Best Sex Writing 2010 (4 page)

In the second part of their study published in
Evolution & Human Behavior,
Gallup administered a series of survey questions to college-age students about their sexual history. These questions were meant to determine whether penile behavior (my term, not theirs) could be predicted based on the men’s suspicion of infidelity in their partners. In the first of these anonymous questionnaires, both men and women reported that, in the wake of allegations of female cheating, men thrust deeper and faster. Results from a second questionnaire revealed that, upon first being sexually reunited after time apart, couples engaged in more vigorous sex—namely, compared to baseline sexual activity where couples see each other more regularly, vaginal intercourse following periods of separation involves deeper and quicker thrusting. Hopefully
you’re thinking as an evolutionary psychologist at this point and can infer what these survey data mean: by using their penises proficiently as a semen displacement device, men are subconsciously (in some cases consciously) combating the possibility that their partners have had sex with another man in their absence. The really beautiful thing about evolutionary psychology is that you don’t have to believe it’s true for it to work precisely this way. Natural selection doesn’t much mind if you favor an alternative explanation for why you get so randy upon being reunited with your partner. Your penis will go about its business of displacing sperm regardless.

There are many other related hypotheses that can be derived from the semen displacement theory. In their 2004
Evolutionary Psychology
piece, for example, Gallup and Burch expound on a number of fascinating spin-off ideas. For example, one obvious criticism of the semen displacement theory is that men would essentially disadvantage their own reproductive success by removing their own sperm cells from their sexual partner. However, in your own sex life, you’ve probably noticed the “refractory period” immediately following ejaculation, during which males almost instantly lose their tumescence (the erection deflates to half its full size within one minute of ejaculating), their penises become rather hypersensitive and further thrusting even turns somewhat unpleasant. In fact, for anywhere between thirty minutes to twenty-four hours, men are rendered temporarily impotent following ejaculation. According to Gallup and Burch, these post-ejaculatory features, in addition to the common “sedation” effect of orgasm, may be adaptations to the problem of “self-semen displacement.”

Gallup and Burch also leave us with a very intriguing hypothetical question. “Is it possible (short of artificial insemination),”
they ask, “for a woman to become pregnant by a man she never had sex with? We think the answer is ‘yes.’” It’s a tricky run to wrap your head around, but basically Gallup and Burch say that semen displacement theory predicts that this is possible in the following way. I’ve taken the liberty of editing this for clarity. Also note that the scenario is especially relevant to uncircumcised men.

It’s not exactly an immaculate conception. But just imagine the look on Maury Povich’s face.

 

 

This past November, two women wearing giant plush vulva costumes were shouting on a street corner in New York City. But they weren’t trying to reel in tourists; these vulvas had a purpose. They were standing in front of the Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery, performing a short play entitled
Dr. Interest-Free Financing and the Two Vulvas,
part of a creative, eye-catching protest against vaginal cosmetic surgery. There was even a brief cameo from a giant pair of scissors.

Fifteen years ago, “The Designer Vagina” would simply have been a good name for a band. Now, vaginal cosmetic surgery is the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure in the U.K. While there are still only about a thousand surgeries done each year in the U.S., there was a 30 percent increase in 2005 alone. The numbers could actually be even higher, but data is still scarce. More and more women are opting to have their labia snipped off and
“sculpted” through labiaplasty, or their vaginas stitched smaller and tighter with vaginal rejuvenation. These women are of all ages, many in their early twenties. Even scarier, some surgeons have conducted consultations with patients as young as fifteen.

What the hell is going on here? Who are these women, and what is pushing them to the extreme of slicing up their lady flower? As with anything involving our sexuality, the answer is complex, and a number of factors are at play. But the most common reason women give for wanting labiaplasty is, of course, cosmetic. Simply put, they want a “prettier” vagina. (And yes, I know the vagina is actually only the interior tract, but I’m using the word in the colloquial sense.) We live in the age of the Britney vadge flash, thongs, Brazilian waxes, and “sexting.” With that much crotch on display, it’s not surprising that the concept of an “ideal vagina” has emerged. But what exactly is it? When asked to describe such a thing, many of us would probably be at a loss. One that shoots out gold coins? Or can whistle Prince on cue?

