- I don't wanna make any I interview look bad,
I don't wanna make anyone who watches this feel bad,
it's just such an intimate thing.
Vulva, vulva, vulva, vulva.
It's like hard to breathe.
- [Merle] What do you think this weekend is gonna be?
- I would expect crying, maybe even nudity,
and maybe even touching oneself.
- [Man] So are you alone in this tree house?
- [Pamela] I am.
- [Man] Oh!
(gentle music)
- Hello, I'm Merle, and today,
I'm going to be airing my largest insecurity
on the internet.
This is something that I've never really talked about.
It's going to be an experience for all of us.
Okay, I'm gonna do that again.
I'll do a happy one.
I was a really naked kid growing up
and I loved to be naked, I would run around the house naked,
so my mom was super body positive
and she always would encourage me as a little girl
to take a mirror and go explore you know,
go look at yourself and I would do that.
The first thought was like, cool,
this is me, this is what this is.
Somewhere over time, I would look at myself
and I'd think, am I different?
Am I the only one who looks like this?
Am I the only one who feels this way?
In photos online or in pornography,
I would see what I thought was the normal vulva
that was very neat, hairless pink, no drama, like a line.
And I don't know about you,
but I have way more going on down there.
You know what I did to try to find out if I was normal,
and if my body was normal, I went on the internet.
I remember typing in what does a normal vagina look like?
(upbeat music)
It really did not help.
- Labiaplasty is actually one of the
fastest growing cosmetic procedures
out of all cosmetic surgery,
there's even reports that girls as young as nine years old
are inquiring about getting labiaplasty
and changing their bodies because
they feel like they're not normal.
- This led me to think, who wrote
the rule book on what is normal?
How is this happening and nobody's talking about it?
So I decided I should go talk to a surgeon.
- Labiaplasty has been around just for a few decades.
The first report in the medical literature
was about in the early 80s.
Of course, there have been other forms
of labiaplasty just in terms of cultural,
you know, female circumcisions, or genital mutilations.
Usually when people just say labiaplasty,
they're referring to the labia minora,
and though that's the inner leaf lit of lips,
and it's the thinner tissue that
tends to protrude if there's any issue.
I mean what issue is there?
(laughs)
- I see patients, sometimes where the labia minora
is longer or asymmetrical, and it bothers them.
Those are patients that we can fix their labia surgically
but it's not recommended unless it bothers them.
- So I actually tend to see patients
that are a little bit younger.
So patients who are teenagers who're either brought
in by their parents, usually their mom.
Parents, especially the mothers,
are actually very supportive of their daughters.
I do notice that usually it's that the patients
or the daughters are more nervous,
because they're younger,
they've never had any type of surgery
and you're talking about surgery in your genital area.
So it's an area that they're already
not very comfortable with,
they're not very experienced with,
and it can get patients pretty nervous.
- Labiaplasty is not a benign procedure.
In the wrong hands patients can have scar tissue formation,
they can have chronic pain,
and their sensitivity in that area can be affected.
There's always risk of bleeding, there's risk of infection,
and in certain types of labiaplasty patients
are at risk of the suture opening up.
- Some possible complications of the labiaplasty
include, of course, having a symmetry at the end.
I mean the goal is to make sure that your labia
are as symmetric and aesthetically pleasing as possible.
- [Merle] How do we decide what normal is?
- I would consider a normal or average appearing vulva
to be one where the labia minora do not protrude
past the labia majora or if they do protrude,
it's just slightly you know less than a centimeter.
(gentle music)
If you're below four centimeters,
it's not considered like hypertrophy,
like there's a deformity, but you can still get it done.
- [Merle] What's the youngest that you've performed
the procedure on?
- In my practice is 18 but I just did it in a 15 year old.
- [Interviewer] So Merle, how are you feeling about this?
- I'm like crying.
I get nervous when I think about like young girls
hearing that there's like some kind of a standard
or some kind of a regular or normal
when it doesn't feel like that's anybody's position to take.
I just, I don't, like the idea that people
are gonna watch this and feel the way that I feel right now.
I have very conflicting feelings on labiaplasty.
I'm not here to tell anyone what to do with their body,
but I don't think it's something
that should be taken lightly.
And for me, I wanna try to do it the homeopathic way
and learn to embrace what I've got.
So that led me to go to a weekend
immersive experience with Pamela Madsen.
