Labiaplasty: reshaping your labia

Labiaplasty: reshaping your labia

More and more women are asking for surgery to 'tidy up' or shorten their labia – an operation known as labiaplasty. This is happening all over the western world, but particularly in Britain and America.

Indeed, in the UK the number of labiaplasty operations on the National Health Service (NHS) has almost trebled in three years. However, the vast majority of operations on the labia in Britain are done privately, since the cash-strapped NHS is finding it more and more difficult to fund non-vital surgery.

In a moment, we'll look at why so many women want their sexual organs reshaped. But first let's make clear what we're talking about, because there's still a great deal of confusion about this particular area of the female anatomy.

Why labiaplasty doesn't mean 'designer vaginas'

A lot of people still think that that the external genitals of a woman are called 'the vagina'. This is wrong. The vagina is the tube or passage inside. You can't really see it from the outside.

What you can see from the outside is the vulva. And it's the vulva that so many people want surgically altered these days.

The main features of the vulva are the four labia or 'lips'. There are two outer labia, and these are called the 'labia majora'. Nestling inside them are the two smaller labia or labia minora. The entry to the vagina lies between the two inner lips. In case you're wondering, the singular of 'labia' is 'labium'.

A lot of women are unhappy with the appearance of their labia. They're particularly likely to complain about the two labia majora, saying that they are 'too long' or 'too irregular' or just 'too ugly'.

Complaints about the inner labia (the labia minora) are less common. But some people have the mistaken idea that these shouldn't be visible at all and that they should never 'poke out' from between the two outer labia.

Until very recently, doctors tended to regard complaints about the appearance of the labia as rather trivial. If you went to see a gynaecologist complaining that your vulva looked abnormal, it's likely you would have been told that you were 'wrong' and your appearance was 'perfectly okay'.

However, in the first decade of the 21st century, medical attitudes began to change. These days, some gynaecological and plastic surgeons are more receptive to the idea that a woman might be unhappy with the look of her labia, in just the same way that she might be unhappy with the look of her nose. And some of them are willing to operate, though probably this will have to be done privately.