A WOMAN WHO MADE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT VAGINOPLASTY
INTERVIEW BY ANDY CAPPER, PORTRAIT BY ALEX STURROCK
Heather Leach is a filmmaker from Rochdale, in the north of England, which is most famous for being the birthplace of 80s “soul” singer Lisa Stansfield. Recently, Heather plunged herself headfirst into the murky world of vaginoplasty, or “voluntarily having a plastic surgeon chop off your labia.” We talked to her about what she found, and it was quite revealing, if not something you should read if you’re eating lunch right now (especially anything with roast beef or pastrami in it).
Vice: Hi Heather. Why did you make this movie?
Heather Leach: Well, Channel 4 asked me to. After that, I researched it and found out that, in the UK at least, the number of women getting surgery on their labia has doubled in five years. More shockingly, the number of women getting the procedure has gone up by 300 percent in the last two years. Even girls as young as 16 are having these labiaplasties.
Crikey.
I would hear girls complain of awful comments being made to them all the time. Things like “Your vagina is fucking disgusting” or “Going down on you is like going down on the Mersey Tunnel.” Then there was one girl who was bullied by her sister and she’d say stuff like, “It looks like hanging ham down there.”
That’s not a very nice thing to say.
There are different physical and psychological reasons for operating on vaginas and there are differing methods, but the majority of doctors reshape the vulva by amputating and trimming. They do this by slicing the inner labia off so they don’t hang below the outer labia.
I’m wincing.
Yeah, they slice it all off with a scalpel. But some surgeons cut open the labia and tie up the nerve endings so they will still have sensation. Then they fold it over in and restitch it all together. One thing people don’t realize is that the nerve endings in the labia are connected to the clitoris, so they stand a chance of permanently hampering their sex lives. But I guess teenage girls don’t think about this because they just want a “perfect fanny.”
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This sculpture/cast is called “Design a Vagina” and is by British artist James McCartney. Some of the girls in Heather’s film had their vaginas cast especially for this piece.
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We should say for our readers in the States that over here “fanny” means “cunt” and “bottom” means “ass.” “Fanny” doesn’t mean “ass” here like it does there.
Yeah, well, anyway, people used to think that if you had a tit job it meant having “perfect tits” back in, say, 1985. And now they think having a stranger hack away at your fanny is going to mean the same thing: perfect flaps. They’re also going in for things like vaginal liposuction.
Oh come on.
They suck fat out of the pubic bone area to make it flatter. They’re also doing a Botox injection that goes into where your G-spot is supposed to be. It’s a called “G-Shot.” You have to keep going back every three months to have it refilled with Botox. It’s about $1,600 a session and you have to get it through private cosmetic surgeons.
To what do you attribute this sudden increase in teenage girls getting their labia sliced?
There are the things like the big advertisements in women’s magazines from large cosmetic surgical corporations. Then you blend that with peer pressure from teenage peers, particularly boys.
How so?
It’s teenage boys who are watching pornography all the time. As far as I’ve seen, you don’t see any kind of modern pornographic imagery that contains what I would consider to be a normal vagina. People start to think that the perfect fanny should not have the inner labia protruding and that it should be completely hairless.
Right.
Bikini waxing has a role to play in all this. When Bill Clinton reduced the laws regarding porn, the porn producers pushed for total waxing so that viewers could see the whole vagina for the first time, close up. Now these images are everywhere and making young girls think that it’s some kind of natural ideal, to have a hair-free tiny-lipped fanny.
It’s becoming like, “I’m going to have somebody cut my fucking labia off. No biggie.”
Yeah, but what people don’t realize is how harrowing it can be to have the operation. The recovery period can take up to six months. I filmed a surgery and it was horrendous. Once they’re chopped off, the pieces are flung straight in the trash can and thrown away with the rubbish.
Click here to watch her documentary.