Okay, I'm already blushing, yeah I'm nervous,
I wanna ask you how you feel about Amy doing this video
and be me going on this retreat
where I think I'm gonna be naked a lot with a lot of women.
- I can tell you as much as possible,
how beautiful I think you are.
But of course at the end of the day,
you know, it's a mindset that if it was so easily fixable,
just by someone else's words then it would be,
but I know something else has to click in your own head.
Are you scared that people are gonna think I'm weird
and now you're dating me?
- Oh I already knew you were weird
before I started dating you and I love you because of it.
(rock music)
- We can talk about sex all we want,
but sometimes you have to get in there and feel our bodies.
Hey, I'm Pamela Madsen
and I am a sexuality
educator for women.
Women are taught from their first breath
to be frightened of their bodies.
We are covered up, our bodies are talked about.
Women are cultured into body disconnection.
So we don't really get to see other women's vulvas,
so we have no idea what a normal vulva is.
So here's the truth.
There is no normal vulva.
- Viva la vulva!
(laughs)
- There are no two vulva's that are alike.
You have big inner labia and small inner labia
and big clits and small clits
and you come in all different colors.
Isn't that amazing?
And we think there's only one kind of vulva
because we're only showed the one
in the little girly magazine,
where some man decided that was the perfect vulva.
My favorite story is I was in fertility,
being at a dinner with reproductive endocrinologists
and one was showing off about his new
really fabulous labiaplasty program that he had.
And I looked at him and said, so why are you doing that?
Like what is the reasoning behind
cutting off women's inner labias?
So he said to me with a very straight face,
well women with large inner labias
are uncomfortable wearing blue jeans.
- So functional reasons for labiaplasty
could be that the patient is having pain.
- They feel uncomfortable.
- They can even have some discomfort
just based off of the type of clothes that they wear.
- Like if they wear an underwear
or tight fitting clothes.
- During activities such as having sex.
- With sports, you know.
- Wow, really?
So like men with big
like, do they come in?
(audience laughing)
And have their shortened
(audience laughing)
so that they can fit
- Better in jeans. - better in their blue jeans.
And so they can ride their bicycle better.
So, like fake news.
Perfect vulva that looks this way or that way is fake news.
Perfect vulvas that is your vulva.
That's the truth.
(gentle music)
- We need more sex education
and not just about reproductive health
but what is sexual health?
Different changes that go on in different ages in our life
and then also how to talk about it.
How do we talk about what's going on
with us sexually and normalize it?
- So when you're in high school,
what they teach you, is if you have sex basically
you're gonna get a disease, die or get pregnant.
Nobody ever talks about pleasure.
- And you remember the way they depict
female reproductive system.
It's, you know, the chart,
it kinda looks like lucifers goat,
which is like pretty rock and roll.
But for me, there is no education
on the external parts of female genitalia.
- I don't have a vulva model though,
I only have the vagina, is that okay?
- [Merle] Yeah.
- Okay.
- Most doctors will not ask about sex
or about sexual anatomy like they won't.
And, they're uncomfortable.
I think the reality is, most adults,
the people who are teaching kids
are not comfortable with sexuality themselves.
- So the vulva is actually the external genitalia
for female bodies, and that can include the clitoris,
the labia minora, majora.
The vulva is more involved with female pleasure.
The vagina is actually the internal genitalia.
It's also referred to as the birth canal.
- You don't learn your vulva anatomy in high school.
What you learn about in high school,
is not to show your vulva to anybody,
including yourself.
We judge our beauty or sexuality,
our hotness through the eyes of other people.
We don't actually feel it inside ourselves.
So what we're going to be doing over these next few days
is some reclamation.
And what we're just gonna be asking you to do is receive.
How does it feel as a woman, just to be adored?
To have presence, to have touch,
given to you and what happens to your body,
when you can simply be focused on that?
If you don't trust your body,
if you're hiding your body,
if you're hiding your sexuality,
how are you gonna be a leader in your life?
- I was feeling really empowered and curious,
really curious, I was like, okay, okay, wait, wait, wait.
I've never heard people think of sex this way.
Does this mean that there's like an area of the world
where people are trying to lift women up in this way?
Like, what?
Cool, I think I might,
can I actually ask you a couple of questions on camera?
- Yeah, of course.
- [Merle] Yeah.
