Under what conditions do sexual pleasure and desire get addressed in news coverage of sexual health issues like female genital cutting (FGC) and male circumcision (MC)? In this study we employed an embodied ethnosexuality approach to analyze sexual themes in 1,902 items published from 1985 to 2009 in 13 U.S. and 8 English newspapers and news magazines. Journalists’ discussions of sexual pleasure, desire, control, problems, and practices differed in quantity and quality depending on the practice and nation to which they pertained. News coverage in both nations presented FGC as impeding female sexual pleasure, desire, and activity in ways that reinforce (hetero)sexist understandings of sexuality. The English press depicted MC as diminishing male sexuality, whereas U.S. papers showed it as enhancing male sexuality. These patterns are influenced by, and serve to reinforce, cultural norms of embodiment and ethnosexual boundaries based on gender, race, and nationality. They may, in turn, shape public understandings of FGC and MC as social problems.

Since the turn of the 21 st century, more and more women choose to undergo Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (FGCS) to fit a vulvovaginal aesthetic ideal. With a focus on reduction labiaplasty as the currently most widespread of these procedures, this article examines FGCS through a critical cultural studies lens to position it within larger feminist debates about body image, consumer culture, and female agency. A central question is where our Western ideal of female genital appearance comes from that incites the desire to undergo surgical body modification? Against the backdrop of post-colonial criticism, the article challenges the distinction between FGM in non-Western cultures and FGCS in the West through questioning the notion of informed consent associated with the latter. By bringing together otherwise separate voices from various disciplines, the overall aim is to present FGCS as an intricate interface between biology, psychology, culture, and media discourse.

Discussion about the increasing incidence of labiaplasty has given rise to the widely accepted theory that pornography consumption is the primary driver of this trend. No previous research has attempted to investigate the usefulness of this thesis in predicting genital dissatisfaction or openness to labiaplasty. Our study surveyed women, online and anonymously. There were 1083 participants from 25 countries (majority Australian). We found that women were largely satisfied with the appearance of their vulvas, and generally were not open to labiaplasty. We also found that while pornography was associated with openness to labiaplasty, it was not a predictor of genital satisfaction, casting doubt on a linear framework that positions pornography as the main driver for female genital cosmetic surgery. We concluded that the model is incomplete and that there are additional predictors that must be included in future models.

Cosmetic surgical modification is occurring to all parts of women’s genitals in Westernised countries. The labia minora and the clitoral hood are minimised, the labia majora are plumped, liposuction is performed on the mons pubis, the vagina is tightened, and the ‘G-spot’ is ‘amplified’ using collagen. There is increasing evidence that girls and women in Australia are modifying their genitals for cosmetic reasons. Medicare claims for labioplasties increased threefold between 2001 and 2011, but most are undertaken as cosmetic procedures in the private sector and are thus underestimated in Medicare claims, which are limited to those that are “medically indicated”. In Westernised nations, the current ideal vulval appearance has been identified as flat and hairless or with the hair trimmed (Bramwell, et al, 2002). About 50% of Australian female undergraduates claim that they remove their pubic hair to improve attractiveness (Tiggemann, et al. 2008). The fashion for hairless vulvas (‘the Brazilian wax’) has made visible previously hidden aspects of vulval appearance and is suggested to have precipitated the rise in female genital cosmetic surgery (Tiefer, 2008). Among cosmetic surgeons, such surgery is known as ‘female genital enhancement surgery’ (Scholten, 2009) and normal genital variation is pathologised by describing visible labia minora as ‘hypertrophic’ (Rouzier, 2000). The demand for women to efface their sexuality via genital absence occurs in parallel with conflicting demands on women to present ‘up for it’ sexual subjectivities (Gill, 2003; Gill and Scharff, 2011) in the postfeminist and neoliberal socio-cultural context. This paper will draw on various sources of evidence, including interviews with women who have contemplated or undergone cosmetic genital modification, collected as part of a larger research project seeking to map the psychosocial and discursive context of the dramatic rise in female genital cosmetic surgery in Australia. Exploring female genital cosmetic surgery, and women’s own narratives about seeking to modify their genitals, can help to unpack how it is that aesthetic labour projects have come to apply to not just publicly visible parts of the body, but to ‘private’ parts. This helps us think further than narcissism, vanity, material value/job-relation as key drivers of ‘body’ and ‘self’ work projects. Cosmetic genital modification narratives thus also help to unpack the complication in contemporary societies, noted by poststructuralist feminist theorists, of neat boundaries between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ notions of subjectivity, identity, the ‘body’, and the ‘self’.

Pornography and the science of sex sexology are redefining sexuality in the West today, but is the model of sexuality promoted by these two industries selling sex short? In this, the first book to fully investigate the connections between the industries of pornography and sexology, they are found to promote a very similar type of sexual ideal. Sex therapists now recommend hard-core pornography to patients and porn stars have become sex-advice experts offering bestselling self-help books. With reports of the increasing pornification of popular culture and an epidemic of Female Sexual Dysfunction, it is more important than ever to understand the influence of pornography and sexology on our sexual lives. Through a feminist critique of current trends in pornography, in sexological research, and in sex self-help books, it is shown that the type of sex being promoted by these industries closely resembles the model of sex found in systems of prostitution. This is a model in which women are bought and sold and yet it is being held up as an ideal for couples to mimic in their everyday heterosexual relationships. Ultimately, this is an unethical model of sexuality that sells sex short. CLICK ON DOWNLOAD TO READ THE INTRODUCTION