If you have seen the Broadway show Avenue Q (or its equivalent somewhere else) , you’ll get the reference. (It’s a terrific show by the way and I highly recommend it, but it’s very explicit! As a matter of fact my 18 year old son — with whom I’ve had a number of extremely explicit conversations — said, during the play…. let’s just not talk about this afterwards, ‘Okay MOM???’) Anyhow, the play has these two characters “the bad idea bears.” They are cute, cuddly and charming and pop up whenever another character has an idea that they know in their heart of heart is NOT a good idea.

So let’s talk about vaginal reconstructive surgery. It’s getting more popular. It makes me think of the bad ideas bears. It’s a terrible idea.

What is vaginal reconstructive surgery? Pretty much what it sounds like. It is surgery that reconstructs the area in and around the vagina and vulva. Although there are (and they tend to be pretty limited) cases where surgery is really needed in those areas, most often, women elect to have surgery there as “cosmetic” surgery.

WHY????

Well, let’s see…. because women are afraid that their vulva’s and the lips around the vaginal opening look funny. I daresay, most women haven’t seen many vulvas to begin with and if they have they are probably mostly those belonging to porn stars which may be a skewed sample.

Here’s the reality. Vulvas and labial lips (inner and outer) come in all different shapes and sizes. If you want to get a good overview, buy the book Femalia (by Joanie Blank) which is up-close (tastefully done) snapshots of a whole group of real women’s vulvas. If you don’t think you can handle snapshots, get  Sex For One by Betty Dodson or The Guide to Getting It On by Joannides and they have drawings.

 Yours is just fine! Really. I don’t even need to see it to tell you that. I promise.

I have an ob/gyn friend who said that only once in her entire career of looking at labias and vulvas did she do a double take. She saw a vulva that looked so odd to her she needed to keep looking at it to orient herself. Turns out the women had had vaginal reconstructive surgery…. and they had cut the labias off. Now that was weird!

The problem with having surgery is that most often you can’t undo the surgery. You may hate the results and can end up with scarring and pain in a place where you don’t want scarring and pain!!

So do yourself a favor. Take those cute cuddly bad idea bears and steer them far away from the reconstruction of your fabulous vagina. Hey. Maybe take them to a show!