Caution: do NOT click on the link to the ref to this post unless you are of age and prepared to see images that some may find disturbing … if real women’s bodies can be found to be disturbing. I offer a half-assed apology to any who may be offended by this post, the subject matter being considered taboo in some quarters, but suggest those who find it a bit unsavory get the fuck over it …
With a recent post prompting a spate of speculation over the possible reasons women subject themselves to all sorts of painful and expensive surgeries in hopes of somehow improving their … what? … looks? … chances? … futures? … whatevahhh … this article, “Why Australian law demands all vaginas be digitally altered”, really got my knickers in a twist.
Although there’s a flap in the comments over the writer’s terminology, she does admit that out of some drive for easier digestion she uses “vagina” when she should be calling the parts to be altered “vulva” and I’m not bothered.
A couple of things do bother me, though, and a lot! First, the fact that I’ve gone through my whole life having NO idea that some of what went on in the world of pornographic images of women was happening. Second, the impact on the generations of women who’ve been living during the time of this ruse.
Although familiar with the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation, I must admit to being completely surprised by the fact that women in “civilized” countries have been lining up for not only boob jobs, but labiaplasty, and for many of the same reasons.
Porn, apparently, not only touts plastic tits, but altered twats. No shit?
Pardon my naiveté, please, but quite honestly I’ve never been in a position to examine another woman’s private parts, and even on the occasions I have seen pornographic images … and there have been many of those since no few men I’ve been around have found porn “entertaining” … I found myself paying more attention to the pestles than the mortars, and absolutely none to the dialog. Given the issue of location, I’ve rarely even checked out my own all that often or thoroughly, so it’s safe to say I’ve given little thought to vulvas.
I am appalled, however, to learn that even that most girly of girl parts has been subject to the airbrush, the tidy-up, the alteration.
If I handed you a pencil and paper and asked you to draw a vagina*, odds are you would come up with something like this:
Which is interesting, considering only a small minority of mature females actually have fannies that look like that. Little girls – yes, that’s pretty much what they all look like. But grown women? The vast majority have a least a peep of their ‘inner lips’ showing, even when standing upright with their legs together while sipping Earl Grey from gold-rimmed Royal Doulton and nibbling on homemade shortbread. For many women, it’s more than just a ‘peep’ – some have full-blown dangly blossoms on display. This has nothing to do with how much sex they’ve had, their state of arousal or whether they’ve borne children (although, so what if it was?). It’s simply the way they are built.
So, getting this straight … men are being taught through the handbooks most end up learning from that women should look like little girls. That sucks!
And that’s not all that sucks …
Girls are also given one more fucking thing to feel insecure, different, weird about. Another impossible Barbie image … Great. Just great.
And the terminology!
Many of those models actually have outies in real life, which have been ‘healed to a single crease’ …
Healed?
Don’t mean to pull a tit-for-twat here, but … REALLY NOW … is there anything esthetically pleasing about a pair of hairy, puckered testicles? Yet, as pointed out in the article:
Imagine for a moment if someone in the censor’s office had decided that testicles were too ‘explicit’. Imagine that to be sold over the counter at a normal newsagent, your naked pictures of men had to have their testicles digitally removed.
Yes, digital castration. Think there might be an outcry?
I know Ken has no balls, but how many men ever felt pressure to be anything like that bit of plastic?
If someone had told me there was something else to be shocked about in the world of sex, I’d have thought them underestimating my scope, but this has really thrown me, and I’d not suspected labia to be a flash point for women’s rights.
Yes, I do know there are legions of straight men who would rather not spend time looking, up close and personal, at what they consider heaven … and, quite frankly, I’ve always rather doubted the commitment to the female form in guys not totally immersed … but the knowledge that they’ve been led down some trimmed rose path has come as a surprise.
Perhaps it’s time women developed a bit of the overblown pride men sport when it comes to their sexy parts, some of that fall-to-the-knees fascination glorifying every lift and tilt and ooze that can occupy a man for hours on end.
Sure, we won’t be able to wag it over the fence with a “Lookie what I’ve got for you, Baby!”, but we don’t have to hide ours away just because it doesn’t stand quite so high and shout for attention.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
lol – Funny stuff, Sandra!!
Really?
A few years ago I had a friend who told me, as we were discussing various drooping body parts, that she wanted to have a labiaplasty, which was the first I’d heard of such a thing. I thought it bizarre at the time, but it seems her partner complained about her “situation” down there. I told her that the obvious solution was to drop the dude, which eventually happened, but not until it left her self-conscious and embarrassed for the next guy. Appalling, considering that men’s privates are fairly unattractive to begin with, and gravity is no friend of their’s either.
How sad …
eeewwww, creepy! this definitely counts as – learned something new today.
My feeling exactly when I saw this, Amy …
To each his/her own for my “part”. Though on the other hand its no joke for men either, we have our own set of complexes and I know my self that if it was easy, painless and inexpensive there might have been several augmentations I would have considered and most like done to have changed some of my history and the way I feel about myself. as far as porn goes I know that many male porn stars have been layed under the knife for couple of inches more not to mention a nice little syringe in the balls full of viagra before a shoot.
