September 18, 2011 12:00 AM
There's a pivotal scene at the end of "The Usual Suspects," in which it suddenly dawns on a character that every aspect of his environment — from a mug shot to a coffee cup — is telling an alternate story from the one he has believed this whole time.
The same thing happened to me last month, during a two-hour wait at my ob-gyn's office. There's nothing like a quiet, sterilized room to make your noggin's wheels start turning.
For a place that specializes in cancer screenings and birth control prescriptions, I suddenly noticed that there were an awful lot of plastic surgery ads all around me.
Posters that enticed me to pay thousands of dollars for "more natural and/or sensuous lips," or for fat-less thighs.
The alarming thing about all this was that I wasn't even a new patient. I had been going there a full-on year and hadn't noticed.
And I'm incredibly selective with whom I share my "lady issues." So before I even made a first appointment, I did extensive research online to make sure this ob-gyn was a good fit — and she was, and is, a great doctor.
Of course, I was always somewhat cognizant that there were different doctors in this SouthCoast medical practice, and that one of said doctors there did stuff like tummy tucks. But I had completely tuned out the fact that he also specializes in a kind of surgical mumbo jumbo that defies all womanly self-respect.
We're talking "vaginal rejuvenation," "labiaplasty," "hoodoplasty," "G-spot augmentation," and "hymenoplasty" (aka revirginization).
Yes, reviriginization. 'Cause who doesn't want to relive their first time? Clearly, patients must be beating down the door for this one. I mean, there's no way a patient might be steered into this by someone else's warped sense of ideals, eh?
And G-spot augmentation sounds sort of be like a landscape architect saying he wants to "redesign" Area 51. You'll never find it, sir.
Although you might not expect there to be much call for such vanities in a working class area like ours, we are part of a nation that demands eternal youth and beauty of its women. So it's not just the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills who are tearing their bodies apart—though the number of accrued collagen injections are half that show's entertainment value.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons — an organization that claims more than 7,000 members — reported 13.1 million cosmetic procedures in 2010, up 5 percent from the year before. And guess what? Women comprised a whopping 91 percent. So it makes sense that you'd move from one woman-patient-dominated field to another: gynecology.
Taking this savvy business scheme and running with it, cosmetic gynecology has predictably grown. In 2009, CNN Health reported a surge in the number of regular doctors (particularly ob-gyns) adding cosmetic surgery to their bag of tricks.
The six-year-old American Academy of Cosmetic Gynecologists has "more than 1,800 members" according to its website, and will hold its annual conference in Arizona this year, around the same time and around the same place as the sixth annual conference of the Congress on Aesthetic Vaginal Surgery.
Describing last year's conference, in The Atlantic's June issue this year, novelist Marie Myung-Ok Lee, a guest lecturer at Brown University, wrote: "Attendance at the conference has been increasing by about 20 percent each year — one doctor there explained that his services are in such demand, he has multiple operating rooms so he can move quickly from one surgery to the next."
There are arguably good reasons for aesthetic alterations. Think of transgender individuals, who use surgery as a way to transition to the gender they identify with. Think of women who get their breasts reduced because of unmanageable back pain.
And wagging a finger at Botox and breast implants is a silly activity as long as our society expects women to look like they're 15 at age 89. I get it.
But seriously. There's apparently a procedure out there called "The Barbie," which gives a woman the same "smooth" look as that sexless doll. And that horrifies me.
As it turns out, it horrifies a good number of ob-gyns, too. Back in 2007, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists blasted cosmetic gynecology in their September issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, saying, "It is deceptive to give the impression that any of these procedures are accepted and routine surgical practices."
Moreover, they warned that cosmetic gynecology carries with it "potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia (pain), adhesions, and scarring."
In other words, there's a big distinction between necessary surgery that repairs the damage of destructive and violent acts on a woman's body... and surgery that'll supposedly make you look like a centerfold in "Hustler."
Bottom line is, the one place I don't expect to be pressured in a manner akin to the supermarket checkout line magazine rack is in a doctor's office. I let go a wistful sigh for my ob-gyn in college, with her depressingly bare, gray walls and pamphlets on syphilis and teen pregnancy. Those were the days!
"The problem is that these surgeries are marketed as ways to enhance the appearance of female genitalia or enhance sexual gratification ... as (in) you're taking the tissue and fixing it and enhancing it. And that assumes there's something wrong with it," says Christian Pope, a locally practicing ob-gyn and women's health columnist for the Standard-Times.
When patients ask Dr. Pope if he offers cosmetic enhancement procedures — a trend he says has increased over the last 3-4 years — he sits down with the patient to find out exactly why she's asking. Usually, "patient concerns regarding her appearance can be alleviated by pretty much a frank discussion about the wide range of normal," he says.
And that's just it. Neither a doctor — nor the decor of a doctor's office — should tell me that I can be "more natural" than my natural state.
