I just want to elaborate on the vagina discussion one more time...

It seems a few are interested, so I wanted to add to my earlier blogs on a disturbing trend amongst young girls these days – that of getting ones’ vagina surgically “neatened.” Boys, I know I’ve mentioned the V word, but it would be great to get your perspective here.

Anyways, I posted a blog about a trebling in young gals getting their vag’s prettied up, but I didn’t mention that this was only statistics for publicly funded operations in Australia, aka Medicare. When factoring in private ops, the stats are at much more frightening proportions, with one private practitioner suggesting the increase could be 10-fold in the last decade – yikes!!!!

Now surgery, for any reason, ain’t fun, so can you imagine the self image issues going on out there amongst young girls to make them do something like this? But here’s the question that keeps cropping up in my mind and where I want the boys opinion. Do boys want girls with pre-pubescent looking vags? Because if they do, isn’t that even more frightening?

As most young girls aren’t gobbling up all the porn they can get their hands on, unlike their male counterparts, the only other reason I can see for the increase in surgery is due to all of the waxing going out there. As more girlie bits are revealed due to less camouflage, I believe this could be a reason for the rearrangement of the flange.

Oh and my porn reference was purely because the girls aren’t necessarily seeing the plastic vags on display in these movies and therefore, this can’t be the cause of them wanting to change things... unless their menfolk are suggesting it? Or are more young girls watching porn?

Whatever the reason, I do think there seems to be a very deep seated issue going on here but this stuff isn’t new for females throughout history. I mean women in China were considered delicate and feminine if they bound their feet – if you ever read “Wild Swans” you’ll remember the horrendous description of this ‘beautification” procedure. But then, women used to remove their bottom ribs to get a smaller waist in the Western world, and of course there’s female genital mutilation. Oh sorry, there’s also skin whitening products, some of which have so many poisons in them, the women are breaking out in cancers all over their bodies, because you look richer when you’re fairer – bollocks! I could go on and on and on.

The desire for beauty has always been bollocks and unrealistic. I often wonder when are we going to get back in touch with what’s important in life? Such as our minds and our hearts? So many women suffer so much shit all around the world, and yet we spend more time, money and effort on cosmetic changes to ourselves, when what we should be doing is saying enough to the beauty industry and taking their power away. Then maybe we could focus our efforts on helping others who really do need a leg up? An idealist? Well nothing wrong with hope.

I really thought that Eve Ensler, who wrote and performed “The Vagina Monologues” did an amazing job in bringing the whole ‘let’s talk about vaginas’ to the public domain. But it appears that more needs to be done to get girls back on track and in control once again – in a positive way. Oh and everyone should read this book or see a performance – it will rock your world.

Seriously, if girls think they need to tamper with this part of their body to feel beautiful then we have a very serious issue that needs to be handled and handled bloody quickly. I’m just so thankful I don’t have a daughter. It was tough being a teenage girl when I was one, but could you imagine what it’s like now?

“How was your weekend?” said Stella.

“Great. I got my flaps reduced and righty is now the same size as lefty. I also got some of my clitoral hood reduced and when it’s healed, the doctor said I should definitely consider a reduction in my labia minora,” exclaimed an excited Brittany.

“Oh you’re so lucky! My mum is adamant I can’t get any surgery done on my vag. She’s so yesterday!”

I thought I’d take the opportunity to brainstorm some suggestions on tackling this issue? Any thoughts to add? And boys, seriously, it would be GREAT to hear your thoughts.

Here are some ideas to help women get more in touch with (ooh err) and accepting of their snatches as nature intended them to look:  

• Vaginal sculptures on the main streets of cities – kind of like the cow expo – with the same idea of being decorated by local artists?
• Maybe Eve Ensler (aka Vagina Monologues) could do something for young women? A funny movie, article for teen magazines that goes global?
• A famous photographer could do a snatch exhibition – Annie Lebowitz maybe? The purpose being that we’re all different but the same, because let’s face it, we don’t look at our own often, let alone anyone else’s – so maybe an equaliser?
• Kids TV shows could do a fair bit here, maybe incorporating a story line about the issue – I mean talking about it is the best way after all.. one of the young things on "Home and Away" or "Buffy" could go through a snatch crisis???
• What else?

What do you reckon? How can we stop this voluntary female circumcision? Because that’s essentially what it is, minus the removal of the clitoris!

Yours, without the bollocks

Andrea