Posted on 01/11/2006 6:32:06 AM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON — Forget Botox, liposuction or breast enlargement. The newest trend in plastic surgery for women in the United States is vaginal reconstruction, including hymenoplasty, which offers patients new virginity.
The procedure has become so popular that it has topped the other more conventional surgeries such as face-lifts and breast enlargement.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says that vaginal surgery is one of the fastest growing trends in plastic surgery. In fact, as many as 30,000 women are said to opt for vaginal reconstruction yearly.
The procedure, also known as "revirgination", is being hawked in magazines, the Internet or on radio stations as a way for women to improve their sex life or enjoy a second honeymoon.
Ms Jeanette Yarborough, a medical assistant from San Antonio, Texas, said she decided to undergo hymenoplasty, which involves reattaching the hymen, as a special gift for her husband.
"I wasn't a virgin when we got married and I thought: What better gift to give my husband than revirgination?" the 40-year-old mother of four told AFP. "It was a real sentimental gift, it was something I could recreate for him and he was thrilled. He was like, 'Yeah, it was worth every penny'," she said.
Though long popular among women in the Middle East and Latin America, where being chaste is important on one's wedding night, hymenoplasty is experiencing new-found popularity among women in the US.
One clinic boasts on its Internet site that its practitioners "can repair the hymen as if nothing occurred". Many who undergo the procedure, which costs between US$1,800 ($2,900) and US$5,000, also ask that their vaginas be tightened, doctors say.
Ms Esmeralda Vanegas, owner of the Ridgewood Health and Beauty Center in New York, said business was booming with about five hymenoplasties performed every month.
"Hymenoplasty is for women who want to please their husband or their lover and they know that he wants to experience intercourse with a virgin," she said.
Ms Mary Blum, author of Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, expressed concern at the fact that such surgery was becoming part of mainstream America and was being marketed as a way to gain self-esteem or as part of the country's obsession with self-improvement.
"With hymenoplasty, one of the obvious problems is you're pretending nothing happened before," she told AFP. "It falls under the heading of rejuvenation, pretending your body has no history, so now it has no sexual history."
She added that such procedures were gaining in popularity in part because they were made affordable for the masses and were being touted as a consumer product rather than as invasive — and potentially dangerous — surgery.
"It's in the domain of 'Will I take a trip, buy a new car or get a hymenoplasty?'" she said.
Ms Blum said women like Ms Yarborough could probably make their husbands just as happy with a much cheaper and less medically-intrusive option. "She could have gotten him an inflatable doll," she said. — AGENCIES
We all have to fill our time somehow ...
Brings to mind a quote by some Hollywood producer who said that he knew Doris Day before she became a virgin.
Sounds to me with 10 pregnancies...he's pretty happy with that body of yours...hence the pregnancies ;-)
Revirgination has only one purpose__to fool the new husband into thinking he is the first.
Give Paris Hilton a new Hymen and she is still a rich whore.
That's the impression I get, too.
I'm just amazed that there are men out there who would want their wife to go through surgery in order to repeat a miserable experience, whether she was miserable with him the first time, or somebody else. It's creepy, like saying, "When I have the 8th baby, I want it to be just as awful as the first delivery!"
Just looked at your profile page, your kids are beautiful! And good luck in a few weeks! ;-)
He was surigcally having a new hand attached.
I thought you had to go to the Virgin Islands to get recycled?
Hmmpf. Reminds me of the guy I knew a few years ago, who's name, and I'm not kidding here - was "Hymen Tanner".
Ahh, it looks there's another surgery that'll solve everything. Granted that women that have had vaginal birth (or just plain big vaginas) could use a little tightening (especially since men are getting smaller), but there are other ways besides surgery. Re-attaching the hymen is just dumb. I can't figure that out at all. "Hey honey I've spent thousands to make our wedding night a bloody mess. Isn't that great?"
Fake virtue- great. It's a shame that in our culture, being chaste until one's wedding night is no longer as important as it it is "less enlightened" countries.
What the hell is wrong with people???
Thanks - I'm counting the days, as you can see from the tagline :-).
Hehe - how are you at unringing bells?
Or one could spring for both the home theatre system and a tummy tuck, like I just did. I'm loving both. :)
The idea behind this ISN'T abstinence, purity or gift to first husband. The idea behind this is a LIE, to FOOL men, PRETENSE.
Very sad to my way of thinking.
I've been Revirginated against my will.
"What did the husband who had to go a few weeks without any while the stitches were healing have to say?"
He was in the bathroom, unavailable for comment.
How many women have pictures of that area from when they were 18 so that they know when it's time for them to have it done?
"I'm just amazed that there are men out there who would want their wife to go through surgery in order to repeat a miserable experience, whether she was miserable with him the first time, or somebody else. It's creepy,"
I'm a man and I agree that it's creepy.
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