Between foreskin restoration, ballmaxxing, and the often faulty Penuma implant, we’ve talked about penis plastic surgery a lot. Men are apparently looking for a longer rod, lower hanging balls, and a return to their uncut glory, but they’re not the only ones wanting to tweak their nether regions. There are plenty of procedures that point the scalpel at the vagina or vulva, plenty of people getting them, and plenty of confusion about it. This was evident last week when actress and author Jenny Mollen joked about her most recent plastic surgery on a few podcasts. Mollen has been in a number of television shows including Girls and Angel and written two best-selling comedic memoirs, but right now she’s best known for being in the middle of a divorce with actor Jason Biggs of (Mollen also made news recently for posting a picture of her lying on top of her 12-year-old son with a caption about how he was going to be her most toxic bf ever. Many people online found both the picture and the comment inappropriate and accused her of being all that is wrong with “boy mom culture.” Maybe we’ll talk about this one another time, but today we’re sticking with her vulva.) Mollen told Kelly Ripa that she decided to have plastic surgery on her vagina while on a girls’ trip to Austria with friends. This changed her travel plans forcing her to call her soon-to-be-ex-husband as he was moving out of their home. She joked with Ripa that it looked bad for her to want vaginal surgery right as she was becoming single for the first time in 18 years but added that the surgery meant she couldn’t have sex with anyone for at least eight weeks. Nobody—including possibly Mollen herself—seems to know what to call the procedure she got. She refers to it as vaginoplasty though describes what sounds like labiaplasty. Some media outlets have called it vaginal rejuvenation surgery which is an umbrella term that includes labiaplasty and other sometimes sketchy potions and procedures. One article incorrectly said that vaginoplasty is also known as posterior colporrhaphy which is not a cosmetic procedure at all. Honestly, it does not surprise me that no one knows what to call it given that so few people bother to make the distinction between vaginas and vulvas. So let’s start there. The vagina is internal. It’s described as a canal (aka the birth canal) that leads to the cervix, but it not like a tunnel that’s always open. The walls are made of muscle that can stretch when something like a penis or a tampon goes in or when a baby comes out. Everything on the outside is collectively known as the vulva. The vaginal opening is at the bottom. The mons pubis—the fleshy part where pubic hair grows if we let it—is at the top. Under that is the clitoral hood which protects the clitoris and the urethral opening which is where pee comes out. There are also two sets of lips or labia that are meant to protect the other parts. The labia majora are the outer lips. These tend to be fleshier and to also have pubic hair if not waxed or shaved or lasered or epiladied or Naired. The inner lips—labia minora—are flaps of (naturally hairless) skin that often hang out past the labia majora.
Vulvas come in lots of different sizes, shapes, and colors. If you look at some vulvas from the front, all you will see is the mons pubic because both sets of lips are tucked in between the legs. If you look at others you will see inner lips that hang much lower than their outer lips. This variety is very normal, but a lot of people don’t see all that many vulvas in their day-to-day lives, so they don’t know this. (If you want to see just how much variation there is, check out this picture gallery.) There are surgical procedures for both vaginas and vulvas. They are not the same. Vaginoplasty is a surgery for the vagina. It can remove extra skin, secure loose tissue inside the canal, reduce the size of the vaginal opening, or create a functional vagina for someone who was injured or born without one. Vaginoplasty is less about the look of the vagina—because you can’t see the vagina without a speculum and a headlamp—and more about the function. This surgery is sometimes sold as a way to tighten a vagina that’s gotten “too loose” because of childbirth and sex. Other procedures that claim to make you tighter include collagen injections in the vaginal walls. The sometimes-unspoken sales pitch for these procedures is that a “loose” vagina isn’t appealing to a male partner. I call foul on that. Vaginas are incredibly strong muscles. They can stretch a lot and pop right back into shape. Moreover, a “loose” vagina is probably a symptom of weak pelvic floor muscles. Injections and surgery can’t fix this, but some pelvic floor therapy and a hell of a lot of Kegels can. There’s also colporrhaphy, a surgery that fixes weaknesses in your vaginal walls. This surgery is a treatment for pelvic organ prolapse, which is a condition where organs like your bladder or rectum start to droop. Us Weekly suggested that this surgery was the same thing as vaginoplasty and that this is what Mollen had. I know the first part isn’t true, and I’m pretty sure that second part is also wrong. Mollen uses the word vagina when discussing her surgery, but I think she’s really talking about her vulva. There are a lot of things you can do to alter your vulva. Monsplasty removes hanging or fatty tissue from