‘Twas a few weeks before Christmas, and all through East Van, this creature was stirring, dreading her decision to “be home for Christmas”.  My usually non-conformist sleeping schedule was growing ever more unpredictable, and one morning I woke up, for the second, third, maybe even fourth time, as these matters often proceed, and found myself staring at a living, breathing “Ken Doll” – only something had gone very wrong – the child who last played with him had drawn on a new hairstyle, and eyebrows to match, outlined his eyes in dark brown, and used mom’s red lipstick achieving, intentional or not, a clown kind of effect.  Indeed, it was Ken’s gay friend, Gary, but something went wrong as he was getting ready to do drag – as all gay men must do drag  – and he had become “Clown Queen”.  Only this dude was <squint…look for fallen glasses> – indeed, absolutely not a doll but a real boy man, and was very serious about his “look”, not painted on by a small child at all, but crafted with the help of one Doctor Chugay.  Here’s a clip of the television broadcast I saw.  Watch at your own risk!

Chugay, who sat in the audience, looked quite odd – that is to say, absolutely unnatural, obviously due to far too many nips and tucks and sucks and snips (did he do his own work?  ) – and his “resumé”, that he proudly picked items from to share with the “world” (of Dr. Phil viewers…including me   ) suggested that his interpretation of the world at large was markedly delusional, as he triumphantly claimed credit for “Michael Jackson’s cleft chin and nose“.  His ability to uphold the ol’ Hypocritic Hippocratic Oath seemed to have, if it ever existed, disappeared in between Jackson’s nose and his wallet, as he stated, with the biggest smile his botox-filled face was capable of making, that he would absolutely perform additional procedures on his patient – the Clown Queen sitting on stage with Phil, who had already subjected himself to nearly 200 procedures, all of them elective (that is, none were performed due to disfigurement after an accident, attack, etc.  ).  It is fairly common knowledge that plastic surgeons who have some degree of care about the well-being of their patients take into consideration a psychological examination each potential client, ensuring that they do not believe that after a _____plasty they will be absolved of all worldly troubles.  It was clear the Queen would never be cleared for surgery by such surgeons.  Yikes.  The twenty minutes spent in Dr. Phil/Chugay-land was no night terror (I recently had started my Effexor taper), but it was pretty scary.

So I did what any bored Gen-Xer in today’s society – the “Information Age”, characterized by voyeurism, both aspects largely facilitated by the Internet – would do.  I “Googled” (despite the addition of the word “Google” to Webster’s dictionary a few years back, and its status as one of the newest verbs in the English language, I cannot quite accept this yet, thus I will continue to enclose it in “scare quotes” until I do) “Dr. Chugay”.

The results were quite disturbing, as it seems that not only has Chugay had a significant impact on plastic surgery, being the founder of many procedures that are “controversial” at best, and downright frightening at best in their implications for society, class, and perceptions of “beauty”, but he has purchased a good chunk of the Internet.  The first several pages of results led me right back to his site, www.drchugay.com, the first result that came up, only to a page on a different one of his “revolutionary” procedures.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a statistician, but I think I am probably correct in assuming that the order in which the list of procedures came up, both on the results pages of my Google search, as well as on his own website (as they proved to be almost identical in order), are directly correlated to their popularity.  Of the top five procedures, four were breast-related.  Three of these were concerned with different kinds of augmentation, and reduction was also included.  The other item that took second place, and was heavily advertised among search results, were one of Chugay’s own inventions: bicep implants.

That’s right – why on Earth would anyone spend hours slaving away at the gym to develop one’s biceps (or other muscles, as Chugay offers implants to disguise a meek physique as one of a bodybuilder that may be put almost anywhere in the body – buttock implants are also up there on the scale of popularity) when, instead, for a few thousand dollars, one can simply have a doctor slice open one’s upper arms and insert implants that give the illusion of having spent hours at the gym, slowly developing those biceps, perhaps over the course of two years or more, until they were so defined that they could be seen popping out of ones size-too-small Calvin Klein basic Tee (shirt).

