriously. When you get aroused, it gets puffier and less wrinkly. It also gets darker from increased blood flow, and protrudes more. So at the end of the day, it seems like the hidden labia standard of beauty comes from the fact that it's often intentionally hidden in nude photos because it's seen as explicit. It's kind of like how in movies, they can feature full frontal nudity, but not a fully erect penis, because that would be too explicit. If we were going to draw the same conclusion from this we would thinking smaller penises are better looking. It's all a bit illogical really. I know that now that I don't have labia, I think they are erotic. I don't necessarily think they are beautiful in a purely aesthetic way but there is no doubt that they are sexy, and seeing them as such is really the only thing that makes sense, theoretically.
Before my surgery, when my doctor asked how much I wanted removed, I said I didn't know. I asked what my labia were for and if I needed them. I personally think that my doctor should have been able to answer this question. He couldn't. He clearly has no understanding of female genital anatomy and function, despite the fact that he has been in practice for about 40 years, and was previously president of the Texas Medical Association. It is easy for people to blame patients when labiaplasties go wrong, but the real problem here is the ignorance of many medical professionals, the lack of a clearly defined standard of care regarding these procedures, the lack of evidence to support their safety, and the tendency of those who oppose these procedures to simply look the other way. Authoritative institutions have taken little action to protect patients. Almost nothing has been done to address how to treat patients when these surgeries go wrong. I think this is, fundamentally, where changes need to occur, for any change to take place. Currently, there is a lack of informed consent regarding labiaplasty, because there is so often insufficient data available to the patient. I for one, went into my surgery, thinking my doctor knew exactly what he was doing, that he was just going to trim my labia a bit, and that there was very little, if any, risk involved. The only mistake I made was trusting my doctor. And I was not unreasonable to do so, as he his highly esteemed by both patients and peers. Perhaps I should have been more wary of surgery, but my father, my idol, is a surgeon, and I'd been in the OR with him and grew up running rounds with him, so surgery wasn't scary to me at all. I spent years blaming myself for what happened, but it really wasn't my fault. I did not consent to any risk of disfigurement or impaired sexual function or irritation due to a complete absence of labia minora. At the same time, my doctor didn't do this out of negligence, but out of ignorance, and he still doesn't seem to understand what he did wrong. He flat out denied removing tissue from my clitoral hood, but the scars and distorted anatomy should be obvious to any astute observer. Yet none of the 3 obgyn's I have seen since my surgery noticed this until I pointed it out to them.
This problem is so much bigger than the ignorance of one patient or the carelessness of one doctor. This is an epidemic stemming from the ignorance of an entire profession that fails to define adequate standards. This is a problem of a culture that has historically discouraged the study of female sexual function, for the sake of propriety, or for the sake of preserving a sense of enigma that even feminists seem to value. On some level it seems that we as a society fail to expose the occult nature of sexuality, especially female sexually, for fear that it might become ordinary, simple, like any other bodily function. It seems that some who oppose labiaplasty, such as the New View Campaign, do so in a way that only further perpetuates ignorance with statements like "the Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life." Excuse my language because I'm going to have to call BS on that one. The medicalization of sexuality is imperative for adequate understanding and the development of scientifically based treatment methods for those who suffer. Frankly, I find the current psycho-centric view of female sexuality insulting. Though perhaps it could be viewed as wrong, on purely philosophical grounds, to pursue gynecological surgery for cosmetic reasons, there will always be women who pursue such surgeries as long as a respect for personal autonomy exists in human society. Clearly, there are women who have benefited from such surgery. Also, some form of these surgeries will always be necessary for some women. Something simply needs to be done to make sure the principle of informed consent is applicable in such cases. Thus, medical understanding of sexual anatomy is imperative whether or not labiaplasty exists as a cosmetic surgery or not. Extreme hypertrophy that severely impairs quality of life should be treated. Also, vulvectomies are necessary in the treatment of cancer. It is ridiculous that very little has been done in the way of establishing reconstruction methods to help restore sexual function after such surgeries.