Lol yes I know I just can not help but comment these wonderful though a little male aggressive articles. And I know you love me for it 😉
Yes, I do, Bobby, and I’ve been expecting this comment from you ever since I posted.
The porn industry being male-dominated from construction to consumer, it has long seemed more than a bit odd that it offers the big lollypops as eye candy … more as if it’s the huge ones the guys want to see than anything to do with women’s preferences. Both sexes can suffer by comparison, it’s true, and both would be better off without those contrived images in their heads.
lol I am not sure how I feel about being predictable, but oh well.
I think its like anything else fantasy related, like I love the fantasy movies like LOTR, and so on. Or loving action movies with Rambo and Conan the barberian, its all about the fantasy about becoming someone else, I think porn is no different. A big “thing” is just another part of the Adonis body many guys (and many girls) want.
I honestly do not think that the images are the problem (and yes I have my own issues) the problem is in the way we think and the fact that we can so easily programmed, its called “self esteem” for a reason, it is about what we think of our selves and I still believe in that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent
I agree, but guess the timing of exposure can have a lot to do with the programming potential and assumption that the images portrayed are “normal”. A kid of five may want to be Legolas with some idea of the unlikelihood of being born an elf, but one at 13 may think huge dongs are standard issue.
Well yea even though I agree that time of exposer has a lot to do with the way we perceive things, I really do not see it as problem, why? because I think that it is all part of the game of life we play, its about seeking truts, dividing fact from fiction, and even though a 13 year old sees a huge dong and learns that it may the standard issue, he will eventually grow up and if he so still holds that true then its his choice, just most of christian and even non-christian families teach their children that a over weight jolly white guy slips down chimneys as they sleep and hand out presents or that bunnies leave chocolate eggs and fallen teeth turn into a dollar over night. We are, or at least should be the master of what we believe and the consequences of said belief, be it santa, a 35 ” inc chest, a 24 ” dong, DD titts, a tiny waist or the overlord aliens coming to end the world in 12 may.
We can ONLY change what we can control and the only thing we can ever truly be in control of is ourselves (though it is an hard concept for many to grasp)
Since we’re talking about grown women being made to feel so ugly in their real woman-ness that they are resorting to surgery that would make them look like a child, I’d say this is is a problem.
Not exactly Santa or the Easter Bunny …
But that my point dear, when grown up women can be made to feel ugly enough to take surgery then there IS something wrong with them and its not the protruding labyamajor.
As grown women if you have to come to point where you do not let yourself be effected that by others then you have a lot of work ahead of you. We can blame the media and people all we want dear, but there is no solution in that. Solution is to either find enough confidence in yourself to be yourself, or be a mindless lamb sheep and follow, either was you are responsible for your own choice.
So you see nothing wrong in portraying the desired female body in the likeness of a child? I’m wondering if there are stats on how many pedophiles choose children out of some repulsion for the adult version after exposure to nothing but altered genitalia.
Most woman aren’t going to contemplate labiaplasty, just as most don’t get boob jobs. The vast majority are fine with who they are and what they look like, or at least fine enough to live with themselves as they are. The issue here has not been self-image, but manipulated, mutilated images manufactured by the porn industry and the impact of those. Talk of how people should be secure enough to be who they are is a red herring … a diversion, a shifting of culpability.
I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that it is to portray the female body as that of a child, it is (I think) at best a portrayal as esthetically pleasing on the big screen as it can be, as esthetics is an illusion and not always reality. And I have no ounce belief in the fact that pedophilia has anything to do with a shape of a vagina, to be honest I do not think that pedophilia is any more a choice then any other sexual “preference” though grim, wrong and evil, I do wonder of as far as preference goes if it is anymore a choice for the pedophile as it is for the homosexual (My intention is not compare the two as in action they are VERY different, however I am talking about the psychology and physiology of sexual attraction) and well I gotta admit that if I was to watch porn my first thought would not exactly be “O look at that hot girl her vagina looks like a 5 year olds”
I disagree, to say that the porn industry, the movie industry, fashion ind so on and so are the culprits of peoples choices and the consequences there of is a shifting of responsibility from the person performing the action, you can not blame your own action and choices on what others do.. you know the whole mom speech “if your friends would jump off the bridge would you do it to” scenario.
~laughs~ to go a little OT, how come when you write a piece like this you are almost know what I am going to say? and when I write my first comment I know what you are going to say. Its been like that since I first starting reading and commenting on PP, we both also know that we will NEVER reach an agreement, YET we both discuss with the same vigor every damn time. how come?
Because … and only because … I have FOUR kids in my house this week I will agree to disagree and will not go into any details about how or why we are constant dueling partners. Will admit to the fact that i do enjoy the back-and-forth, though. I could almost call it a challenge …
~smiles~ you always have a good reason to not go into details do you not my dear, its interesting how openly and well you write yet you have such apt defenses and know when and how to use them.
~laughs~ so do I dear Sandy, however when you say “I could almost call it a challenge …” I am a bit unsure of if I should take it as a diss or a compliment 😉
😉