Porn and the pelvic spa

As I read it, they are just re-marketing Kegel exercises.

Not that there is anything wrong with that...

And just because it’s never too early in the day for some healthy pornography:

“Your navel is a rounded goblet; It lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat Set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, Your eyes like the pools in Heshbon By the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon Which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, And the hair of your head is like purple; A king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights! This stature of yours is like a palm tree, And your breasts like its clusters. I said, "I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches." Let now your breasts be like clusters of the vine, The fragrance of your breath like apples, And the roof of your mouth like the best wine.“

I’ve always thought that navels and waists were rather closely linked to the pelvis, and that a concern for and celebration of the health and well-being of this whole general anatomical neighborhood - male or female - was a good and holy thing.

Bless,
Doug

Kegel exercises, which pre-date the earth practically, are now "pornography" suddenly? (We want to hold our pee after 12 children, and this is wrong? Not to say destructive of civilization!! We're as decadent as the Romans! Yikes!! Run for the hills!~)

Women are bad, no doubt about it. But. Hm. Let's not mention all those hmm...-enlargement ads I'm always getting! One of my email addresses is "leotoydog@xxx", after my Yorkshire Terrier, and Leo is constantly being solicited to increase his "size," uselessly, since he's quite happy as he is so far as I can tell! (Also he doesn't have any money.)

Men (some men) really do have overactive imaginations. Y'think?

No no, guys, it's OK. We love you. If you folks didn't think about sex all the time, we would none of us be here. I'm grateful. Go forth and think of sex all the time, may the Force be with you.

God bless you every one.

Just don't blame it on me.

Rod, I'm game. What ARE you saying, exactly, in this post? I do notice your emphasis on Late Roman Empire Days, as well as the links to "pornography" and to "decline and fall."

One would assume that you don't approve. (This is "pornography"? Who does this turn on exactly? Not you surely. Evidence of the "decline and fall?" Decline and fall of what?)

Disapproval of what? Kegel exercises? Multiparous women holding their pee? (oh dear poor dears they're all used up let's go find something younger?)

Mysterious.

I once saw an article about the aesthetics of "down there" written by a gynocologist, who sees a lot of women naked on a daily basis. She said that among today's young people (who grew up in the age of ubiquitious porno), say 30 and under, it's just expected that a woman will trim or wax or go completely Brazilian. Whereas for the boomer generation, those women don't trim as much or not at all.

As a GenX-er I'm so glad I grew up in an era where at least that one part of a woman's body had yet to be comodified. Porn wasn't readily available unless you went looking for it so you didn't know what everybody else's pubic region looked like nor did you care. I couldn't bare (pun intended) feeling like I had to keep that area up to snuff according to Hollywood or Madison Avenue standards. Thankfully my husband feels the same way. I do see such things as a symptom of our overall decay, call me a crank if you want to.

As with many men, I believe it was the vajayjay that threw him for a loop.

And God forbid someone looks at completely natural ways to improve their sex life. They might start having better sex, their marriage bed might become more appealing, and it might even have an impact on their stress levels and thus stress-related disease. People must be warned!

Horrors!

Bad bad! Decadent! Sex! Leads to the fall of civilization! Especially if it aids in holding your pee, as everyone knows that old, used up women should pee on themselves constantly so as to give notice that they're all tired and used up! (I don't have personal issues here by the way. I'm fine. I had 4 kids and all good, no residuals. But not everyone is so lucky.)

Does anyone at all besides me discern a bit of a disconnect here between a religious ethic that says that women should have as many babies as possible (and if you don't you're contributing to the decline of civilization!) and yet nonetheless if we seek to find a way to repair any physiological damage resulting from this we're contributing to the decline of civilization? That it's "pornography"? Whatever is going on here???

I once saw an article about the aesthetics of "down there" written by a gynocologist, who sees a lot of women naked on a daily basis. She said that among today's young people (who grew up in the age of ubiquitious porno), say 30 and under, it's just expected that a woman will trim or wax or go completely Brazilian. Whereas for the boomer generation, those women don't trim as much or not at all.
Posted by: bd_rucker | July 2, 2008 1:59 PM

Trimming has practical advantages beyond just aesthetics for those of us who engage in non-procreative sexual activities.

To my chagrin, I find myself agreeing with Charles re the colors. I installed a Firefox update this morning--anybody else have trouble with the screen colors? Also, everything is centered.

"Pornography.

Men are excited by the oddest things I guess.

Rod: "Doug, the story itself says that the "ubiquity of pornography" is making women pay more attention to the cosmetic qualities of their vaginas."