Only the health benefits of working out at the gym, such as strengthening one’s heart muscle to avoid heart disease, as well as one’s “core” or torso, which has been said to have countless benefits not yet entirely understood, but that individuals with strong core musculature live for an average of ten years longer than those that have weaker cores.  The psychological benefits of exercise are immense as well – not only is physical exertion a way to naturally increase dopamine and serotonin, the “happy” neurotransmitters that are quantitatively increased by both antidepressants and illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin, causing a qualitative sensation of contentedness for the individual that ingests such substances (of course, as both the legal pharmaceuticals and their illegal counterparts are addictive, additional and higher doses are required to maintain the same effect, while natural ways of increasing the neurotransmission of such chemicals do not require ever-more exercise, or eating more and more of a food with vitamins associated with dopamine or serotonin production – quite the conundrum, no?  ), never mind the feeling of accomplishment and increased self-esteem that goes along with meeting one’s goals at the gym, the joyful realization that one’s abilities re: endurance are far greater than one imagined… I could go on and on, but these are some of the benefits that I experienced when I began working out nearly every day (something I have not done for about two years now, but plan to resume).  Last, but certainly not least, exercise is a wonderful way to get off of psychiatric medication – after working out on a daily basis for two years, I was able to drop the antipsychotic medications that had slowed me down and altered my judgment for five years.  I felt more alive than I had for a long time when I arrived in Vancouver, antipsychotic free, and could do the Stanley Park Seawall course in 40 minutes on a pair of rollerblades I bought for $20 on craigslist (new to Vancouver?  Craigslist is HUGE here, and a great way to make a little extra cash when needed, or get great deals on gently used items).

I digress slightly, but Dr. Chugay’s “muscle implants”, or fake muscle implants, to be more blunt and more accurate, suggest a brave new world where those who can afford plastic surgery form a new class of “beautiful people”, but one based solely on illusions.  Furthermore, he is responsible for the normalization of beauty – the creation of a world, a microcosm of which can already be seen in areas of California like Beverley Hills, where his office is “conincidentally” located, where what I think is beautiful, namely the idiosyncratic differences between individuals, have been largely erased as more and more women (and men) strive to attain hegemonic “beauty” – to put it a different way, they strive to look like other “beautiful people” look like, and individual quirks like freckles or a patch of white hair amongst one’s otherwise brown locks, or uniquely shaped lips, become a thing of the past.  Plastic surgeons often comment that their clientele asks for “Angelina Jolie’s lips” or “Brad Pitt’s eyes”, as well as the features of other celebrities, more often than not.  Are we stepping closer and closer to a world where everyone looks the same?

I better get to the meat of what I’m attempting to say here!  Thus, I’ll skip past Dr. Chugay’s “weight loss tongue patch” – a technique he picked up from cowboy plastic surgeons in Latin America that involves sewing a patch to one’s tongue that prevents one from being able to swallow food – and let you read about it here if you’re interested.  On to the fastest growing type of plastic surgery among women in North America and the United Kingdom: so-called “reconstructive” genital surgery, including the labiaplasty (most in demand) that involves cutting off a great deal of the labia majora and/or minora, the clitoral hood reduction (removal of the clitoral hood, compared with male circumcision, and, the slightly more well known reconstruction of the hymen and tightening of the vagina, or vaginoplasty, a type of “reconstructive” surgery discussed that formed a plotline on Sex and the City, as well as a topic that has gained media attention as young Muslim brides, terrified of the consequences for being found not to be virginal after arranged marriages, are seeking this surgery in greater and greater numbers.  The value placed on virgins – well, female ones, anyhow – is absurd in my humble opinion, but I would like to now examine the less publicly discussed, yet even more popular, female-genital plastic surgeries.  Namely, the labiaplasty.

At the bottom of Chugay’s main (index) website page, five categories of surgery that he and his team offer are listed.  At the far right end of this footer, “reconstructive surgery” is listed.  Before reading the line below this header, I thought that perhaps Chugay was not, after all, solely interested in procedures that are elective (not medically necessary) and their results merely aesthetic in purpose.  Then, I read the next line, describing the types of “reconstructive surgery” offered by Chugay: “labiaplasty and vaginoplasty”.  I spent the next several hours in a world I had no previous knowledge of – one where countless women are having their labia majora/and or minora cut off, claiming that these procedures have a hugely positive impact on their lives.

However, are the women, who claim that their lives are greatly improved after surgery, more happy with their bodies and lives because the surgery benefits them (for example, by increasing pleasure during sex), or because they feel that they are, post-op, more sexually desirable to men, as their genitalia conform to images, propagated largely through pornography, that men have been socialized to consider more attractive than vaginas that do not look like those of porn stars and centerfolds?  If this is the case, are women really the ones who need to change – to go through incredibly painful surgery so that their most intimate parts trade their uniqueness for conformity to an unrealistic social standard – or do men need to change: to be educated about the difference between fantasy and reality, and the very large discrepancies between what may be “normal” in pornographic films, compared with what is “normal” during real sex – intimate relations in the real world.

