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
Can't let the women have all the fun!
A guy I used to know in Richmond, who owns a car dealership, is named "Buster Hymen."
You can't make this stuff up.
5.56mm
Kinda like closing the barn door after the horse is in the pasture if you asked me.....
8^)
5.56mm
Well actually, due to the scar tissue from the surgery, what I hear is, its even worse for that second deflowering...
If you can't be honest about not being a virgin to the guy you are going to be with..... because you fear him leaving you or something... he's probably not the one for you anyway.
I suspsect reasons like this are why the surgery was first developed.. but you know bring it to the states, and we'll find a bigger better way to use it for selfish deception.
In typical post-modern fashion, the focus is on the form rather than the substance. While it may be possible to "repair" the hymen, that in itself does not define "virginity." Whether the hymen is intact or not, if the woman has had intercourse, she is no longer a virgin. She can lie -- with the corroboration of the (vanity) medical establishment -- and assert that her chastity is complete. But she only gets to lose her virginity once.
LOL I don't remember that one!
susie
And don't eeeeven get me started on the feminized male market. :)
I guess you haven't seen "Dr. 90210" on E! television. I saw a woman take her teenage daughter in for labia trimming so she would feel more confident about her "appearance."
SD
Wow, and I thought 3 pregnancies did a number on me! But, strangely my husband still chases me around the house. Clearly after 40 ones eyesight goes!
susie
Now sixth grade teachers can give their students a proper sex education
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