Sunday, Jul 6, 2008
Later, word of mouth spread, bringing more women to Matlock's office in search of a tighter vagina not just to end incontinence, but for better sex. Some requested that, once on the surgery table, Matlock do a little cosmetic surgery as well -- a plumping up of a flaccid vulva here, a trimming back of a labium there. "I hesitated at first," says Matlock of those fledgling days, when a growing interest in sexual gratification and designer vaginas slowly brought women flocking to his office. "Then I modified my thoughts. I thought, OK."
Matlock ran his first ad in the L.A. Weekly two years ago. Amid the clutter of ads for big breasts, tight butts, large penises and iron shins, the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation ad featured a bikini-clad woman writhing in orgasmic delight. The headline read: "You Won't Believe How Good Sex Can Be!" Matlock's phones haven't stopped ringing since.
Speaking with the gusto of a moral crusader, Matlock sits in his office with a panoramic view of L.A. looming behind him. On his large, shiny desk stands a transparent plastic model of a vagina and its reproductive system. "Gynecology is a supersurgical subspecialty," he says. "We dedicate our entire professional careers to the reproductive tract. But do we ever go back and look at the things that result from labor, delivery, childbirth? There can be relaxation of that structure and thus a diminishment or a decrease in sexual gratification. Do we concern ourselves with that? No. Not at all. We only concern ourselves with obstetrics. I think there needs to be research in this area, and I'll tell you why: Women do [his emphasis] enjoy sex. Women want to enjoy sex. Women want to be able to enhance their sexuality if they can."
By marrying this type of sexual marketing rhetoric with gynecological science and cosmetic surgery, Matlock unwittingly formed a new and lucrative alliance. Today women from all over the world come to Matlock's office seeking a rehauled, resexed vagina. Like Jill, they claim phenomenal and life-changing results -- two adjectives that could very well describe what LVR and DLV have done for Matlock. Poised to launch an international franchising and licensing network, Matlock stands on the edge of a cresting wave that has already made him a millionaire several times over, generated media attention (Howard Stern has praised the man) and provoked the wrath of many in the ob/gyn community.
"I think this is a way of preying on vulnerable women," says Dr. Linda Brubaker, fellowship director of Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center. "I reconstruct vaginas all the time. I agree that the field of women's sexual functioning is a poorly studied area. But I don't buy any of what Matlock is saying. There are standard pre- and post-operative intervention tests and tools that could be applied here to substantiate his claims. Curious that Matlock has not applied any of them to his own work, nor published any scientific material relating to his work, nor subjected anything to peer review. The longer this is untested, the better for him."
Matlock makes no apologies in response to his critics. "I didn't create the market. The need was there. The market was there. I saw it. I'm serving that market." He looks out the window, a bit circumspect. "Doctors can be very vicious. They can be very, very jealous."
Brubaker brushes aside his indictment of the ob/gyn community. To those considering LVR or DLV -- two procedures that are not without their risks, among them hemorrhage, infection, loss of sensitivity, lingering pain from nerve damage -- Brubaker says simply: "Run away, run away, run away."
Apparently, a growing number of women are doing just the opposite. Consider Sherry. A 33-year-old financial consultant, Sherry went to "thousands" of gynecologists to discuss the problems with her "relaxed vagina" before going to Matlock. "Dr. Matlock was the first person who even remotely understood the situation." She describes the result of her surgery as "overwhelming -- psychologically, physically, it was just night and day. It's like being flat-chested your whole life and then finally having breasts." Here she pauses, then adds: "This is L.A. Everybody wants to be beautiful. Everybody wants to be 22 years old with big boobs. Everything can be bought and sold."
Jill also went to "a gazillion gynecologists" who dismissed her problem. Then she met Matlock. "It's a personal preference. Life is short. For women who are severely damaged, sex should still be intense and passionate." And herein lies the crux of the problem. No one would disagree that "severely damaged" women are entitled to great sex. To drive this point home, Matlock lifts up a large alarm clock from his desk. "I don't want to be gross," he says, "but I could easily put this in the vaginas of some of the women coming in here. Do you understand what I'm saying? And that's just not right." But while a staggering 30 percent of women will develop some form of pelvic floor disorder resulting in incontinence or compromise of vaginal integrity after birth, only 5 to 10 percent will be so damaged that they can easily fit a household appliance in their vaginas.
By obscuring the lines between the severely damaged and the naturally relaxed vagina, Matlock has leveled the playing fields among all women and widened the market potential for his genital landscaping. His tight-vagina hype also flagrantly misses the point. With sexual ground zero located in the clitoris, one can only wonder for whom the tight vagina truly tolls -- men or women?
Says Sherry, "You give more pleasure to a man, which affects your own sense of sexual gratification. It's not necessarily about having better orgasms. It's the way you feel as a woman." In a moment of unguarded candor, Matlock himself suggests that a tight vagina might help you keep your man from running after younger women when he leans forward and asks, "Why not have the best sex you can at home? Why not? You tell me why these 40-, 50-, 60-year-old men are running after younger women? They want these women with these nice, hot, tight --" he puts his hands out here emphatically for me to finish the sentence. "Why is that?" he persists. (Which begs another question: Is surgically modifying your vagina the answer?)
Get Salon in your mailbox!