This story makes me incredibly sad, and I don’t even have daughters.
That is pretty sad, I thought the obsession with plastic surgery by teens these days had hit all kinds of heights of idiocy, but this is sad, surprised not hearing about boys trying to increase the size of their private parts because of what they see in porn…it isn’t that I am against plastic surgery, I can understand someone wanting to look different, not liking wrinkles or a nose that is too big or whatnot (even if I wouldn’t do anything like that), but this seems to be trying to fit into some image of things rather than being themselves.
I didn’t even know this was a thing to worry about.
Had never heard of this. odd
Our sex obsessed culture where teenage girls are looking at essentially pornography to see airbrushed women’s labia.
Parents of girls certainly have an influence, but our culture has so much porn available that kids see porn, average age 8!
An adult women does need to take responsibility with ethics with a company.
Even age 18/21, the frontal part of a brain (judgment) isn’t fully developed.
The first time I saw pornography was when H showed me some (college senior year) and I was a nursing major, so I knew more than most women at the time.
The filth is such that pornography is a big problem in our country (along with on line gambling, etc).
Shocking becomes the norm.
I don’t even know how to comment on this. If this was needed for medical reasons that is another issue but this is taking it too far. We have to raise our daughters with good self esteem and teach healthy life styles from an early age.
Teach them that it is important to respect our bodies and take good care of our health.
A lot of times they mimic what they see. Who is paying for these cosmetic surgeries? I am assuming the parents.
Why are the parents supporting such decisions? Girls need to learn self love and acceptance. This idea of perfection is not realistic. As parents we have to keep reinforcing positive thoughts on body image. Just because all your friends are doing these things is not a valid reason and doesn’t make it a right thing for you…
Boy, I thought I was hip and current by telling our daughters we would pay for their vision correction surgery when they graduate college.
PT Barnum was right.
I agree with the article, in that waxing is spurring this new surgery. When you werent shaving the pubic area you had no clue what those parts looked like. I HATE this new trend of waxing everything away. My opinion is who wants a woman who looks like a prepubescent girl?!? The hair serves a purpose.
“Why are the parents supporting such decisions? Girls need to learn self love and acceptance.”
The parents are on the same page as the kids in these families. All of us are affected by cultural expectations, but only some families reinforce conformist aesthetics as a value.
@partyof5 TOTALLY agree with your post #9.
As a society we are getting highly sexualized, women’s worth is tied to their looks, sexuality, body, clothes, jewelry and other material stuff. Most part of their earnings go towards buying things and services to enhance their physical appeal to men and other women.
From selling sexy two piece swim suits for preteen girls to putting infant style leotard on Beyonce in every video, it’s all crazy but genital mutilation took it to another level. Sex sells and society is trying to make a fortune.
Aren’t laser hair removal treatments popular these days? I wonder what the average age of a patient is for that.
I wouldn’t mind having 20/20 vision but I’m too chicken to go for vision correction surgery.
These girls are in for a shock when they have a baby. They are going to see changes to their body they never imagined.
Just to be clear, the idea that a woman’s worth is tied to her attractiveness is absolutely nothing new. Our definition of what is “attractive” changes but women have long been valued for their attractiveness. Sex has always been a big seller and women have long gone to extremes in order to make themselves “beautiful.” Think of disfiguring corsets and shoes, skin whitening (painting, powder, etc), and so on.
I absolutely despise the sexualization and objectification of women and young people. I also despise the fact that young people have to turn to google searches in order to learn about sex and their bodies.
We need total and comprehensive sex education from kindergarten. Children deserve to know about their bodies and they deserve to learn from people who are trained to teach them in these areas and not from google and porn. (Just to be clear, I have ZERO problem with porn and I don’t think that’s even close to our biggest issue.)
I have worked on sex education and advocacy for young people for a long time. It makes me sad when young people come to me and believe all these myths about sex that they’ve heard about from similarly misinformed friends. But who else would they learn from? We don’t talk about it in most schools, not on TV, often not in families, and there is a massive amount of misinformation on the web.
I think this is disgusting and should be outlawed except in extreme cases (for example, people with so-called ambiguous genitalia). But let’s not pretend that this is anything new. Yes, this particular surgery is a new fad but women have been mutilating themselves in the name of beauty forever. The idea that there was some mythical past where women weren’t sexualized. It simply doesn’t exist except in our constructed memory of a past that never happened.
This is one of these false “trend” articles that the NY Times succumbs to occasionally. The article says there were 400 such surgeries last year – a miniscule number – with no analysis whatsoever in the article of whether there were any true anatomical issues (other than cosmetic desires) that would justify the surgery. It sounds like there are some unspecified number of girls who ASK about the surgery but the guidelines are such that they are told the surgery is inappropriate for adolescents. Big fat non-story.
Nottelling, I was going to say the same thing. While NYTimes is still a top-notch publication, it is prone to letting an occasional sensationalistic piece to slip in (e.g., the recent article describing how Amazon mistreats its white collar workers - I just had to laugh at that piece of pseudo-journalism).
Wow–very troubling and something I have NEVER heard of, ever! Yuck!
@nottelling thank you for pointing that out. I had only skimmed the article and completely missed that tidbit.
Also I meant to add in my last post that it is important to remember that many of these surgeries, even on young people, are not for cosmetic reasons (as pointed out in the article). I knew a young woman who had a breast reduction at 16 because she was already having bad back problems and they prevented her from participating in sports. I’m still friends with her 10 years later and she has zero regrets.
I am not getting it. Why is this wrong? Are you saying it is not wrong to have a cosmetic surgery somewhere else but not this? Why not? I get that it may not be medically safe. If the safety is not a concern would you still object to this? I don’t see how this is any different from fixing up the nose, ear, or any other body parts. Why is this surgery more objectifying than a surgery of your nose?
Because one’s facial features have the potential to critically affect one’s career, mating, and income opportunities.
Except for porn stars, one’s vulva features do not.
This is yet another item to add to the ever growing list of stupid morphological standards that girls are told to be insecure about:
- Vulva labia
- Thigh gap
- iphone 6s thin legs challenge http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-women-are-using-iphone-6s-to-prove-they-have-skinny-legs-on-social-media-a6962071.html
- Collarbone protrusion http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3127928/Country-goes-wild-new-social-media-challenge-thousands-upload-selfies-coins-hold-COLLARBONES.html