D R A M A++Q U E E N

Ever had a lover who reminded you of a humpy miniature poodle? Send your lame lover tale to Drama Queen for a Day

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T A B L E++T A L K

What do you do when you hate your obstetrician? Advise and comfort in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Leap of faith
By Jennifer New
Getting to the Promised Land with my mother-in-law
(03/13/98)

The high priestess of free love
By Suzette Lalime
Victoria Woodhull, prostitute and presidential candidate
(03/12/98)

Fat chance
By Leora Tanenbaum
A teen-book author talks about obese girls, binge-and-barf clubs and why well-meaning mothers often make things worse
(03/11/98)

Sound and sexuality
By Ros Davidson
Is lesbianism physiological?
(03/10/98)

Vanity, thy name is pukestain
By Carol Snow
There's nothing like a (fleetingly) sick kid to highlight the humiliating flexibility of your maternal code
(03/09/98)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Win
Sign up for our newsletter and win a free copy of "Birthday Letters," by Ted Hughes.

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BY LOUISA KAMPS | "Ladies, get out your hand mirrors," begins a curious press release I find on my desk one Monday morning. "Yes, it is true ... the newest trend in surgically enhanced body beautification: Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery." Many patients of Gary Alter, M.D., an aptly named Los Angeles plastic surgeon, "had been troubled for years about the appearance of their inner vaginal lips (labia minora)," the pitch goes on. But thanks to "surgical procedures designed to improve the appearance of female genitalia," Alter has found "perfect solutions to common problems; the ultimate way for women to be gorgeous absolutely everywhere."

I laugh out loud: What a joke! But then I wonder, are women really worrying about the size and shape of their labia like they do about every other body part they've cut, stretched and sculpted with plastic surgery? Although I'm assuming the letter is mostly hype, I have a niggling fear that not a few women might actually be lining up for labiaplasty. (Around my office, at least, the reaction was, "You're kidding," followed quickly by, "Wait, how do I rate?")

With increasingly baroque cosmetic surgeries becoming available every other week (cleavoplasty, for instance, plumps up the deep crevasse that can result from breast-implant surgery, using fat transplanted from the butt and elsewhere), it seems fair to ask: Who is driving this craze for ever-more-exotic plastic procedures -- feverishly insecure patients, profit-hungry doctors or some combination thereof?

At Alter's office, in the heart of the glittery Rodeo Drive shopping district in Beverly Hills, I'm leafing through People when a young man emerges from the back, waves a cheery good-bye to the nurses and walks slowly, gingerly, to the door, like an extremely saddle sore cowboy. I don't know whether Alter will give me answers, but I'm definitely in the right place to ask questions: This has to be the epicenter of the total -- and I mean total -- body overhaul.

When I take a seat across from Alter at his desk, he confesses that he's a little beat. This morning he performed five hours of liposuction in hopes of giving a male-to-female transsexual patient "a better curve to her waistline." And indeed, as he contemplates the trajectory of his career, the doctor looks weary. Because he's board certified as a plastic surgeon and as a urologist, he says patients with -- he pauses before finding the right delicate phrase -- "certain genital abnormalities" are frequently referred to him. In addition to the traditional menu of cosmetic surgeries, he reconstructs congenital defects and performs common vaginal operations, such as repairing bad episiotomies. He also does more controversial procedures such as pubic vaginal lifts -- nip-and-tuck excisions of skin from above the pubic hair said to give women's groins a more youthful, "elevated" appearance -- and penis enlargements, which other doctors say can leave men impotent.

While most gynecologists and plastic surgeons say requests for labiaplasties are rare, a few admit to performing the procedure for women whose large labia minora cause serious discomfort in tight clothing or during sex. Alter and a small but growing number of his colleagues are enthusiastic about the operation's cosmetic future. Alter tells me the technique he has invented doesn't leave much scarring on the exposed edge of the labia. He slides before-and-after Polaroids across the desk. I frown in an effort to appear serious, like some kind of crotch scholar. To me, the pre-op shots don't look markedly abnormal, considering that vulvae come in a snowflakelike spectrum (or at least they do at the "free body" beaches I've visited in Europe). Yet Alter seems convinced there's something freakish about the women. "You see how this is real large?" he says, pointing to slightly asymmetrical labia. "Her sister even made fun of her, OK?" The labia of the woman in the next photo are more elongated, but by no means strange. What strikes me in the "after" shots is the eerie similarity between the women. Pre-op, you could have picked their labia out of a lineup; now, their genitalia are carbon copies of each other.

Alter says his new service is giving women relief from what might be called "labia envy." "Some women have this feeling they're not that pretty down there," he says. "If you really think you're deformed, you're going to be less open to a sexual relationship. Before, it was the dark ages, because nobody really cared, or knew, what it looked like. But now, with Penthouse and all these magazines that show vaginas -- I mean, they really show it -- you have women, not just men, looking. And they start making aesthetic judgments." From Alter's "after" shots, it would appear that the in-look for labia is slim and straight.

N E X T+P A G E: "That's fraudulent"