A Brazilian integrative review study recently published in the Brazilian Journal of Human Sexuality suggests that Negative Genital Self-Image (AIGN) is a risk factor for sexual dysfunction in women and that younger women with little or no sexual activity and who report dissatisfaction with the own body are the most affected in their sexual satisfaction.
One of the surveys that entered the review, for example, concluded that genital dissatisfaction is negatively correlated with genital frequency and that women with AIGN were less likely to engage in receptive genital sex.
Negative genital self-image is understood as the person’s perception of their genitals and the feelings generated therefrom, which can be positive or negative, extracted through questions about how well the woman feels about her genitals and how “shameful” she feels. or “proud” of them, comfortable in letting the partner look at their genitals and in being in front of a health professional to examine them.
Responses about odor (I think my genitals smell good) and “genital function” (I think my genitals work as they should) also interfere with genital self-image.
Brazil is leader in intimate surgery
It is already known that Brazil is one of the leaders in the world ranking of surgical procedures for intimate aesthetics, with skin flaccidity, the size and shape of the vaginal lips being the ones that cause the greatest dissatisfaction.
The curious thing is to see that the vulva, like the nose, has a particular aspect in each person and that, therefore, there is no natural genital model that can be considered by science as “perfect”, more or less beautiful. What matters is the functionality of the organ, that is, how it responds and processes sexual stimuli, sexual interest/arousal and orgasm.
But yes, if the negative emotional perception about the vulva influences the ability to surrender to the sexual experience, some aesthetic procedures can benefit those who have AIGN. The problem, in my view, is the little freedom that people with a vulva have, even more so when they are young, to evaluate their genitalia positively, in the face of genital patterns constantly shown in pornographic films, with clear vulvas and symmetrical lips.
In this sense, the natural insecurity in the face of the evaluation of the body and sexual performance that we all present before the partnership finds a part of the anatomy to represent it.
So it’s not my emotional insecurity about pleasing, being accepted and ‘well evaluated’ by the other person that I have to face, but the color of my labia.
This phenomenon is even stronger in young people, who are asserting their identity. In this sense, it is quite possible that a surgical intervention works more as a kind of temporary makeup and that other parts of the body are chosen later to represent the conflict.
If we think that women’s bodies face restrictions in the expression of their sexuality, whether as a desiring and desired “object” and that aesthetic and behavioral standards were mostly defined by men (those who ruled the world in the religious segments, in medicine, in politics , and in the pornographic industry), it is not surprising that the distortion of genital self-image of people with vulva is enormous, which certainly has negative effects on the healthy experience of sex.
genital diversity
We should also ask those who are interested in problematizing the appearance of the female genitalia, in order to expand the “massive offer of aesthetic, cosmetic and beauty products and services in search of the perfect body”.
Fortunately, there is an important social movement in favor of the freedom of the female body, with the aim of also revealing genital diversity. The great Mural da Vagina, with 400 different models of vulvas carved in plaster, taken directly from women volunteers, exposed for the first time in 2011, inspired a series of people, from artists to health professionals, to approach the theme in order to naturalize genital diversity.
On Instagram there are several profiles dedicated to the subject, such as @vulvacasting, @thisisavulva, @the.vulva.gallery, @vulvarias.
Currently, there are even those who prefer to adopt the terms “inner and outer lips”, instead of small and large lips, precisely so as not to emphasize the sense of proportion.
We all walk the path of bodily acceptance; cosmetic surgeries and procedures need to be well accommodated in the face of their real meanings so that they make any sense.