Alexis Hauk is a staff writer at The Standard-Times. Contact her at ahauk@s-t.com
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110918/LIFE/109180311/-1/ENTERTAIN
There's a pivotal scene at the end of "The Usual Suspects," in which it suddenly dawns on a character that every aspect of his environment — from a mug shot to a coffee cup — is telling an alternate story from the one he has believed this whole time.
The same thing happened to me last month, during a two-hour wait at my ob-gyn's office. There's nothing like a quiet, sterilized room to make your noggin's wheels start turning.
For a place that specializes in cancer screenings and birth control prescriptions, I suddenly noticed that there were an awful lot of plastic surgery ads all around me.
Posters that enticed me to pay thousands of dollars for "more natural and/or sensuous lips," or for fat-less thighs.
The alarming thing about all this was that I wasn't even a new patient. I had been going there a full-on year and hadn't noticed.
And I'm incredibly selective with whom I share my "lady issues." So before I even made a first appointment, I did extensive research online to make sure this ob-gyn was a good fit — and she was, and is, a great doctor.
Of course, I was always somewhat cognizant that there were different doctors in this SouthCoast medical practice, and that one of said doctors there did stuff like tummy tucks. But I had completely tuned out the fact that he also specializes in a kind of surgical mumbo jumbo that defies all womanly self-respect.
We're talking "vaginal rejuvenation," "labiaplasty," "hoodoplasty," "G-spot augmentation," and "hymenoplasty" (aka revirginization).
Yes, reviriginization. 'Cause who doesn't want to relive their first time? Clearly, patients must be beating down the door for this one. I mean, there's no way a patient might be steered into this by someone else's warped sense of ideals, eh?
And G-spot augmentation sounds sort of be like a landscape architect saying he wants to "redesign" Area 51. You'll never find it, sir.
Although you might not expect there to be much call for such vanities in a working class area like ours, we are part of a nation that demands eternal youth and beauty of its women. So it's not just the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills who are tearing their bodies apart—though the number of accrued collagen injections are half that show's entertainment value.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons — an organization that claims more than 7,000 members — reported 13.1 million cosmetic procedures in 2010, up 5 percent from the year before. And guess what? Women comprised a whopping 91 percent. So it makes sense that you'd move from one woman-patient-dominated field to another: gynecology.
Taking this savvy business scheme and running with it, cosmetic gynecology has predictably grown. In 2009, CNN Health reported a surge in the number of regular doctors (particularly ob-gyns) adding cosmetic surgery to their bag of tricks.
The six-year-old American Academy of Cosmetic Gynecologists has "more than 1,800 members" according to its website, and will hold its annual conference in Arizona this year, around the same time and around the same place as the sixth annual conference of the Congress on Aesthetic Vaginal Surgery.
Describing last year's conference, in The Atlantic's June issue this year, novelist Marie Myung-Ok Lee, a guest lecturer at Brown University, wrote: "Attendance at the conference has been increasing by about 20 percent each year — one doctor there explained that his services are in such demand, he has multiple operating rooms so he can move quickly from one surgery to the next."
There are arguably good reasons for aesthetic alterations. Think of transgender individuals, who use surgery as a way to transition to the gender they identify with. Think of women who get their breasts reduced because of unmanageable back pain.
And wagging a finger at Botox and breast implants is a silly activity as long as our society expects women to look like they're 15 at age 89. I get it.
But seriously. There's apparently a procedure out there called "The Barbie," which gives a woman the same "smooth" look as that sexless doll. And that horrifies me.
As it turns out, it horrifies a good number of ob-gyns, too. Back in 2007, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists blasted cosmetic gynecology in their September issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, saying, "It is deceptive to give the impression that any of these procedures are accepted and routine surgical practices."
Moreover, they warned that cosmetic gynecology carries with it "potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia (pain), adhesions, and scarring."
In other words, there's a big distinction between necessary surgery that repairs the damage of destructive and violent acts on a woman's body... and surgery that'll supposedly make you look like a centerfold in "Hustler."
Bottom line is, the one place I don't expect to be pressured in a manner akin to the supermarket checkout line magazine rack is in a doctor's office. I let go a wistful sigh for my ob-gyn in college, with her depressingly bare, gray walls and pamphlets on syphilis and teen pregnancy. Those were the days!
"The problem is that these surgeries are marketed as ways to enhance the appearance of female genitalia or enhance sexual gratification ... as (in) you're taking the tissue and fixing it and enhancing it. And that assumes there's something wrong with it," says Christian Pope, a locally practicing ob-gyn and women's health columnist for the Standard-Times.
When patients ask Dr. Pope if he offers cosmetic enhancement procedures — a trend he says has increased over the last 3-4 years — he sits down with the patient to find out exactly why she's asking. Usually, "patient concerns regarding her appearance can be alleviated by pretty much a frank discussion about the wide range of normal," he says.
And that's just it. Neither a doctor — nor the decor of a doctor's office — should tell me that I can be "more natural" than my natural state.
Alexis Hauk is a staff writer at The Standard-Times. Contact her at ahauk@s-t.com
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110918/LIFE/109180311/-1/ENTERTAIN
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