- Bring it on (laughs).
- Alright, alright.
- If we're allowed to grow up learning about the pleasure
of being a woman, if we're allowed to grow up,
loving our bodies,
those are the young women
that grow up to be the president.
- Why is this so uncomfortable, for me?
Like why is this you know, why is this hard to talk about?
- We've heard this is a private part,
we've heard this is a dirty part,
we've heard messages like cover this don't show
and we don't really have a relationship with our vulvas.
And the words for some people are embarrassing.
- So the vulva is the (laughs).
- You know vulva, vagina,
they just don't feel like a friendly word.
- For the vulva can be for the vulva
that's a hard word (laughs).
- Vulva, vagina,
- So I should say, okay, so for the, I should say,
or should I say the.
- Vulva, vagina,
vulva, vulva,
- Female genital area,
- [Merle] You can say vulva.
- Vulva, vulva.
- I'll just say vulva.
- [Merle] Yeah, I would say vulva.
- Yeah, okay, vulva.
- As a clinician, I don't think I heard vulva
until I was in graduate school
already studying to be a sex therapist.
(gentle music)
- We're always worried that we are taking too long.
And that's because we run on a patriarchal model
of the sexual experience.
- We carry generations of shame,
that we've just been hearing these messages,
and taught these messages,
so when we liberate ourselves it's life changing.
- [Pamela] Most women are cheated out of their arousal,
- [Shannon] Men aren't trained in it,
women don't have a clue.
- You need between 15 minutes and 45 minutes
or an hour, just to get warmed up.
You're worried about how you taste.
You worry about how you smell.
It can be so startling when you finally realize
that your body is beautiful
and your sexuality is beautiful
and that you wasted all these months,
perhaps all these years on shame,
it's that moment of oh my God, why did I let this go by?
- What brought me to this whole thing
was like a deep insecurity with how I look.
And I was like, I don't
and like that's what brought me here
and that's what the whole video's about is like,
getting to know your vulva understanding what a vulva is
that kind of was my pathway to arousal by like,
conquering that, I'm like, wow, there's so much out there.
Like, you know that whole world.
- [Pam] Yeah.
- It's crazy.
- Yeah, I just wanna like pause 'cause it's like,
such a big deal and I can like, feel the emotion with that.
- Yeah, I never like, put that first.
I think I carry a lot of trauma there too.
So it's just like always like a really unsafe place.
- Most women have experienced some sort of trauma
at some point in their life,
big t trauma, little t trauma,
some sort of experience that wasn't great.
If you've experienced trauma in your body,
connecting with your body
can kind of be like returning
to the scene of the crime in a way.
- Yeah, sorry I'm like whoa.
I've had sexual experiences where
not only did I not get what I want,
I've had things taken from me.
And that doesn't leave your body.
Your body remembers things that your mind will let go of.
And this was another reason,
it was so terrifying to connect to my body,
'cause I have so many scary memories there.
I've been salivated over by people
I don't want to be thinking about me.
I don't want to be touching me.
And this felt like an opportunity to reclaim
that my body is just for myself.
It's like hard to breathe.
- You've just gotta feel it.
(gentle music)
- [Pamela] So we're gonna be doing Lotus Lift Meditation.
Ladies,
you are so powerful.
- You're here in this room,
with these women, yeah.
You can look around, you can notice that
there's other women, that get it.
that connection it kinda brings it back down right?
- Yeah, and also like just kinda
feeling like you're not alone,
and like not everybody has the same journey obviously but
it's just exciting and obviously very emotional but
I struggled for a really long time.
It feels like a good new beginning
and like giving permission to
take it on.
- Women who are embodied are dangerous.
And that's why the culture works really hard
to shame us and keep us small.
When you give yourself permission,
you enroll people into your lives.
When you explain what you're doing,
when you share what you're doing,
when you don't make what you're doing shameful,
and you don't hide.
And then guess what?
You permission other women, she permission
that I permission and you permission,
and then we're all permissions.
And then we become beautiful receivers.
Wherever you are in your relationship to your body,
to your sexuality whatever you're feeling you're not alone.
- I think we need to stop waiting
for permission to love ourselves.
Something Pamela said that really stuck with me was
bodies are beautiful when bodies are embodied.
And that's for everyone.
I feel unstoppable now.
I'm just, I'm really excited to see where this takes me.
(upbeat music)