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elfsI have been feeling significantly unwriterly recently. (Actually, I've been feeling a lot of 'un-'s recently, but we'll talk about those later.) This morning during the commute, I pulled up my 'topics' list, which includes both things I want to write blog entries about, and ideas that might spark a story.
The topic I stumbled upon was 'Labiaplasty': surgical modification of the labia to meet a popular ideal of beauty.
Now, here's the funny thing: I'm not sure how I feel about the topic. I'm just not shrill enough on the topic, one way or the other. The Atlantic Monthly magazine had a great article recently entitled First Person Plural, about the multiplicity of personalities each one of us carries in our heads, and how those personas interact through time. Read it if you have time; I'll be recommending it several times in the next couple of months, I'm sure.
On the subject of labiaplasty, though: the civil libertarian in me thinks that people ought to be able to modify their bodies in whatever way they choose. The hound-dog bioconservative (but not bioluddite) me is shocked and horrified, experiencing a Kassian 'Wisdom of Repugnance' moment, mostly because I happen to think that the generic photoshopped, hacked-back labia of most porn starlets is pretty boring and uninteresting compared to what I've encountered "in the wild." The biolibertarian thinks that the practice ought to be legal everywhere, because attempting to limit it while continuing to permit transsexual reassignment surgery would be a legislative and judicial nightmare. The father in my wants my daughters to never, ever have to even think about this kind of thing. The humanitarian in me sees a difference between the deep identity issues of sexual identity and the fashion-driven loathe-your-body memes that encourage labiaplasty.
Unfortunately, "I think it's an unnecessary mutilation of a body part that unsder no circumstances deserves the attention of the knife for purely aesthetic purposes, the popularity of which is driven by a vicious fashionability that dislikes the natural variance of the female body, but I don't think it ought to be illegal," really kind of falls apart there at the end with its lack of vehemence. It gets the crowd all riled up about a problem and then at the end says, "But nothing should be done. Go about your business as normal."
Which is to say that writing an essay about labiaplasty means, essentially, trying to figure out how I feel about it. My feelings are too mixed up to do so effectively. I'm apalled by labiaplasty; I'm also driven by principle not to interfere with those women who want it for aesthetic reasons. I want desperately to convince them that their ladyparts are just fine, even gorgeous, in their natural diversity, and I want to convince myself that my loathing isn't merely a feeling, the consequences of acting on which would be tragic-- which is how I understand the Kassian moral universe.
The topic I stumbled upon was 'Labiaplasty': surgical modification of the labia to meet a popular ideal of beauty.
Now, here's the funny thing: I'm not sure how I feel about the topic. I'm just not shrill enough on the topic, one way or the other. The Atlantic Monthly magazine had a great article recently entitled First Person Plural, about the multiplicity of personalities each one of us carries in our heads, and how those personas interact through time. Read it if you have time; I'll be recommending it several times in the next couple of months, I'm sure.
On the subject of labiaplasty, though: the civil libertarian in me thinks that people ought to be able to modify their bodies in whatever way they choose. The hound-dog bioconservative (but not bioluddite) me is shocked and horrified, experiencing a Kassian 'Wisdom of Repugnance' moment, mostly because I happen to think that the generic photoshopped, hacked-back labia of most porn starlets is pretty boring and uninteresting compared to what I've encountered "in the wild." The biolibertarian thinks that the practice ought to be legal everywhere, because attempting to limit it while continuing to permit transsexual reassignment surgery would be a legislative and judicial nightmare. The father in my wants my daughters to never, ever have to even think about this kind of thing. The humanitarian in me sees a difference between the deep identity issues of sexual identity and the fashion-driven loathe-your-body memes that encourage labiaplasty.
Unfortunately, "I think it's an unnecessary mutilation of a body part that unsder no circumstances deserves the attention of the knife for purely aesthetic purposes, the popularity of which is driven by a vicious fashionability that dislikes the natural variance of the female body, but I don't think it ought to be illegal," really kind of falls apart there at the end with its lack of vehemence. It gets the crowd all riled up about a problem and then at the end says, "But nothing should be done. Go about your business as normal."
Which is to say that writing an essay about labiaplasty means, essentially, trying to figure out how I feel about it. My feelings are too mixed up to do so effectively. I'm apalled by labiaplasty; I'm also driven by principle not to interfere with those women who want it for aesthetic reasons. I want desperately to convince them that their ladyparts are just fine, even gorgeous, in their natural diversity, and I want to convince myself that my loathing isn't merely a feeling, the consequences of acting on which would be tragic-- which is how I understand the Kassian moral universe.
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Date: 2008-12-06 08:02 pm (UTC)"This morning during the commute..."
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Date: 2008-12-07 12:15 am (UTC)