Back when Kings Cross was still a red-light district, the real-life porn hub of the global city of Sydney, I was at a party in one of the luxury apartments rented by cool, hip young things who wanted to be close to the action. Out on the balcony smoking, as one did in those days to meet the most interesting people, was where I met my friend the pornographer. Within seconds we’d said “see you next Tuesday” – and that was before we’d even agreed to catch up again.
It was on that night that I first heard, from the pornographer, about what the government was doing to women’s vaginas. The outrage came rushing back to me when Women’s Health Victoria recently released a report which finds that women are increasingly seeking cosmetic labiaplasty – a procedure that removes some of the labia (the inner and outer lips of the vagina) – because they believe theirs are ugly, unusual or “disgusting”. Nearly a quarter of Gen Z women are anxious, ashamed or embarrassed by how their labia look.
Credit: Getty Images Nearly a quarter of Gen Z women (those surveyed for this study were aged 18 to 24) are anxious, ashamed or embarrassed by how their labia look, according to the report. And almost a third of them associate their labia with negative words. One in five were obtaining their information on what labia “should look like” from porn and 30 per cent from social media.
Which recalled something the pornographer told me that left me incensed (and cemented our friendshi.