Gone are the days when women seek cosmetic plastic surgery for their faces. An alarming number of teenage girls are setting their sights onto genital plastic surgery, and pornography is the one being blamed for this rising trend.
Increasing Numbers
The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found that between 2014 and 2015, there was an 80 percent surge among teenage girls 18 and younger seeking genital plastic surgery, the New York Times reported. That percentage means about 400 teenage girls underwent labiaplasty, compared to the 222 cases recorded in 2014.
Genital surgery is mostly geared towards older women and women who have given birth and is called vajinal rejuvenation. For the procedure, the inner and outer muscles of the vagina are tightened and the labia is shaped. Teenagers undergo the procedure simply for cosmetic reasons, following what they see in women who do porn.
Porn Is To Be Blamed
Dr. Emily Nagoski, who authored the book "Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life" and Director of Wellness at Smith College, said porn influences a young woman's viewpoint about their bodies. They see an ideal representation of the female genital in porn, and they try their best to copy it. This is the same case for teenage girls striving to look thin to conform to what they see in magazines and on television.
Teenage girls don't like feeling rejected or ashamed. Boys who regularly watch porn often develop a sense on what female genitals should look like. So when they encounter a "normal" one, they hesitate and leave the girls feeling like there's something wrong with the shape of their vulvas.
A third of young women and 90 percent of teenage boys have watched porn by the time they reach college, Time reported. Porn serves as sex education for plenty of American teens.
Dangers Of Genital Plastic Surgery
Dr. Julie Strickland, the chairwoman of the committee on adolescent health care for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, said genital plastic surgery has dangers and there are still lots of things to know about the procedure. Women's labia contain plenty of nerve endings that might get damaged during surgery, resulting in decreased sexual sensation, numbness, scarring and pain.
Seventy percent of teenage girls aged 12 to 20 wax or shave their pubic hair, a practice commonly attributed to porn, according to a study published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Doctors also think patients should be screened for body dysmorphic disorder, a psychological condition which makes people obsess about their appearances and imagine or exaggerate a physical defect.
