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In late April, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidelines for doctors chatting with teens about labiaplasty surgery. This wasn’t just a routine update: ACOG’s announcement came on the heels of an observed uptick in labiaplasties performed on adolescents, with 400 minors receiving the surgery in 2015, up from 222 the year before.
Not surprisingly, the media seized on the story, with many outlets eager to find a source to blame for the supposed trend in teen labiaplasties. Just as unsurprisingly? A number of members of the press quickly announced that the obvious villain here was porn. As Slate surmised in a piece on the story, young women everywhere are developing ideas about normal labia based on those depicted in porn, "which are often already surgically modified or chosen for their slight, monochrome appearance."
There’s just one small problem with that reasoning: It’s not based in anything even remotely resembling fact. As the former editor of Fleshbot, I spent over seven years covering the mainstream porn industry — and, as part of that work, I watched a heck of a lot of porn. And with that expertise, I can say with great certainty there’s no one specific style of labia that’s heavily featured in porn. Frankly, hardcore porn is often a bevy of labial diversity — particularly when compared to, say, a source like WebMD.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. I reached out to a number of popular, celebrated porn stars — many of whom direct as well — to find out what kind of labia they tend to see in porn, what directors look for in a performer’s vagina, and, of course, whether their own labia meet the labiaplasty standards that supposedly run rampant in porn.
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