Opponents of male circumcision often claim that it should be banned and use the ban on FGM as an excuse to demand “equal rights for men”.
But in reality this argument is wrong on two points:
#1 The equivalent of the male foreskin is the clitoral hood and the labia minora. Cosmetic surgery on both is legal in most developed countries, although such procedures are typically only performed on adults.
#2 Because people cannot understand the difference between these procedures and FGM, it is women who are denied the right to make changes to their bodies as they please, and they are often greeted with abuse if they request the procedure. So the argument that women somehow have more rights to make decisions about their genitals than men do is not exactly true.
Given the high satisfaction rate (≥90 percent) among labiaplasty patients, those who maintain that women complaining about their labia have been manipulated by the media may themselves be the victims of cultural biases. In 2012, Triana and Robledo stated that female genital plastic surgery faces opposition in a society that, despite its recent advances, still fails to accept women’s equality in fully expressing their sexuality. Their view is borne out by the claim that a surgeon’s openness to performing labiaplasty arises from male chauvinism and gender inequality rather than from medical indications, despite the documented benefits.
Physicians may be unaware of their own biases, which may impact their openness to either performing labiaplasty or to referring a patient elsewhere for the procedure. Reitsma et al. found that plastic surgeons were more likely than gynecologists to consider the procedure for interested patients, and male physicians, independent of specialty, were more open to labiaplasty than were their female counterparts.
Patient access to the procedure may be further restricted by physicians who believe that normal anatomy cannot result in physical distress. Labia symptoms, they assume, are the result of psychological issues, despite the general acceptance of other procedures that alter normal anatomy, such as face lift, breast augmentation, and abdominoplasty. Moran and Lee, for example, recommend that women requesting labiaplasty be referred for counseling to help them accept their genital appearance.