In an age at which medicine has reached a high level of sophistication regarding other aspects of human anatomy, it seems a great injustice that so little attention has been paid to such an important quality of life determinant. It is almost laughable, how when someone actually applies some common sense, their results are touted as groundbreaking. For example, it is frightening to think that no one even bothered to use MRI to view clitoral structures during arousal in premenopausal women until 2005! In investigating female sexual function, that should have been an obvious preliminary step. MRI could be used in much more sophisticated ways as well, but no one bothers with that. In addition, while researchers seem to drown themselves in anecdotal evidence, no one has even attempted a biomechanical analysis.
Botched labiaplasties are just a symptom of a much larger problem. This is what has been, for me, the hardest thing about it. This isn't an issue of a surgery gone wrong due to human error. I didn't have a "bad" doctor, not really, at least not bad enough for me to have known at the time. I can safely say that when it comes to female anatomy, my doctor is an id**t and had no business performing those surgeries. He has since stopped, but that's not enough because he doesn't really understand what he did wrong. The other doctors I have seen since my procedure are also relatively clueless. I have had to figure out what was wrong with me myself and why. Now I can explain to a doctor, I can show them my scars. But if I didn't show them, they wouldn't notice. They get that I would have discomfort from having no labia minora, but they don't get the sexual stuff. The first doctor I asked about it reassured me that the surgery couldn't have affected my sexual function: "The clitoris was at the top," she said. No sh*t, Sherlock. In retrospect, this was quite a ridiculous thing to say considering the scars that encircle about 300 degrees of my clitoris. So I have 60 degrees to work with, and that part functions just fine. At the time I was just confused. Clearly my original surgeon isn't the only one who doesn't seem to understand the anatomy at a degree that really should be required in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The issue is so much bigger than one doctor.
I've had a number of ideas about how to deal with it. However, most of the time, I just ignore it and pretend I'm fine. Writing about it or talking about it just makes me upset, so I don't. Most of the time, the hardest thing is just having people not understand and then feeling so alone. Nevertheless, I do plan on writing some people about it. I personally have a need to make a difference, to make something positive come out of what happened to me. My only issue is with communication. I seem to fail to communicate properly, especially when it comes to emotional issues. I fear, so much, that people will not understand, that I will not be heard. Fundamentally, the whole issue of powerlessness and helplessness bothers me to no end. Speaking about my problem seems to leave me open to getting hurt. The idea that something could be so important to me, but that I might not be able to make any difference whatsoever, to have any impact. That scares me. it scares me to express something I see as incontrovertible truth and have it rejected or ignored, and thus have my loss invalidated, as if I didn't matter, as if my experience is insignificant, my voice insignificant. Though my surgery happened many years ago, I have become much more depressed lately, as I determined to do something about it, and have wound up feeling at a loss, stalled ultimately by the fear that no one would listen, and what that might mean about the world and about myself. When I wrote the original doctor, I wrote ten pages trying to make it impossible for him to blame me, or justify or deny what he did. I waited 6 months for his response, only to learn how truly wrong he was, more than ever, even as he blamed me, as he flat isn't aware of what he did, or why it is such a problem for me. This is scary and overwhelming, as I expected a reason for why he performed the surgery the way he did, for why he thought it was right, and recognition that it was a mistake. But he failed to do this, so now I plan to report him to the Texas Medical Board. My only fear is that they will not understand either. It seems like I hold so much responsibility for making people understand, because the only way doctors have understood is through my explanations. It's awkward enough spreading your legs for a stranger while they examine your mutilated genitalia without having to take an active role, to make them notice what they otherwise would miss. And it's hard knowing, if I wasn't as stubborn and obsessed with pubmed, if I didn't hold the egotistical belief that I can solve any problem if I just try hard enough, if I wasn't as acutely aware of my anatomy and function thanks careful study with a magnifying mirror and vibrator, I wouldn't understand exactly how my surgery had messed me up. I would have believed my doctors when they said things like "you look normal" and "you shouldn't see yourself as damaged." The thing is, I am damaged. That's the truth, and as long as people fail to recognize that they fail to protect future patients from being hurt.
So there are a lot of things people can do to make a difference, if they aren't paralyzed by a sense of helplessness as I currently am.
Write to:
ACOG
State Medical Boards
NIH
AMA
Scientific Journals
Academic Institutions
Research Organizations
Women's Magazines (though i personally think this isn't particularly productive, as stories often just get sensationalized and are too easily labeled as discrete unfortunate events, when this is really an wide-reaching problem, and not just for those who are getting labiaplasties)
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