Designer vaginas

Gynecological surgery isn't just for medical reasons anymore; some women say it enhances sexual pleasure.

By Debra Ollivier

Nov 14, 2000 | For as long as she can remember, Jill wanted a different vagina. Not only was her labia minora slightly larger than her labia majora ("I'd see women in locker rooms and in magazines and be jealous," she says); after two children she also had serious incontinence problems.

"My vagina had that 'flippy-floppy' feeling. I could barely feel anything. Sex was just not the same." Then a friend of hers saw an ad for Dr. David Matlock and his Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation clinic in Los Angeles. "My friend said, 'Hey Jill, you could do this!' It was meant as a joke. I found Matlock's number on the Net and was in his office within a week."

Jill, a Manhattan lawyer, had two of Matlock's trademark surgeries: Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation (LVR) to tighten her vagina and "enhance sexual gratification" and Designer Laser Vaginoplasty (DLV) to "aesthetically modify" her labia.

She calls her transformation "a miracle," and she is not alone in her enthusiasm. High above Sunset Boulevard, in Matlock's plush, 5,000-square-foot office, vaginas are being redesigned, labia modified, vulvae reconfigured. The women spreading their legs, exposing their personal secrets to the antiseptic trimmings and surgical prunings of a trusty laser are ad hoc pioneers in a rapidly growing industry. But is LVR truly a way of enhancing sexual gratification or simply a way of selling gynecological surgery while pushing the perfect vagina? With the reasons for LVR and DLV as diverse as the vaginas themselves, the answers are not so cut-and-dried.

Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation began as a modification of a traditional gynecological vaginal surgery for stress urinary incontinence. The procedure, which has been a standard gynecological surgery for decades, involves the tightening of the vaginal muscles and support tissues, as well as the reduction of redundant vaginal mucosa (relaxed vaginal lining). By reconstructing the "optimum structural architecture" of the vagina -- namely, by reconstructing the outer third of the vagina: the orgasmic platform, internal and external vaginal diameter (introitus) and the perineal body -- Matlock claims that women not only are relieved of incontinence, but they also enjoy increased levels of sexual gratification.

The connection between vaginal tightness and sexual gratification allegedly became apparent to Matlock 12 years ago when a woman came into his office with extreme stress urinary incontinence after the birth of four children. Matlock recalls her phone call weeks after the surgery. "She called back and said, 'Doctor, guess what? Since I've had the procedure sex is great. My husband says he has the same wife, but a new woman.' And I said, 'OK.' I just put that in the back of my mind."

Next Page: His ad featured women writhing in orgasmic delight

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