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January 1, 2006

The Way We Live Now

Our Vaginas, Ourselves

By DAPHNE MERKIN

These are cruel times for vaginas. Lately, as if I don't have enough to worry about, with the deadline on various unkept 2005 resolutions fast upon me, I have begun obsessing about various aspects of my genital appearance. Take my labia minora, for instance. Tucked away as those intimate folds of flesh are - hidden in the underbrush, you might say - I have never given them much thought, except as they relate to experiences of sensual pleasure. Ditto my labia majora, which dutifully served their purpose in guarding the entryway to what the Victorians would have quaintly referred to as my maidenhead. As for the much vaunted hymen (named for the Greek god of marriage), mine remained intact longer than most thanks to my slow-blooming erotic life, until such time as a boyfriend's patient late-night exertions finally parted me from it at the age of 25. Needless to say, its absence - much less the idea that I might be harboring a deep sense of nostalgia for this tiny piece of overinvested membrane, might indeed be secretly yearning to reclaim it - hasn't so much as crossed my mind in the intervening years.

Ah, but how blithely backward-looking - and how wrong, as it turns out - I was. I have seen the future, and it is denuded. Pubic hair is out; the ubiquity of so-called Brazilian waxes, once the domain of porn stars and movie actresses, has ensured that this mossy covering is deemed no more than an aesthetic hindrance to the unfettered male gaze. Which leaves the one part of the female body formerly not available to harsh scrutiny now glaringly on display, held up to culturally defined aesthetic standards undreamed of by the smut-obsessed author of "My Secret Life," borrowed as they are from centerfolds and online pornography. Sagging groin skin and limp labia are going the way of crooked noses and post-nursing breasts, courtesy of new cosmetic surgeries focused on this once-neglected hinterland of female beauty. As recently noted in an article in The Wall Street Journal, vaginal plastic surgery is one of the field's fastest growing sectors, and its high priest, one Dr. David Matlock of - where else? - Los Angeles, claims that he has a five-month waiting list for women eager to get that Playboy look.