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Jan 14, 2010 wrote:
I hate my vagina it is gross, vagina’s are usally ugly.I am fond of penis ,when I give kisses to my husband’s beautiful penis it get erected itself like a bloomed beautiful flower,yes The erected male penis is like is bloomed beautiful flower. | | Anonymous, on Jan 14, 2010 wrote:
VAGINA’S ABOUT ALL OF THEM ARE GROSS,MY LABIA AND VAGINA LOOKS EXTREMELY UGLY SIMILAR, LIKE OTHER GIRLS HAVE.I THINK VAGINA IS AN UGLY NAME OF AN UGLY THING. | | Anonymous, on Jan 2, 2010 wrote:
Mine are small before sex. When I have great sex they just bloom and are beautiful. Big lips means my vagina is happy :) | | Anonymous, on Dec 27, 2009 wrote:
what ever it looks like is fine with me. my wife wants a reduction, but I wont let her. I said if she does, it will void out marriage contract. (unlawful conversion) | | Anonymous, on Dec 9, 2009 wrote:
i thought i had a really weird vagina, my lips are about 1.5 cm, i thought it was weird and was scared to do anythin orally, but now i feel better about things ;) | | Anonymous, on Dec 6, 2009 wrote:
I pump my girlfriends vag and clit every chance I get. My dream is to make some labia that are about 3 inches long. right now they are almost an inch with tugging and pulling them. Pumping them swells them up like a balloon and I hope one day they stay nice and thick but creating large labia is very hard. Labiastretching dot com seems to think that you can do it but i’m losing hope. they keep going back to what they were, small :-( I wish I found a way to make them stay big but I don’t think it’s possible. For all you women out there that have labia hanging out....just know there is a TON of men out there just dying to go down on you! More nerves, harder orgasms! Spend your money on something to decorate them instead of castrating them...and if who is dealing with those long dangling lips thinks it’s gross,cut him out of your life! Not those wonderful, tasty treats between your legs! | | Anonymous, on Dec 4, 2009 wrote:
To the one who wrote before...Its so nice hearing you like real vaginas. Thanx ;-). | | Anonymous, on Dec 3, 2009 wrote:
The only mistake in this world of ours is when a doctor thinks they can solve a problem by cutting off the best thing on a womans body. When I was younger I sought after ladies blessed with long labia. One comment on here is absolutly right....they climax so much better! If you have these please consider keeping them. Most of my friends agree that oral on a very meaty vag is the greatest thing in the foreplay arena. If you let a doctor turn you into a hotdog bun all you do is take out the fun and there is nothing to play with and foreplay is over in like 5 minutes cause it’s boring. I hope one day labiaplasty surgens get treated like abortion doctors cause they are ruining my life! Keep them....too many guys out there love ’em and want them so bad! | | Anonymous, on Dec 1, 2009 wrote:
thank you for this. from showering with my friends, i thought my vagina was absolutely retarded... but i guess not. | | Anonymous, on Nov 28, 2009 wrote:
By the way i got labia and you can see them, theyre not small... a woman should have it i think. I also got insecure by seeing some "porn-women" who didnt have much down there at all. Before i didnt think about it, thought it is normal. But i guess its a lot surgery going on, really bad. | | Anonymous, on Nov 28, 2009 wrote:
All the little-dick-assholes who dont know how a real vagina should look like and are watching too much porn, shut your mouth off! We women dont like your dicks either and especially not a non-confidential boy! We women shouldnt think to much about our labia sizes and just shave it how we want it! | | Anonymous, on Nov 28, 2009 wrote:
i just got labiaplasty today and it hurt so fucking much. I was literally screaming from pain for about an hour afterwards. thank god for vicodin.
as for how it looks. i still kind of hate it...though the ugly labia minora is gone :)... but i still feel like its too big (the hood)...hopefully its just swollen now and it’ll look much better in a few weeks, fingers crossed... | | Anonymous, on Nov 24, 2009 wrote:
we campaign in the west against african genital mutilation, quite rightly, then let silly vain people do this to themselves! some people can’t be trusted with ’freedom of choice’ tell me I’m wrong. | | Anonymous, on Nov 23, 2009 wrote:
why ahve surgery down there?? seriously, I can see y you would want to, i mean if i could change it i would, but tbh, if a guy watns to have sex with you, then he should at least like you enough not to be put off by what ur fanny looks like?? jeez its not gonna make a diference... | | Anonymous, on Nov 15, 2009 wrote:
we dont say ’trash can’ in england | | Anonymous, on Nov 4, 2009 wrote:
wow...... this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this | | Anonymous, on Nov 1, 2009 wrote:
By the way, most of us guys like that fatty hump on your pubic bone... Leave it alone ya hear!!! | | Anonymous, on Nov 1, 2009 wrote:
I like the looks of a tight, neat looking vagina, just like it looks on a small girl. I think they are better looking like that.
