A Deep Dive into the Australian Labiaplasty Industry

CW: Mentions of abortion and miscarriage

Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The Australian Labor party is more than happy to criticise the attacks by the far right on abortion access in the US. However, they have done little to actually expand those rights in the land where they have power. The recent overturning of Roe v Wade has shone a spotlight on the failure of both Labor and Liberal governments to provide free, safe and accessible abortion.

There has been a concerted effort by the religious right in the US to champion this issue. The advocacy of which, in its accomplishment, stands to strip away the rights of as many people as possible. The religious resents the progress made by social movements to empower women and LGBTQIA+ people in public and political life. They want to discipline and control women’s sexuality. This is an extreme ideological position totally out of step with the majority of American society.

Despite most people being in favour of the right to access abortion, the Democrats tolerate this far-right lunacy for the sake of maintaining the stability of the state. As such, they too refuse to stand up for access to vital health services.

Without opposition to the Roe v Wade reversal, it was predicted that nearly forty million people would soon lose access to abortion in their area.

On July 2nd, Socialist Alternative and Equal Love organised protests in response to the overturning across Australia. These rallies were driven by two important motivators:

People across our nation wanted to voice their solidarity with those being stripped of their rights in America. But as well as this, people gathered to fight for free, accessible abortion everywhere in Australia.

As a member of Socialist Alternative and Equal Love, I helped to organise these protests. Canberra’s showing was attended by over a thousand people. Nationally, there were tens of thousands of angry people on the streets. Australians came out to express justified anger, to voice their opposition to this undemocratic attack. Ordinary people came out to fight for women’s rights, abortion rights, and LGBTQIA+ rights. To show that wherever the far right goes on the offence, they will face opposition.

A thousand Canberrans affirming the importance of this issue and how our situation is in need of dire improvement forced the ACT government to take action. Promises were made, and abortion was made free for all Canberrans up to sixteen weeks, and dedications to the tune of $4.6 million to remove outof-pocket costs. The legislative assembly has also declared an inquiry into reproductive choice in the ACT. Jonathan Davis, Greens MLA, stated that “In response to what our community is seeing unfold overseas, now is the right time to reflect on the accessibility, affordability and legal protections for abortion and reproductive health services for people here in the ACT.”

These reforms are a win for anyone who may need an abortion, and they are a win achieved by the people who came out to the streets and demanded it. The protests began because people were outraged watching the events unfold in the US. They stand as a testament to public demonstration creating results, even when our rights aren’t directly being threatened. Their successes illustrate that it is worthwhile fighting for the rights of all oppressed people and against all attacks from the right to push society backwards.

These proposed amendments are a step forward, but the situation is still bleak. Abortion access in Australia remains a postcode lottery. In the ACT, a lack of specialists or clinics providing abortions past 16 weeks forces women to travel to Sydney for care. Despite being fully government-funded, Calvary Public Hospital refuses to provide abortions based on its religious agenda. If someone is taken to their emergency department miscarrying, Calvary will not perform a termination if a foetal heartbeat is detected. Being the default hospital for the entire North of Canberra, this has fortified a huge barrier to accessing care. Publicly funded institutions should not be wielding the guise of religion to refuse the provision of medical services.

Australia, like America, has a unified religious rightwing fighting to take away people’s rights. Legislative weapons such as the Religious Discrimination Bill are one of many affronts to women, LGBTQIA+ people and wider society. By backing an uncompromising campaign for abortion access, we better position ourselves to defend the rights we all deserve.

One part of this is building a campaign to continue our fight for accessible termination. We are in the process of circulating a petition to demand funding for the specialist provision of abortions, and a lifting of Calvary Hospital’s refusal to provide reproductive healthcare. You can sign the petition here by scanning the QR code.

Since the overturning of Roe v Wade, Democrats have sanctioned compromise after compromise. Instead of mobilising the majority who support the advancement of abortion rights, they have allowed a platform for a growing minority who want to abolish these rights. We can’t make those mistakes here. We cannot wait for the Labor party to improve our rights when, like the Democrats, they’ve let countless opportunities pass them by. We need to fight, and protest to show that the majority of people care about the rights of anyone needing an abortion. Show that people can do whatever they want with their bodies. That means insisting on the expansion of rights until abortion is free, publicly funded, and accessible on demand for anyone who ever needs or wants it.

Editor’s Note: You should seek medical care at the closest emergency facility if you feel your life is in danger.

CW: Mentions of paedophilia and the sexualisation of minors

Authors’ note: Not all women have vulvas and not all vulva owners are women. Where gendered language has been used in this article, it refers to direct quotes from sources, and does not express the views of Woroni or the author.

A few months ago, I learned that the growth of the labia minora (the inner folds of the vulva closest to the clitoris) happens during puberty. Don’t laugh, but I had simply assumed that like belly buttons, people born with vulvas were born with a labia minora that either protruded beyond the labia majora (the outer folds), or one that doesn’t. Much earlier than the discovery of my anatomical ignorance, however, did I become aware of the societally held tenet that it was desirable to have an ‘innie’ vulva and embarrassing if not. I can’t remember when I first became aware of this belief, but the fact that the number of labiaplasty procedures performed worldwide increased by 73.3 percent between 2015 and 2019 affirms its grip on vulva-owners around the world.

‘Labiaplasty’ is a cosmetic surgery that alters the appearance of the vulva. According to Dr Sofia Din, labiaplasty is most commonly performed on the labia minora “to create a ‘tucked in’ appearance.” While some people have labiaplasty for functional reasons, such as discomfort during physical activity or when wearing tight clothes, most vulva-owners who have surgery (over 68 percent in Australia) are motivated by embarrassment or unhappiness with the way their vulva looks. But where do these sentiments come from? I think you’ll find most fingers pointing toward our dear friend, the porn industry.

“With pornography,” body positivity activist Taryn Brumfitt expressed in an interview with Triple

J, “there’s only one type of body”, and by extension only one type of vulva. This is to say that it must mirror the ‘tucked in’ appearance that most labiaplasty patients seek to replicate. Melinda Tankard-Reist, Co-editor of Big Porn Inc; Exposing the Harms of the Global Porn Industry, claims that a “significant” factor contributing to anxiety and unhappiness over labia appearance is the influence of pornography, coupled with the increased popularity of Brazilian waxing. “Now that the labia have become more visible, women think there is something wrong with them, because they don’t look like the women in porn,” Tankard-Reist told Farrago Magazine. There have been numerous studies exploring how watching pornography can negatively impact people’s body image, but I wasn’t quite prepared to let all of the blame rest on porn. Sure, the industry is guilty of perpetuating these norms, but where do they come from?

My recent epiphany about how the labia grows throughout puberty was, (paired with the discovery that labiaplasty is also commonly referred to as “vaginal rejuvenation,” yikes), contextually disturbing. I tried not to meditate too hard on how the standard of the “tucked in” vulva has probably both contributed to and derived from the sexualisation of children. There must be something else, I told myself. I desperately didn’t want to land on the conclusion that the main driver of the labiaplasty industry’s success was society’s underlying paedophilic perversions.

Besides, according to my research, something wasn’t adding up. I braved the depths of Reddit and AskMen.com, sifting through anonymous submissions seeking to know whether people with larger labia could ever be considered sexually desirable, and I found an outpouring