Why adolescents turn to plastic surgeons
'30.04.2017'
Source: Time
Having reached puberty, most American teens begin to look for information on how sex should occur, how the body should look. And here they come to the aid of videos from porn, writes Time.
This is what 18-year-old Maya Bernstein talks about:
“When I started my sex life, I was tormented by hundreds of questions about how my body looks, do I do everything right? I was very worried about this, and my classmates told me to watch porn, they say, there I will find the answers to all my questions. And that there is nothing like that in it, because everyone is watching porn. And the girls also watch it. But it seems to me that what they see there influences them and their future life, because they compare themselves and their bodies with the participants of these videos. ”
According to statistics, one-third of women and 90% of men consider sex videos to be the main source of sexual encyclopedia for teenagers. And adolescents are interested not only in the process itself, but also in how certain parts of the body should look.
The first peak of the popularity of cosmetic procedures and plastic surgery in adolescents was in the 2013 year: then the statistics of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons showed that every year in the United States for people younger than 19 years there are 236 thousand cosmetic procedures and plastic surgeries of 15 million for the entire population of the country. Every year this figure is growing inexorably. This is the question that American surgeons ask young patients most often: "Do you copy the look of your favorite star, or is it really bad for you in your body?"
Over the 2014-2015 year, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Surgery, the number of teenage girls from 18 years and younger who want to receive services of genital medicine has increased by 80%. The figure soared so fast that American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has released new collections of instructions for doctors who perform lip and breast augmentation operations. These instructions, in particular, contain a recommendation to check girls for dysmorphophobia (a mental disorder in which a person is overly concerned with a minor defect or peculiarity of his body.)
Now is the time to design new Barbies, which are significantly different from the standards that were before.
At the same time, the demand for labioplasty (plastic surgery procedure, changing the shape of the small and large labia, skin folds around the vulva) has increased approximately 2 times (from 220 to 400 girls) over the past few years. But with breast augmentation, the picture is much more serious - more than 8000 teenagers in 2014, used their right to such an operation. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which officially recommends that girls wait up to 18 years before going under the knife, this figure has increased almost 4 times over the last 4 year.
Doctors are at a loss. Many girls explain their desire to use genital surgery by wanting to alleviate physical discomfort in the genital area.
Dr. Julie Strickland, Chairman of the AHC Healthcare Committee, believes that the main problem lies in sexual ignorance, because instead of frank conversations and studying special literature, teenagers study only pornoroliki. And, accordingly, they see there a somewhat idealized picture of how the human body should look.
By law, patients older than 18 years can do any plastic surgery - there is no other legislation in this area. What for some is a reasonable step, leading to psychological relief, for others it is the beginning of a painful dependence.
There are many stories of successful and unsuccessful operations, but all the questions boil down to one. How to maintain clarity of mind and self-confidence with that Instagram Are hundreds of thousands of people signed up for accounts of beautiful, but deprived girls dolls? Where can I get a breath of fresh air when the idol of a generation is a reworked 19-year-old Kylie Jenner? Where is the new healthy sexuality that is so necessary?
“Glossy magazines teach girls that they have to be thin to be attractive, porn teaches girls that in order for them to be sexy, their genitals have to look a certain way. There is an unspoken standard for the beauty of the labia. And by the way, boys who watch porn to find out what female genitals look like may be surprised in real life. And the girls, due to the not quite adequate reaction of the guys, in turn, begin to think that something is wrong with them. It is not surprising that after this many girls go to the doctor, as they believe that something is wrong with their bodies and they need surgical correction. They don't want to be rejected, ”says Nancy Martinez, a 22-year-old college graduate.
“When girls look at pornography, they see a certain standard of what girls' genitals can look like. But this is a very generalized standard. Moreover, this testifies to the very low sexual education of parents, as they do not consider it necessary or cannot explain to their children the basics of sexuality, the diversity of people and the structure of bodies. On the one hand, adolescents are now in a society where we see an overload of information, including on sexual topics. Thousands of links, television, internet. On the other hand, before teenagers start watching porn, they discuss rumors and just nonsense. Another problem that has existed for many years is the imposition of certain stamps on boys and girls. Boys are taught to be proud of their genitals, their size and appearance. And girls are taught that the female genital organs are a shame, it must be hidden. And everything that is connected with them, for example, menstruation, is also a shame and needs to be hidden, ”says the doctor. Nagoski, author of The Amazing New Science That Will Change Your Sex Life.
Many girls are embarrassed to look at their genitals. The video titled “Woman sees her vagina for the first time” has over 4 million views on YouTube... In it, grown women explain why they refused to study their bodies. One young woman said that the first time she was with her boyfriend, she was disgusted. And it seemed to her that what they were doing was disgusting. Another said that she didn’t think that everything “there” looked beautiful.
More than 70% of girls aged 12 to 20 now completely shave their pubic hair or wax it off. This is also a consequence of watching porn, since there, mainly, female genitals do not have hair. “The trend towards hair removal is a sign that women have opened up their most intimate details for scrutiny and scrutiny. And this is not just a change in the appearance of female genitals, it is something more, ”writes Peggy Orenstein, author of the recent book Girls and Sex.
But in fact, such procedures can not only change the appearance, but also harm. So, for example, labioplasty can cause loss of sexual sensations, numbness, pain and scarring.
“Girls are willing to sacrifice their sexual needs for attractiveness. Girls still focus on sex for the pleasure of others, rather than what they want and feel, ”says Deborah Tolman, a professor of psychology at the City University of New York, whose research has shown that girls regularly ignore their sexual needs. for the sake of their partners.
In other words, the pressure of society has not disappeared anywhere, and in order to be attractive, desirable and popular, the girl is ready to forget about her desires and needs in order to please someone's idea of women and desires. That is why, as Orenstein reports in his book Girls and Sex, every third girl aged 15 to 18 agrees to oral sex to avoid intercourse, and 70% of girls regularly fake orgasm.
Was there a lot of talk and criticism about the female body, because of which almost 80% of girls before 18 have already been subjected to various diets? But no: now the appearance of the female genitalia will also be added to this list. Previously, at least there were parts of the body that were not subject to public scrutiny. But now there is hardly any part of the female body that can not be criticized.
