When Maya Bernstein, 18, first became sexually active in high school, she was nervous. How would she know what to do? Especially, it seems, how things should look. The numbers shot up so quickly that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists ACOG issued new guidelines this month for doctors who perform labial and breast surgery.
Among the recommendations: physicians are now encouraged to screen girls for body dysmorphic disorder, an obsession with an imagined or slight defect in appearance. While the rise in requests for labiaplasty remains relatively smallβwith an increase from to girls overallβthe data suggest more girls are becoming ashamed of the most intimate parts of their bodies. And the increase in this procedure is part of a larger boost in cosmetic surgery for teens.
More than 8, teen girls received augmentation breast surgery in , nearly double the number from just four years earlier, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which officially recommend girls wait until they are 18 to go under the knife.
Some doctors say girls want genital surgery to alleviate physical irritation in that area, but Dr. When girls watch porn, they see an idealized version of female genitals on display. Just as magazines teach girls they have to be skinny to be considered attractive, porn teaches girls that to be sexy their genitals must look a certain way. Not surprisingly, many girls come to believe there is something wrong with their bodies.
Some seek surgical correction. Long before they know what porn even is, girls hear confusing messages about their genitalia. On the one hand, they live in a culture oversaturated by sex β girls see thousands of references to sex each year on television, and girls on screen are four times more likely to be portrayed in a sexual manner than boy characters.
