Voices: Why I went under the knife for a labiaplasty – and how I feel about it now

I am a 32-year-old professional living in London, who – after years of deliberation – went under the knife privately for labiaplasty in 2019. Four years on, I still don’t know how I feel about it.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons has started to collect data on the number of labiaplasty procedures, recently noting more than 900 last year, with the potential for even more this year

I vividly recall watching an episode of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies around 2007, when I first realised that my labia were – by modern cultural norms – “repulsive” to the opposite sex.

A woman aged about 18 or 19 appeared on the show to ask what could be done about her “embarrassingly sized” labia. Her older sister teased her – using language that has stayed with me. Her boyfriend as I recall, did not jump to her defence.

From that moment on, I was very self-conscious. From my teenage years to my late twenties, I held back from sleeping with men I dated, and I dreaded the point at which I would take my knickers off. No man ever commented, but I knew through my own consumption of porn that they were exposed to only one type of labia online. The neat, “tidy” kind.

The final tipping point was when I watched an episode of Naked Attraction, another Channel 4 show where people comment freely on other’s physical appearance, but now with an interesting USP – it included the size and shape of their genitalia.

I did my research and booked in my labiaplasty with a private clinic at a cost of £2,500, which I paid for with a loan. It was my first, and to date my only, cosmetic procedure. Having thought about it for more than a decade, I concluded that it was finally time.

I hadn’t told my family, so I travelled to the hospital alone, before returning by taxi – much to my chagrin – on a road with lots of speed bumps.

Naively, I took just one day off work, but the recovery took much longer than I expected, and I had to work from home for at least a week. I couldn’t really exercise or have sex again until months afterwards. Ironically, I spent a lot of this time watching dating shows as I dreamt of my new dating life where I didn’t have to worry about the big reveal.

In the months after the operation, I felt, despite some discomfort, a new pride in my newly-sized labia. I liked the way they looked and that I no longer had to think about them. I was happy to talk to my friends about the procedure, and I told myself that feminism meant women doing what they want with their bodies – something that I still do believe.

Admittedly, my sex life and attitude towards sex have changed for the better. In the period after my operation, I became much more sex positive and open minded. As I began to enjoy sex more, I felt less constrained by society’s traditional views around women and sex, and this felt very liberating. Only a couple of men felt the newly sized labia was worthy of comment.

Four years on – wiser and exposed to more feminist ideas – I have very mixed feelings about my labiaplasty.

I was a teenager who grew up in the noughties, a time when magazines and TV would speak about women in what I believe was the cruellest and most objective of ways. It’s no wonder, then, that I and others have felt the cultural pressure to change physical appearance, and I feel no shame in having done the surgery. It saddens me, though, to think of a new generation facing the same pressures – for slightly different reasons, perhaps – but due to the intense scrutiny women’s bodies are put under.

I do feel guilty that conversations with friends about my operation left them feeling that they should do it too. One friend told me that it encouraged her to get a boob job and subsequent plastic surgery. I feel guilty about perpetuating the notion that women’s genitalia should look a certain way. And I feel guilty that by saying all of this publicly, I’m somehow shaming women who’ve had the procedure.

There are many reasons why people have the procedure done, some complex, and this is just a personal story.

I don’t regret having it done, which is something that may change as I get older, but I have had time to reflect on my reasons for the operation. I would advise that people consider carefully their reasons for wanting to go under the knife.