A lot of us guys don’t like something that looks like a big pile of loose meat hanging there. Ya may not like what I say, but thats the way alot of us feel about it... | | Anonymous, on Oct 23, 2009 wrote:
50 yr male: protruding labia are sexy, girls should be proud of it. | | Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
my vagina is like a bull dogs mouth, it is very ugly.My husband’s penis is pink in colour and when it get erected it is beautiful like a bloomed flower,yes it is like a beautiful flower it is an amazing sight for my eyes. | | Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
I am girl working in a medical service and I have seen a lot of vagina’s as apart of my job,I have seen some after labia reduction surgeries.None of them looks nice vagina always looks gross. | | Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
Vagina is the most ugliest thing I have ever seen most hideous as a girl I find penises more beautiful, An erected penis is an Epitom of beauty. | | Anonymous, on Aug 11, 2009 wrote:
Just had a vaginoplasty and labiaplasty done recently. Still sore, but I love how it looks, even though it is still swollen. I don’t have those nasty, flappy lips coming down anymore. It was never about what guys thought...I knew they didn’t care. It was about what I thought. I hated them, and so glad to get rid of them. | | Anonymous, on Jul 5, 2009 wrote:
’not all vagina’s are beautiful, thats retarted’ errmm...yeah...you spelt that wrong. what - i bet your penis is no oil painting either, i imagine your best bet is too stick with porn because i very much doubt you will find a woman with that attitude, or the iq of a bread basket... | | Anonymous, on Jun 17, 2009 wrote:
I dated this one girl, her vag looked like a cauliflower.
| | Anonymous, on Jun 7, 2009 wrote:
Proves that women are stupid. | | Anonymous, on May 6, 2009 wrote:
The more pussy the better. End of. | | Anonymous, on Apr 18, 2009 wrote:
don’t guys get the impression that the flappy labia resembles balls? Wouldnt they feel gay having sex with a women with huge labia? | | Anonymous, on Apr 14, 2009 wrote:
ALL penises and ALL vaginas are kind of gross when you think too much about them, but when you’re aroused all that goes away, doesn’t it? Surgery is pointless. | | Anonymous, on Jan 28, 2009 wrote:
I agree completely with above. For many years I battled with the insecurities over my labia. I didn’t even know it was called the ’labia’, I catergorised it with my vagina in general and determined myself I was deformed.
When I was younger, I had an accident where a childish boy kicked a ball directly at my bike. Causing me to fall off. When I got up, I realised what had happened. The chain area of the bike had sliced through my shorts and cut open my labia. I was rushed to hospital.
At that age, I payed little attention to my vagina, so I never noticed. I’m not even entirely sure if it was the shape around that age (after the accident) to how it is now. Who knows.
All I know is, a few years back, I started noticing how large my labia was. Though now, I can say I’ve seen larger. But, obviously being a young teenager, almost at the age where I’d experience my first sexual activity, I was terrified. I did not let anyone near me. It took two years before I even told my mum that I felt unusual. I did not go swimming and I refused to participate in P.E. It was isolation to its highest form and I was almost suicidal over it.
Luckily, or not so luckily, I guess, I found a boyfriend who, went straight for the plunge. With Ex’s, when they went to creep down, I’d climb on top and tease them to avoid humilation, or to make it seem as if I were insecure. But no, not this boyfriend. He went straight in before I knew it. I didn’t have a clue what to do. But, he seemed pretty contented down there. I was uncomfortable, the entire time thinking "What the hell is he thinking", but after a while I relaxed. Then, I found out he was using me. Lovely. But no, because of my past insecurities, I let him. It actually benefited me. Apart from feeling cheap and dirty for a month or two. I was all round confident. Then, I had no problem losing my virginity (with him). I just got it over with. It was shit. I can say that much. But, that was least of my concerns. We broke up the next day. Meaning, he walked away.
But I didn’t put this down to my vagina, as I had a discussion with a few friends and found out they all had large labia’s too. Fantastic!
Now, I’m more than happily contented in a relationship and have been for a while now. He’s inlove with my vagina. To be honest, he’s in love with every aspect of me. Fab! I can honestly say I am with him too. Now, no worries at all. I am confident and can sit around naked with him for days on end.
Believe me girls, you are not abnormal. And, there is actually a large number of guys that like larger labia’s. I don’t think I need to explain why, now do I? Also, I cannot prove this theory, but I have very good reasons to believe it is true, being a Biology geek and all. The larger the labia - the greater the sensation. After all, what is your labia? tissue and nerves. This means one hell of an orgasm, ladies ! Or so I believe.
Goodluck. | | | Next 30 comments > |
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