Labiaplasty

Ladies, are you troubled by the appearance of you nether regions? Have you noticed that your "lady lips" aren't quite as taut and perky as they once were? Do you suffer labia envy everytime you happen to spy the pink-n-perky no-no's of the airbrushed babes in your boyfriend's girlie mags?

Well, help is on the way. Move over breast implants the lastest craze in cosmetic surgery is labiaplasty or "Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery." Supposedly, this surgery will not only make you look years younger 'down there' but it will also improve one's sex life by making the whole area very sensitive. One woman who recieved the surgery said: "a world of difference" to her sex life.

* Depending on the patient, the operation will either consist of a simple nick-n-tuck of the vaginal lips or a mini-liposuction. It may sound simple but the price tag is steep. One estimate states that the price is anywhere from $3500-$5500. No one is sure exactly how many labiaplasty procedures are performed each year but interest is growing.

Many more established surgeons scoff at the very idea of labiaplasty. The biggest complaint is the a woman's "special place" is very delicate indeed and the risk of destroying nerve tissue is much to great. Personally, I can think of a million things I'd rather do with five grand.

*quote from salon.com

Labiaplasty is the primary surgical component of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery, however it is somewhat different than described in SheThing's above writeup.

In male-to-female labiaplasty, the skin of the penis is removed and its erectile tissue is discarded. The glans penis is reshaped and repositioned into a clitoris (clitoroplasty), and after the testes have been removed (if they hadn't been previously removed by an orchiectomy), the skin from the scrotum is reshaped into a set of labia minora and labia majora, and a clitoral hood, if requested by the patient. Also, the urethra is trimmed to the appropriate length and repositioned just to the south of the clitoris.

Slight abdominal tunneling is also performed by the surgeon, usually with a result of 4 to 8 inches vaginal depth.

The surgery takes 2 to 3 hours to complete, and is usually done under general and local anesthetic. Physical recovery generally consists of a few weeks, and the resultant scarring is minimal.

Sources: http://www.annelawrence.com/meltzersrs01.html (be very careful, the pictures at this URL are extremely, mind-bendingly, psyche-scarringly graphic if you're unprepared for what you're seeing) / http://www.annelawrence.com/srsindex.html