Posted on 01/11/2006 6:32:06 AM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON — Forget Botox, liposuction or breast enlargement. The newest trend in plastic surgery for women in the United States is vaginal reconstruction, including hymenoplasty, which offers patients new virginity.
The procedure has become so popular that it has topped the other more conventional surgeries such as face-lifts and breast enlargement.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says that vaginal surgery is one of the fastest growing trends in plastic surgery. In fact, as many as 30,000 women are said to opt for vaginal reconstruction yearly.
The procedure, also known as "revirgination", is being hawked in magazines, the Internet or on radio stations as a way for women to improve their sex life or enjoy a second honeymoon.
Ms Jeanette Yarborough, a medical assistant from San Antonio, Texas, said she decided to undergo hymenoplasty, which involves reattaching the hymen, as a special gift for her husband.
"I wasn't a virgin when we got married and I thought: What better gift to give my husband than revirgination?" the 40-year-old mother of four told AFP. "It was a real sentimental gift, it was something I could recreate for him and he was thrilled. He was like, 'Yeah, it was worth every penny'," she said.
Though long popular among women in the Middle East and Latin America, where being chaste is important on one's wedding night, hymenoplasty is experiencing new-found popularity among women in the US.
One clinic boasts on its Internet site that its practitioners "can repair the hymen as if nothing occurred". Many who undergo the procedure, which costs between US$1,800 ($2,900) and US$5,000, also ask that their vaginas be tightened, doctors say.
Ms Esmeralda Vanegas, owner of the Ridgewood Health and Beauty Center in New York, said business was booming with about five hymenoplasties performed every month.
"Hymenoplasty is for women who want to please their husband or their lover and they know that he wants to experience intercourse with a virgin," she said.
Ms Mary Blum, author of Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, expressed concern at the fact that such surgery was becoming part of mainstream America and was being marketed as a way to gain self-esteem or as part of the country's obsession with self-improvement.
"With hymenoplasty, one of the obvious problems is you're pretending nothing happened before," she told AFP. "It falls under the heading of rejuvenation, pretending your body has no history, so now it has no sexual history."
She added that such procedures were gaining in popularity in part because they were made affordable for the masses and were being touted as a consumer product rather than as invasive — and potentially dangerous — surgery.
"It's in the domain of 'Will I take a trip, buy a new car or get a hymenoplasty?'" she said.
Ms Blum said women like Ms Yarborough could probably make their husbands just as happy with a much cheaper and less medically-intrusive option. "She could have gotten him an inflatable doll," she said. — AGENCIES
Thanks, that's very kind of you! Best to your family as well!
Excellent point. And if you have a few thousand dollars lying around, why not get a babysitter, some sexy lingerie, a good haircut, and go somewhere nice and show your husband a really good time :-).
Even worse is when the kids make the casserole :-).
Oscar Levant (SP)on Jack Paar's Show. (Am I dating myself?)
Lord knows I'd prefer that over a faux hymen.
Hahha... well haven't had to deal with that one yet.. but its coming soon.
In a way. The inside of the vagina can be made tighter, too. Kegel exercises are one way, but they can probably never restore pre-vaginal birth tightness. There are some devices that can remedy the situation that are similar to "peter pumps" for the women who find this to be a problem.
Younger men and boys these days are not the men their fathers and gradfathers are. Since men are getting smaller and women aren't, something has to be done for the women. In most cases the woman can get tighter much more easily than a man can grow bigger.
You have to watch them, or they leave out/add ingredients apparently at random. "We were out of cinnamon, so I used this other brown stuff ..."
>>>>The newest trend in plastic surgery for women in the United States is vaginal reconstruction, including hymenoplasty, which offers patients new virginity.
::skretch!, cross legs::
Are they nuts??!!
Indeed. Obviously they're not going to throw in a lube job.
Regards, Ivan
And lots and lots of sex.
nah, easier to suck on a lemon.
Yep, that sounds about right....
I did the same thing when I was a bachelor.. No baking powder, but I got baking soda.... no paprika, but I have sage....
Had some pretty interesting concoctions.
As you get older, sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't, depending on how things are going in life.
Actually, there are areas in Asian where a hymen is reattached before marriage (if it is broken)....
But these nutjobs want to do more than sew in a tissue membrane!
I'm sure great recipes have emerged, on occasion, when a needed ingredient was missing.
ROFL!
::whiping off monitor::
No, more like "do you want fries with that"?
There is a good question...Has anyone that has been 'revirgination' gone through delivery after?
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