I hate cosmetic surgery. Won't somebody please agree that there is something rotten about a society that encourages its members to endure painful, expensive surgery for the sake of becoming marginally more attractive? (I am excepting surgery performed to correct genuine defects, such as burn scars, birthmarks, or cleft palates.) Every year hundreds of thousands of American women voluntarily pay thousands of dollars to have saline bags shoved into their breasts for the purpose of appearing more attractive to the sort of men who stare at women with huge, artificial tits. Nothing could be more bizarre, right?

Wrong. Click here to see fairly disturbing photos of women who, driven to the brink of madness by a lifetime of having oversized, misshapen, or asymmetical labia, underwent surgery to enhance the appearance of their genitalia. Any person willing to pay a doctor an exhorbitant fee to slice up the most sensitive flesh on her body for dubious cosmetic reasons needs to be seeing a psychiatrist, not a surgeon.

Let's do an experiment. Stand up, drop your drawers, and look at your genitals. (This can wait until later, if you are at work or hosting a cocktail party.) Let me guess: your genitals are wrinkled and hairy, right? Well, so are mine, and so are everybody else's. What model of genital perfection are these labiaplasty patients chasing? Are they hoping to make their labia look like a mountain sunset, or perhaps the Mona Lisa? Look at the "after" photos again. The surgically enhanced labia might look more normal, but they still look bizarre and ridiculous, just like everybody else's.

People don't like to look at genitals because they are pretty -- they aren't -- but because when you're looking at genitals, you're about to get laid. It's a pure Pavlovian response. Try this, women: go into a bar and chat up some lonely-looking fellow. Have him buy you a couple of drinks, and then suggest that the two of you retire to his place for some fun and games. On the way out the door, say, "Oh, by the way, I do hope that during the course of the next several hours of sweaty, messy, blistering-hot sex, you won't be turned off by the fact that I have asymmetrical labia."

You will not get turned down. Trust me on this.

If you're a woman who really does have misshapen labia, and your boyfriend or husband is stupid enough to mention it, you should inform him that you are sorry that your deformity disgusts him so, and that he won't have to worry about it as he won't be seeing your vulva for quite some time. Then go fuck his best friend, who will be more than happy to accommodate your hideous genitalia. Your boyfriend or husband won't like it, but the hell with him. He'll keep his mouth shut from now on, I guess.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/04/2003 10:32:00 PM