The Social Vagina

A fashion trend is taking hold, at least among some top models. Dresses with dramatic slits from floor to waist now reveal what’s being called “vaginal cleavage.”

In order to obtain the desired look, wannabe crotch-flashers forego underwear—and they keep the pubic area shaved, as is the current comme il faut.

Meanwhile, not too long ago in the UK, what may be an extreme example of that look made big news.

In March of 2017, the British court system concluded a multi-year case about a clitoridectomy that had been performed on a woman seeking a more demure vagina.

Female genital mutilation is illegal in the UK (and, incidentally, throughout the United States). Oddly enough, though, the UK court was not interested in prosecuting the surgeon. Instead, its case centered on Professor David Veale, a consulting psychiatrist at King’s College in London. The woman in question had asked a surgeon to remove her clitoris. Because of the peculiarity of her request, the surgeon asked Veale to assess her mental health.

Veale specializes in body dysmorphic disorder, a psychiatric condition marked by nearly obsessive preoccupations with imagined physical imperfections. People with BDD often have unnecessary cosmetic surgeries. “Fix my big nose ….Oops. Now it’s too small; fix it again ….Now it looks snout-ish. Fix it. And while you’re at it, my ears….”

Relying on a battery of standard diagnostic procedures, Veale found nothing that classified the woman as BDD or in any significant way mentally ill. According to Veale, the woman told him her vagina was “ugly” and she valued “smoothness and neatness” in genitalia. Considering her request to be a legitimate, albeit unusual, appeal for a nip and tuck, he recommended that the surgery be allowed to proceed.

Still, he was not blind to the possible ethical and legal implications of the surgery. Indeed, he wrote about them. “Cosmetic Clitoridectomy in a 33-Year-Old Woman” was published in 2011 by The Archives of Sexual Behavior, a widely respected medical journal. Peale’s article prominently mentions the 1985 British law forbidding female genital mutilation.

And of course, it’s that law that got him into trouble.

First, there was a backlash from appalled readers of The Archives of Sexual Behavior. Several wrote letters, which The Archives published. But as Veale pointed out in his responses, the 1985 law (which his letter writers cited, as well) exists to protect young girls from customs requiring the ritual cutting or removal of genitalia. This particular woman’s choice of surgery had nothing to do with tribal affiliation, rituals, or a custom of genital mutilation. According to Veale, she was a fully autonomous woman who had been seeking clitoridectomy for 15 years for strictly cosmetic reasons. And nine months after surgery she reported complete satisfaction with her new genital look. She even reported an improvement in her sex life.

Better sex with no clitoris? Oh, the wonders of feeling good about one’s appearance.

Veale also pointed out that the 1985 law prohibits any medically unnecessary surgery on the clitoris or labia. Then he cited National Health Service statistics: In the year of the clitoridectomy in question, the NHS recorded 1726 cases of labiaplasty, a cosmetic surgery that changes the shape and size of the labia. None of those surgeons were prosecuted, and no consulting psychiatrists were, either. (By the way, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that more than 12,000 labiaplasties were reported in the United States in 2016 alone.)

Eventually, a reader of The Archives who was particularly dissatisfied with Veale’s logic contacted the police. Susan Bewley, a Professor of Women’s Health, was a colleague of Veale’s at Kings College.

A lengthy legal struggle for Veale ensued.

What might this one cosmetic clitoridectomy—and the new look of supermodels with floor-to-waist slits in their dresses and nothing on underneath—portend for women and their genitalia in general?

In March of 2017, after 30 minutes of jury deliberation, Professor David Veale was cleared of all charges.

I have not interviewed the jurors. But the 1985 law banning female genital mutilation in the UK provides an exception in the case of mental health. It’s possible that the jurors believed the woman with the cosmetic clitoridectomy to qualify for that exception. In which case, presumably, the thousands of women getting labiaplasties at NHS clinics would qualify, as well.

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Or perhaps the jurors merely wanted to preserve women’s control over their own bodies. Maybe they saw great value, not in clitoridectomies, but in protecting women’s ability to make their own choices about medical matters, no matter how seemingly misguided those decisions may be.

I hope so.