I have mentioned before that when I asked a third year undergraduate class on the Sociology of Sexuality how many male students would say that they learned about sex via pornographic films, the response was a unanimous confirmation that this was, indeed, how they learned about how to have sex, and what was to be expected in the bedroom.  I was quite disillusioned, though it cast light upon the reasons why, during my heterosexual dating career, most men I entered serious enough relationships to go “all the way” seemed to expect me to perform very similar to a porn star in the bedroom.  When I did not get pissed off enough to put my clothes back on and leave, I felt incredibly unfulfilled – the focus in North American pornography is almost strictly on male pleasure, and though I’ve always been a rather sexual individual, I never emerged from these romps in the sack feeling at all satisfied.  Never once did I reach orgasm.

In The Perfect Vagina (available in full for your viewing pleasure, and highly recommended by me, at the end of this paragraph), BBC reporter Lisa Rogers explores labiaplasty, and gains access to two young women: one who has a labiaplasty (her main reason being to put an end to taunting from peers, the majority of them male, that she has been subject to since puberty, strictly due to the fact that her labia are a little larger than those of other girls, and women in pornographic films, no doubt) and one who changes her mind about going through with the surgery, after discussions with Rogers and a kind of “love your vagina, just the way it is!” seminar that both women attend. (remember to press the stop button on the miniplayer on the upper-right hand side to stop the music while you’re watching the documentary, if you so wish!  )

The labiaplasty, and penile impants (also offered by Chugay), are the first kinds of plastic surgery that are performed on body parts that are not seen when one steps out into the world.  While a woman may have breast augmentation or reduction surgery to improve her self-image when stepping out into the world every day, the results of the labiaplasty are seen by few – assumedly only by the woman who has had the surgery, and her current/future intimate partners.

That day that I spent “researching” labiaplasty and other female genital plastic surgery procedures on the Internet, I spent a good couple of hours gawking at “before and after” shots of the genitals of women who had undergone labiaplasties and/or other “restorative” surgeries down there.  I became incredibly upset.  The “before” images were beautiful in their difference from one another.  Vaginas, I think, are like snowflakes – each one is slightly different, in fact they vary quite greatly in their appearances, and it is that difference that turns me on.  I find uniqueness so much more beautiful than sameness or conformity.  These pictures demonstrated that women are, through these surgical procedures, taking their one-of-a-kind vaginas, and turning them into carbon copies of what a vagina, I suppose, “is supposed to look like”, a model that I believe is distinctly correlated to the rise of pornography with the Internet over the past fifteen years or so, where vaginas tend to look like the “after” shots.

Here are some links where these photos can be viewed.  Note that they are explicit and not intended for children, though they are not at all pornographic images, but medical ones.  All surgeons that provide photos on this site, are on Chugay’s payroll, though they work in other major centres in the United States.  Here are links to some of the “before and after” shots that I find most disturbing, in that I think the “befores” show beautiful, unique body parts, while the “afters” show conformity to a stereotype – to be blunt, they look like the parts of porn actresses, and I think that, compared with the parts of real women, these are very boring-looking vaginas.  Again, this is just one woman’s opinion:

Dr. Stern, Florida and Virgina

Dr. Stanton, California

Dr. Benson, Texas

Dr. Placik, Illinois

Drs. Milkos and Moore, Georgia

Dr. Jacobson, Connecticut

Dr. Vitenas, Texas

Now, after researching labiaplasty and vaginoplasty for a few additional days, I have come to the conclusion that, in much rarer cases, the surgery may be performed with the woman’s best-interest in mind.  Women who have experienced extreme stretching of the labia after multiple pregnancies or after trauma, to the point where it causes discomfort on a regular basis when performing such simple, daily tasks as sitting down, I believe there is an exception where the surgery may, indeed, be merited.  One surgeon, a Dr. Hardwick working out of Texas, shows “before and after” pictures that seem to demonstrate surgery performed in the interest of the woman’s own comfort. However, amongst a list of twenty or so surgeon’s, each providing pictures of their work, Hardwick sticks out as the exception to the rule, the rule of women shedding their uniquely shaped labia to conform to an image propagated by pornographic films, magazines, and other images.

I have no delusions about my ability to put a stop to labiaplasties, performed for the purpose of increasing one’s desirability to men, to look for like a porn star “down there”, or to put a halt to taunting experienced during high school regarding one’s interesting, uniquely shaped vagina.  However, I can say that after high school, life changes a lot, and I encourage young women considering labiaplasty to reconsider.  Why?  Because true beauty is found in the most unique characteristics a human being has – in that little birthmark on your left shoulder, in that eye that is a little lighter than the other, in the crooked middle finger you have as a result of writing constantly during childhood.  Indeed, people and their many parts are snowflakes, and this is not something that we should erase, using a scalpel or any other tool/weapon of conformity.