on top of the pubic bone. Clitoral hood reduction removes extra tissue that covers the clitoris. Labiaplasty reshapes the lips—usually the inner lips. These procedures are sometimes done to improve function or quality of life. Really long inner lips, for example, can get pulled or tugged during exercise, sports, or sex. But the surgery is also done for the same reason people get Botox or chin lifts or cheek fillers: they want their body to look different than it does now. Labiaplasty for cosmetic reasons became much more popular about ten years ago. People started seeking smaller labia minora that did not hang down past the labia majora. This look may have been inspired by the porn star aesthetic (tight, hairless, and often a little prepubescent). Or it may be an outgrowth of everyone getting a Brazilian (see what I did there?). Once there was no hair covering the person next to us in the locker room, we got a better look at their bits and could compare them to our own. That’s what Jenny Mollen did. She said that on this girls’ trip, she noticed that her friends had “even vaginas” which made her realize her own was uneven. She then asked her mother and sister to send pictures of theirs so she could compare. In an Instagram clip she said, “My vagina lips are, like, not the same length. I just basically want to make the one that’s there, maybe I’m gonna, like, lop it off.” (Again, she’s clearly talking about her vulva.) Lop it off is exactly right. I used to show a clip of a British documentary on vulvas in my Sociology of Sexuality class. The filmmaker follows one young woman who says her sister and friends used to make fun of her for having really long inner lips. She decided to get labiaplasty, and we got to watch. Her procedure was done in the doctor’s office with only a local anesthetic (though many surgeons will put you under for this). The doctor literally trims off a piece of each inner lip with scissors and sends her on her way. The whole thing takes just a few minutes. She cries the whole time. It was painful to watch. Mollen is no stranger to plastic surgery and she’s clearly given it a lot of thought. She had implants, a breast lift, and lower blepharoplasty (undereye surgery) years ago. In 2023, she wrote an essay about cosmetic procedures for Oprah. She tells the story of asking a plastic surgeon for an upper blepharoplasty (an eyelid lift). He refused, saying she’d be crazy to start messing with her face. In the essay, she calls aging “both bittersweet and infuriating.” Mollen writes:
She goes on to say:
The next year, she documented her Mother’s Day makeover which included a breast lift (the first one was not successful), chin liposuction, and a fat transfer to her under-eye area using fat harvested from her knees and thighs. When asked whether she’d had her nose done as well, Mollen posted a picture with her plastic surgeon with the caption, “Nose is my own. The boobs and face volume are all this man.” The surgeon also operated on Mollen’s mother who got a lip lift, fat injections in the backs of her hands, and earlobe reconstruction. Mother and daughter spent the night at the Gansevoort Hotel and walked home the next morning in their silk pajamas and bandages. Mollen put this disclaimer on Instagram before sharing pictures of herself and her mom:
I will say this gave me pause. I would never call someone out on their own Instagram, but I have been known to be a little snarky in this newsletter. My attitude toward cosmetic procedures and the people who get them is mostly akin to “you do you” (except when what you want is Mar-a-largo face or to mess with your genitals.) We all have the things we wish we could change. Personally, I have no interest in Botox—I’m enjoying my wrinkles so far. But if there was an easy way to fix my newly saggy upper arms, I might consider it. What you do to your body is not my business, but as a sex educator, I worry about genital plastic surgery because there’s so much misunderstanding and shame wrapped up down there. I worry about the motivation behind drastic changes to a part of your body that tends to only be seen by people you know very well. When it’s a penis, I worry that you’ve bought into some unrealistic lore that measures self-worth with dick size. When it’s a vulva, I worry that you’ve bought into the I-have-a-douche-to-sell-you idea that your private parts are dirty, funny looking, and smell bad. I worry about the pain that people with either body part might experience during the procedures and the recovery. Having had two episiotomies and a couple of vulvar biopsies that required stitches, I can’t imagine voluntarily bringing a scalpel anywhere near my labia. I also worry about the risk of sexual dysfunction. Our genitals can and should be a source of physical pleasure; messing around with that for the sake of appearance seems like a big gamble. I don’t want to be one of the judgy ladies on Instagram who goes after Mollen for getting too much work done. Still, if I had my druthers, people would accept the genitals they have and call a therapist rather than a plastic surgeon when they’re not feeling good about whatever it is going on between their legs. Of course, if I had my druthers, everyone would know the difference between a vulva and a vagina. Invite your friends and earn rewards
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