The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that vaginal rejuvenation is one of the fastest-growing plastic surgery procedures in the U.S. — increasing 30% between 2005 and 2006 alone. One of the most popular of these procedures is labiaplasty, plastic surgery to reduce and/or balance the size of the labia minora, or inner vaginal lips.
Although the trend may have started in LA and New York, it has clearly made its way into America’s heartland. Women of all ages and backgrounds are seeking labiaplasty.
Why are so many women opting for labiaplasty? Several factors are contributing to the rising popularity of labiaplasty:
The overall increase in plastic surgery.
The popularity of bikini waxing — making women more aware of how their genitals look.
The abundance of sexually explicit material on TV, online and in print — giving women a standard of comparison for their genitals’ appearance.
What causes abnormally shaped vaginal lips? Large or uneven vaginal lips can be caused by genetics, childbirth or hormonal changes. Surgery addresses the structure and function of the vaginal lips Labiaplasty can correct problems with both the appearance and functionality of a woman’s genitals. some women are embarrassed because their large labia are noticeable when wearing a bathing suit or tight-fitting jeans. Others with large vaginal lips have pain or discomfort during sex or while exercising or riding a bicycle.
Sometimes labiaplasty is covered by insurance Large or uneven labia can also cause problems with urination and feminine hygiene. the extra skin is very prone to excessive moisture and infections. if the surgery is medically necessary, it may be covered by health insurance.
In some cases, women seek labiaplasty after their sexual partner has made a comment about their genitalia. but more often, the woman is motivated by her own physical and/or psychological discomfort with her body.
A patient shares her story Carol, a 26-year-old woman, had labiaplasty to correct her large, uneven labia. I had a two-inch flap of extra skin on one side, and a one-inch flap on the other, she recalls. it was very embarrassing in sexual situations, she admits. I’d have irritation, scraping and bleeding during sex — and the extra skin irritated my partner, too.
After her labiaplasty, Carol could hardly wait to see the results. I’ve already seen myself in the mirror, she said shortly after surgery. I love it I feel like a normal woman
In the heartland of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad a grinding war of attrition has now become an unforgiving battle to the death.
The Free Syria Army has held this territory of orchards and farmland since September, during which time loyalist forces have never been closer, nor seemed more menacing. as rockets regularly thundered on Thursday into towns that residents could neither defend nor leave, the three months of freedom they had savoured now seemed illusory.
There is little left in the town in which the Guardian was based on Thursday, or in the equally deprived and forsaken villages that dot the hinterland near Homs. Electricity here was switched off two months ago, the phone lines were downed last week. And on Wednesday, contact by road was cut with Homs, Syria’s besieged third city, whose fate is seen as a dire warning of what lies ahead for the rest of the area.
Homs was on Thursday a very difficult place from which to flee. only three seriously wounded residents are known to have made it out of the devastated opposition held sectors of the city into the relative safety of nearby Lebanon. Two of the wounded are unlikely to survive.
The rest face a desperate plight, barricaded in concrete homes that are crumbling in the face of the relentless onslaught now spreading to nearby farmland and villages. some residents of this town say a small number of families from the heaviest hit areas of Homs, Baba Amr and al-Khalidiyeh, have managed to hole up in other areas of the city. however they can no longer speak to those left behind, who they now fear face a gruesome fate.
“We’ll be next,” said a doctor at a makeshift medical centre in the heart of this town. The doctors and nurses on duty here had fled the state hospital, one kilometre away, and set up a triage centre and a surgical ward in a derelict house. All day they were tending to dead and seriously wounded men, many of them members of the badly outgunned rebel army.
The patterned plastic sheets the medics had placed on the floor were slick with blood and iodine as more and more war wounded were brought in by their colleagues.
One hulking man in military fatigue pants was carried in on a stretcher with a gaping wound in his navel. “He’s a first lieutentant,” said one of the clinic’s nurses, Abdul Karem, who like everyone else in this overwrought hub, doubles as a revolutionary. The seriously wounded officer was taken to the improvised operating room, as nurses outside prepped themselves for surgery by washing their hands with kerosene and water.
Among those tending to him was an old French surgeon, a veteran of conflict zones dating back to the Vietnam war, who arrived in Syria on Thursday with a suitcase of medical supplies and a readiness to stay as long as he’s needed.
The carnage of the rest of the day suggests he may be here awhile. Minutes after the lieutenant’s treatment began, a truck screamed to a stop outside and Free Syria Army soldiers bellowed for a stretcher. The triage centre rapidly emptied, as the medics inside grabbed their flip flops – one also reached for his Kalashnikov – and hurried into the courtyard outside. they stopped next to the truck and looked inside and visibly stopped in their tracks. “Finished,” one man said. “Take him to the graveyard.” The dead man was a major, the leader of the Free Syria Army in this town, and one of many wounded by an attack on an outpost not far from here.
As night fell, the numbers of dead and wounded appeared to increase. every massive boom in the near distance seemed to herald the arrival of more patients.
“They’re coming from the hospital that we ran away from,” said one medic, Dr Qassem. “It’s only a kilometre away.”
Regime snipers were also wreaking havoc from a nearby intersection on the road to Homs. Opposition forces, meanwhile for the most part watched from hideouts in apricot and peach orchards and farm-houses dotted along muddy brown laneways.
More wounded were brought in, a rebel shot in the hand, another two with bullets in their back. The television showing footage of the carnage in Homs had by now been switched off as the triage room swarmed with walking wounded, frantic medics and others taking refuge from the shelling.
The first lieutenant inside was fading fast. as other surgeons piled the patient’s intestines onto his stomach, Dr Qassem, who was holding a lamp over the operation said: “They are coming for us now. It is going to be very bad.”
And then he added an optimistic note to a day that had so far offered nothing but misery. “The vote at the UN could be good for us in the future,” he said. “All our students and doctors study in Russia and the standards are not good. “All our factories have Chinese equipment and it’s the same thing. if we win, things will change, God willing.”
He switched back to the dying patient as attention switched to the newest casualty, a man shot in the wrist, his blood streaming over shoes piled at the room entrance.
“There have been more than 100 people killed today,” said one young university medical student as he held an x-ray machine over a patient lying prostrate on the floor. “We all have family in Homs and we are very worried about the situation there. It is much worse than here.
“Every day it has been getting worse here and there. no one is coming for us and we accept our fate.”
Early in the day, a re-supply – of sorts – did arrive for the rebels; three sacks of rockets and rusting mortar tubes. they too were brought into the medical clinic and stored out of sight. It was hardly an arsenal to embolden a clearly struggling rebel army, but it was a sign that some weapons are finding their way across the porous Turkish and Lebanese borders.
“These are old,” said one young fighter. “But they will do. We are grateful for everything that we get.”
