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New wave of cosmetic surgery: Vaginal rejuvenation
Columbia News Service ^ | 4-20-2005 | Vivek Kemp

Posted on 04/25/2005 12:52:14 PM PDT by kingattax

NEW YORK - First she had her breasts done. Then 12 years and two kids later she changed something else, something more private, much more private.

Her vagina.

Lu Henderson, a real estate investor from Los Angeles, noticed that her enjoyment of sex diminished after she gave birth for the second time. Then three years ago, while she was in a fancy health club, she overheard a conversation about a surgery that could help. And last month she decided it was time to commit.

"It's the most amazing thing I've ever done," said Henderson, 34, about her surgery. "I really do just feel more feminine."

Henderson is one of a growing number of women who have turned to cosmetic surgery to reverse the ravages of time and birth through a surgical procedure called vaginal rejuvenation.

The process, which tightens vaginal muscles and reduces the size of a woman's labia minora, is designed to increase sexual gratification and reduce forms of incontinence.

The actual procedure of tightening the muscle tone of interior vaginal walls is nothing new; women have been receiving such corrective surgery since the 1970s for medical reasons. But the outpatient surgery is the latest thing for the nip-tuck set.

The recognized grandfather of the industry in the United States is Dr. David Matlock, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Los Angeles.

Matlock put rejuvenation into the public sphere in the late 1990s, when he founded the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles. Since then, he has been the subject of multiple articles in magazines ranging from Cosmopolitan to Playboy.

Such coverage has been the best commercial for the surgery, Matlock said.

"Sex sells, and the media has an integral part in selling it," he said. "Women will come in and say, 'I want to look like this,' while they hold up a Playboy."

Yet some plastic surgeons feel that being saturated with images of sex leads to a false notion of normality.

"Part of this is the mainstreaming of pornography," said Dr. V. Leroy Young, a plastic surgeon in St. Louis. "People see images of naked women on magazines and movies and that becomes a reference point of normal."

However, Henderson said health concerns drove her decision as well.

She said that when she gave birth, the incision made on her perineum, the muscle and tissue between the vagina and the anus, never healed properly. She suffered many bladder infections as a result, she said.

"At first I went to just get that fixed," Henderson said.

But when the doctor examined her, he told her she had vaginal relaxation, which causes interior muscles to go limp.

Never mind the motives for the surgery, the result is great sex.

"I wasn't doing it for anybody but me, but my fiance benefits from it," said Nelly, an executive assistant for an investment firm in Los Angeles who requested that only her first name be used.

Both Henderson and Nelly said men are easy to please in general, and that vaginal rejuvenation is truly for the enjoyment of women.

"Let's be honest," Henderson said, "guys aren't really picky; they could care less. It was really more for me."

But rejuvenation isn't only the realm of mothers and grown women.

Many teenage girls seek the help of doctors in reducing the size of their labia, in an offshoot procedure called labiaplasty.

Matlock has operated on a 14-year-old who was accompanied by her parents and her younger sister. "Mothers are in 100 percent support," the doctor said.

Speaking about the physical development of the young teens, Matlock said, "These are mature young ladies. If they weren't I wouldn't do it."

But some doctors like Young think some colleagues may be going too far. He performs labiaplasty on occasion, but said he's not necessarily a fan of the surgery or its cousins.

"This is not something I promote," the doctor said. "If the labia minora is too large they can become irritated with clothes and swimsuits, but it's easier to just get a different swimsuit."

A new set of clothes would definitely be less expensive. Rejuvenation comes at a price, costing anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000. Young said he was not sure if the recent popularity of vaginal rejuvenation would last.

"We don't understand very accurately what's driving this," he said. "We're still in the unknown area with this, is it a fad or a longer lasting trend?"

If this is a fad, it's not going away anytime soon. The industry is too lucrative and growing too fast, according to doctors.

Last year Matlock earned $1.4 million and said the demand is too much for him to handle alone.

At his center in Los Angeles, Matlock says he has trained hundreds of ob-gyns, including 40 doctors from the United States and many more from Asian Pacific countries like Korea, to perform the surgery.

"The women are driving this," Matlock said.

As far as Henderson is concerned, she is content with her body for the time being. But she's comforted by knowing that she can have more cosmetic procedures if she wants them.