Some women are quite clear on what makes for a perfect vagina—they believe it can be found in porn and bring centerfolds to their surgeons for reference. As the website for the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Manhattan proclaims: “Many people have asked us for an example of an aesthetically pleasing vagina. We went to our patients for the answer, and they said the playmates of
Playboy.
” Other docs concur that porn is the gold standard. Gary Alter is a Beverly Hills–based surgeon who has perfected his own “After Labia Minora Contouring Technique.” He says, “The widespread viewing of pornographic photos and videos has lead to a marked rise in female genital cosmetic surgery. Women are more aware of differences in genital appearance, so they wish to achieve their perceived aesthetic ideal.”

Viewing vaginas in porn as “the ideal,” however, poses a
number of problems. For starters, the majority of mainstream porn magazines and videos show only one very specific type of crotch—the perfect pink clam. Women with large or asymmetrical inner labia don’t get a lot of room or airtime. (Interestingly enough, this doesn’t always have to do with aesthetics. Sometimes it’s a question of censorship laws—inner labia are deemed more “provocative,” and by not showing them, a mag can get a “softer” rating.
Playboy
is known for tucking in or airbrushing away labia.) So actually, Dr. Alter, women are not so aware of differences in genital appearance. While lesbians are probably a bit more informed, many women aren’t familiar with the look of regular, everyday vaginas, which come in an endless range of shapes and sizes. If you’re straight, it’s very likely your vadge knowledge is limited to a squat with a hand mirror, or Jenna Jameson. Maybe you also had a diagrammed health-book drawing to stare at or a gym teacher who drew a crooked vulva on the blackboard. But Coach Sartini certainly never barked at me, “And by the way, Gohmann, there are all kinds of labes out there! Long ones, hidden ones, asymmetrical ones, all kinds! Got that?”

The vagina has long been shrouded in mystery and shame for many women. Thankfully, Eve Ensler’s
The Vagina Monologues
did a lot to break our culture’s vadge code of silence. As she so eloquently remarks in the play’s opening: “There’s so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them—like the Bermuda Triangle. Nobody ever reports back from there.” Sadly it appears we’re still doing a pretty crappy job of reporting back if some women are using
Barely Legal
as a gauge for what is “ideal.” But if some women believe that’s what men find attractive, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to be “hot.”

However, through the course of my research, I encountered, time and again, men who say they really “do not care” what a
woman’s vadge looks like. The general sentiment seemed to be that any vagina is a good vagina. Obviously, some men must care, or there would be more diversity in porn. But has their preference been programmed by porn, or vice versa? Personally, I think any man who calls a vagina “ugly” needs to be handed a photo of his testicles and sent packing, but unfortunately, not everyone feels this way.

Yet not all women are getting labiaplasty for men. Or at least, so they claim. I spoke with Melissa, a bright and bubbly twenty-four-year-old from California, who carefully researched her labiaplasty and breast implants, which she had done on the same day. Melissa was not only adamant that she wasn’t doing it “for a man,” but she also seemed rather insulted by the idea: “I don’t care if men like my nail polish color, and I certainly don’t care if men like my vision of an ideal vagina.” Melissa insists her desire for surgery mainly had to do with physical discomfort. Though she’s completely healthy with perfectly normal anatomy, Melissa’s labia were causing her pain—another major reason women list for getting labiaplasty. Some women with bigger labia say they become sore from too much time on the exercise bike, they feel tender after sex, or that certain underwear “doesn’t fit right.” While these problems are pretty universal for women, long labes or not, some feel it’s worthy of surgical intervention. In Melissa’s case, her labia were interfering with her passion for horseback riding. But she also admits to being a “perfectionist,” and after she made up her mind to get the surgery, she wanted to “look stellar down there.” She scanned porn sites to find the right “look,” then trolled before-and-after albums at cosmetic-surgery sites like
MakeMeHeal.com
. She found only a few “after” shots that suited her, and expressed surprise that “most people wanted their doctor to leave more labia than I even had to begin with!” Melissa
ultimately ended up getting what is known as “the Barbie Doll look,” or “the youth/preteen look”: she had all of her inner labia removed.