Mea culpa, you're right. I mistakenly attributed the paragraph with the "pornography" mention to Berenson, and also thought Berenson was male. It's weird that the NYT author thought to go for the pornography angle. Really, what does that have to do with the topic? It's so random.

But, it seems from your post title that you agree with this assertion from the NYT author, while offering no defense of your position.

Bless,
Doug

I'm perfectly happy for the OB/GYN to prescribe Kegel exercises, or whatever. It's the marketing scheme that I find so annoying.

Yes. Well, sometimes people won't do the simplest things when they're free, but will do them if they pay a lot of money. I'd agree that this is obnoxious. But as PT Barnum said, there's one born every minute. What can we do?

As for this being "pornography" I suppose that is in the eye of the beholder. If you find this whole business exciting, who am I to say? I'm not excited by the endless "enlargement" ads my dog Leo receives, but maybe that's just me. The men who answer these ads are making some kind of assumption about my preferences; an inaccurate one, as it happens.

If men expect their wives to compare favorably to porn stars, whatever that means (and where would a virtuous man have had any contact with porn stars anyway??) well, I'd say that's the problem of the men involved. Comparing oneself, or allowing or expecting one's partner to compare his/herself to porn stars, would indicate a much deeper problem.

Women are trying to please men, by, among other exercises, being in control of their pee. Men are trying to please men (from what I can tell by the spam I get) by being "larger." Perhaps, probably, we're misunderstanding each other.

A lot more discussion between the sexes might clean up an awful lot of misunderstandings.

PS: Beliefnet is still messed up. We can't read anything.

Rod: ...that, and the idea that porn's ubiquity is now making some women compare themselves negatively to porn stars (and making some men expect their wives to measure up to sexual athletes) that I find gross.

You must have missed the article on bunghole bleaching. You'd have got a delicious frisson of outrage from that one.

And why are you parroting the assertion the it's the "ubiquity of pornography" that's driving this? The author of this piece threw that in without any kind of supporting data.

Anyway, I think it's disingenuous of Dr. Berenson and Dr. Tracy to scoff at Kegels as useful and healthy. GPs and OB/GYNs constantly tell women to do them, it's like saying "be sure to eat right and get plenty of exercise" -- it's a mantra. If there's no medical evidence to indicate that they're useful, why aren't these good Drs squawking at their colleagues?

I actually agree that as a society we're too obsessed with the superficial (beauty, toys, status symbols). But I don't see why a Kegel and labia-lift spa is any more disturbing than a teeth-whitening spa. In the end they're both about sex, but at least the toned hoo-hoo actually has a physical point -- it's not just packaging.

I suppose the argument might be that anything involving that area must involve porn?

But I will note three things as far as these procedures and porn.

1. You can make a case for the external cosmetic procedures and porn. Bleaching, plucking, waxing, shaving, treating pubic hair like topiary.. much less breast implants, collagen and Botox. But last I heard (those who partake can correct me if I'm wrong), even in porn, there are places where the camera doesn't go. Its a porno, not a gynecological exam. So, can't see how that would relate to porn, in cosmetics.

2. Men don't have 'feel-o-vision', so can't tell what sex with a porn star feels like to compare it to their wives.

3. I could be wrong, but I am of the impression that.. if there is any adjective that would be most commonly applied to the 'working parts' of your average female porn star, the word 'snug' wouldn't be the first to come to mind.

Therefore, I have no idea how this procedure would work to make a wife comparable to a porn star.

I also don't see why this is seen as troubling, even if only because of it's "consumerist" business model. I'm very much in favor of the growth of small entrepreneurial health maintenance businesses in America. The model brings together both the benefits of the free market and health services tailored for the locality. It's a crucial piece of the whole crunchy con vision for society.

At the same time, concern for the health of one's pelvis and sexual organs is a part of basic personal health management. Yes, there are sexual benefits. But that's not the only, or even primary, reason for it. I'd say the "tooth whitening" comparison is unfair for this reason.

The better comparison is to a health club, or a chiropractor. Strong chest muscles for a man certainly have sexual benefits, both in terms of making a man more attractive and increasing his sexual performance. This doesn't mean that every man who does bench presses is the equivalent of a porn star. The same is true of a strong back and good posture. Yes, a couple of the Phit clinic's practices I consider of questionable worth, but no more so than the several machines or "energy supplements" at the corner health club are of questionable worth.

So again, why the demeaning comparison of a woman's pelvic health clinic and the seemingly dedicated doctor who runs it to pornography, other than out of some misguided attempt to uphold female honor, or callousness towards the well-being of others?

Bless,
Doug

Rod:

When you give birth to a 9 pound baby naturally, then you'll be qualified to comment on this matter. I mean that as tactfully as possible.