"I'll have maintenance done," she said. "As I age I think I'll get Botox, or collagen injections for my lips.


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To: kingattax
Actually, manufacturing faux hymens has been big business for many decades for non-virgins pretending to be virgins on their honeymoon. Even in this day of mega-promiscuity.

This has to be an incredible seduction for long suffering OB-GYNs: No more endless on-calls, no more John Edwards phony malpractice suits for CP birth defects, malpractice insurance drops from $250,000 to $30,000, net income goes from $150,000 per year to ten times that figure.

61 posted on 04/25/2005 1:14:52 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember (Honoring Saint Jude's assistance every day.)
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To: chs68
No, wait until Jerry Springer does a show about this

you mean he hasn't already ?

62 posted on 04/25/2005 1:15:03 PM PDT by kingattax
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To: freebilly

Lots of men report sagging hand muscles.


63 posted on 04/25/2005 1:15:03 PM PDT by Rennes Templar ("The future ain't what it used to be".........Yogi Berra)
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To: kingattax

I don't know...if they could somehow figure out how to make tires out of that stuff....


64 posted on 04/25/2005 1:15:35 PM PDT by brewcrew
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To: kingattax

Tiiiiiight!!


65 posted on 04/25/2005 1:16:26 PM PDT by beethovenfan
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To: kingattax

Is this why senior citizens always rush home to watch "Matlock"?


66 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:00 PM PDT by July 4th (A vacant lot cancelled out my vote for Bush.)
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To: kingattax

i'm rapidly getting over western women.


67 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:00 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (In Honor of Terri Schiavo. http://209.245.58.70/frosty65/ Let it load and have the sound on.)
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To: ko_kyi

LOL!


68 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:12 PM PDT by kidd
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To: kingattax

Replacing her every five years with a younger model would be cheaper than surgery.


69 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:16 PM PDT by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know.)
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To: kingattax

This is just gross.


70 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:30 PM PDT by k2blader (Immorality bites.)
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To: ShadowDancer
"It's the most amazing thing I've ever done," said Henderson, 34, about her surgery. "I really do just feel more feminine."

Wow, she wore out her equipment by the age of 34. Now that's something that makes one wonder.

71 posted on 04/25/2005 1:17:33 PM PDT by Uncledave (I want blue fingers!!!)
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To: ko_kyi
....I'll be here all week, try the veal.

LOL! "Hello? Is this microphone on?"

72 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:00 PM PDT by 6SJ7
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To: kingattax
You can view the ad as seen in the SA Express News here
73 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:09 PM PDT by ravingnutter
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To: HairOfTheDog
I wonder if Mr. Mrs. Garrison is going to try this next.


74 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:11 PM PDT by ecurbh (All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.)
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To: b4its2late
I imagine the plastic surgeons doing this are happy they did not become proctologists........

Don't think that SF proctologists aren't doing something similar... yeech...

75 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:16 PM PDT by mikegi
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To: kingattax

Since Kerry's such a big P----y, do the doctors refer to his Botox injections as Vaginal Rejuvenation?


76 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:30 PM PDT by exile (Exile - Helen Thomas tried to lure me into her Gingerbread House.)
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To: kingattax

Our culture is entirely too fixated on genitalia - this is self-idolatry, nothing more. Disgusting, selfish, and perverted.


77 posted on 04/25/2005 1:18:54 PM PDT by ItsOurTimeNow (Why yes, I am "narrow minded", thank you! See Matthew 7:14.)
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To: kingattax

Well, as a man I think this is just great news.
Every woman I have ever "known" has had this same
problem of "too much" down there. If you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Thank heaven that this condition can now be reversed!


78 posted on 04/25/2005 1:19:05 PM PDT by NormB (Yes, but watch your cookies!!)
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To: Rennes Templar
Lots of men report sagging hand muscles

Carpal Penile Syndrome...?

79 posted on 04/25/2005 1:19:07 PM PDT by freebilly (Go Santa Cruz Baseball!)
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To: TheBigB

ping


80 posted on 04/25/2005 1:19:24 PM PDT by freepatriot32 (If you want to change goverment support the libertarian party www.lp.org)
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