Plastic surgeon John Di Saia asserts that these surgeries are helpful to women and believes the practice has merely been sensationalized in the media. He used to do about three labiaplasties a month, but in the current economy, he performs less than a dozen a year. (Wow. This really is like the Great Depression. Who will pen our
Labes of Wrath?
) In an email interview, I asked him about the validity of labia interfering with women’s exercise, and he responded, “Some patients cannot wear tight clothing because of the discomfort. That is not normal.” But he then went on to say, “In borderline cases, you may have a point, as each patient justifies her decision differently. Some women just don’t like the way their Labiae [
sic
] look. They want them looking tighter, smaller, and frequently more oval-shaped.”

It would seem that when “physical problems” are cited as reasoning for surgery, they are often closely intertwined with the cosmetic. And when those problems have to do with sexual dysfunction, the line between the physical and the cosmetic becomes even more blurred. In 2004, Dr. Laura Berman, director of the Berman Center (a treatment clinic for female sexual dysfunction) completed a study on the relationship between women’s genital self-mage and their sexual function. She surveyed 2,206 women and, not surprisingly, found that the way you feel about your vadge plays a huge part in how much you enjoy sex. But rather than helping women deal with dysfunction by teaching them about their bodies and working toward overcoming esteem issues, our cultural response is to offer surgery as the solution. Doctors will simply trim away your “ugly” bits.

“It’s promoted with claims of increased sexual pleasure,
increased self-confidence, and a ‘better’ aesthetic appearance. These are seductive and sound good—who wouldn’t want better self-esteem or a better sex life?” says Virginia Braun, a psychologist and senior lecturer in psychology at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. She has been studying female genital cosmetic surgery since 2002. She points out that the claims these surgeons make “are not evidence-based, although they are presented as if they were facts—what will happen to you if you have the surgery.” So despite there being no real evidence (a formal medical study has never been done), many surgeons are loudly proclaiming the surgeries as a cure for your bedroom woes. The tricky thing is that in some cases, it’s true. But this is where the snake starts to swallow its tail. Dr. Di Saia himself probably explains it best: “Sexual response is frequently increased, but I think this has to do with comfort. Women tend to have a much more cerebral experience with sex than men do. Self-consciousness or worry of pain can stop things in their tracks, and nobody wants that.” I think we can all agree that women have a more cerebral response to sex. But that seems to be the crux of the problem. Women are slicing off parts of their sex organs in the hopes of having better sex. Before we raise the scalpels, it seems going to the source—the cerebrum—would be a much better option.

Unfortunately, that’s not nearly as easy as a one-hour outpatient procedure performed under local anesthesia. A root canal takes longer! A simple Google search offers a slew of websites promising the “solution” to your vagina problems, whether your sex life sucks, you’re training for the Tour de France, or you’re convinced your vagina is straight out of “Cloverfield.” Many of the sites look like they’re advertising a relaxing spa treatment, not a procedure that ends in dissolvable stitches. They call the surgery “empowering!” And something you can “do for yourself!”
LabiaplastySurgeon.com
explains that the surgery is a good choice for “women who are experiencing sexual dysfunction, embarrassment, or pain because their labia minora are oversized or asymmetrical.” It states surgery is also for “women who dislike their large labia or shape of their labia, which may cause inelegance or awkwardness with a sexual partner.” That’s right, ladies! Dr. Bernard Stern wants to save you and your big, floppy labia from an inelegant moment in the bedroom. Extra helpful are the sites’s many before and after photos. On the left is a perfectly normal vulva; on the right is the same vulva, now trimmed of all that inelegant, nerve-filled tissue that can greatly contribute to a woman’s sexual pleasure. If you still aren’t sold, check out the loads of online “success” stories from past patients who make the surgery sound as easy as a belly piercing. And almost every doctor offers a “free consultation!”