But there's nothing new about Kegels and plenty of women I know are searching for something to help with the urinary problems that frequently follow normal childbirth. In my little circle of female distance runners (all of them Moms), there are a couple who are really bothered by stress incontinence and it is no laughing matter.

I also do not get the connection to porn or purely cosmetic procedures. There's no shame in wanting one's plumbing to work properly.

Andrea

I didn't know the 1st Amendment had a "must squeeze out a 9 pounder" clause.

Susan, you are only "quite at a loss to sort this out" because you are deliberately ignoring my clarifications. I have already said in this thread that I don't object to the Kegel exercises, nor do I object at all to men and women having procedures that are medically necessary. Why should I? It's the way our culture creates "needs" (i.e., that women "need" to have their vaginas waxed and plumped and primped for cosmetic reasons) and then makes money by exploiting insecurities. If you're bound and determined to get mad at me, kindly do me the favor of getting mad at what I'm actually saying instead of what you apparently wish I were saying.

As Rod says, read the article. It was in the WaPo, not in some "puritanical" fundy rag. The author (a woman, by the way) is the one who made the reference to porn. And it was the author who related the doctor's story that she got the idea for this clinic when passing what she termed a "tooth-whitening chain." If you carefully read the whole article, you see that the author (again, a woman writing for a secular, pretty liberal publication) was critical of this new clinic and what it stood for.

People of goodwill could take away a number of different lessons from the WaPo article. IMHO, Rod's initial comments on this article were reasonable (and were not anti-sex, anti-woman or whatever).

Oops. The 1st Amendment quip and the post about Seinfeld came from me.

Rod: "Susan, you are only "quite at a loss to sort this out" because you are deliberately ignoring my clarifications."

She does that. Then she'll ask for more nuance. It's quite comical really. But watch out, she'll tell you go to another blog because not everyone here agrees with you.

Old Susans, Rod didn't say it. The writer of the NYT article (a woman, as Erin pointed out) did. Rod's just agreeing. He'spretty consistent in condemning the sexualization of all things in our current culture.

Me, I disagree. I don't see where pornography comes into it at all. Just because the writer says it, with no supporting evidence, doesn't make it so. To me it seems more like a baby-boomer thing: we're getting into our 50s and 60s and we want to keep having lovely sex with our lovely husbands, and we're conscious of the effect of babies and/or time on our vaginas, so we're ripe for this kind of spa. It's a marketing niche, sure, but I don't see why it's so awful.

"Don't you see what's going on here?"

Rod, I'm afraid you don't see what's going on here. You've made the mistake of blogging negatively about a gynocological story! And your a MAN! How DARE you do such a thing without first passing a football (and NOT with your arm)?

Now don't go and make it worse by commenting negatively on the empowerment women receive from watching "The Vajayjay Dialogues"! The babushkas will be at your gates with pitchforks and torches screaming "Kill the monster!" before you can say, "Eve Ensler."

But some of us are against our culture's pornographic fixation on isolated body parts, and against the vampires out there who feed on women's tendency toward self-criticism, exploiting that with spas and creams and treatments and products and styles and surgeries and other methods all of which cost a lot of money and carry the underlying method "Because You Know You're Not Good Enough."

Sure, Erin, but admit it: You're more against the fixation on the isolated body parts when they're sexual body parts. You don't sputter about vampires who feed on our need to have white teeth. Or maybe you do and I missed it.

Actually, Toad, for the record I'm generally opposed to teeth-whitening (except for certain medical repairs, such as teeth stained orange by too much fluoride), bodily enhancements (either male or female), tanning beds, excessive manicuring, anorexia-chic, excessive hair dyeing (though I admit to some sympathy for the covering of premature gray, especially if one's hair is turning more yellow-gray than silver), tinted contact lenses, and the like. I'm not opposed to the mild use of cosmetics but have great sympathy for those who eschew them; I'm not opposed to female leg-or-underarm shaving but recognize that this is a mere cultural notion that could change at any time; I utterly refuse to wear high-heeled shoes any more and am glad to have the company of any woman who's tired of mincing around instead of walking.

Did I miss anything? :)

So, no, not fixated on sexual--just fixated on fake. Why do we have to be Barbie dolls? Whose idea was that, anyway?

Rod: “What this pelvic clinic doctor is doing is trying to make healthy women feel that there's something wrong with their vaginas, and that they need her expensive ministrations to improve. … There are healthy women being led to believe that they're defective, and can only be fixed by some quack who is getting rich from other women's insecurities.”
Proof, please, not just assertion and libel.
Here’s Dr. Romanzi’s quote: “Dr. Lauri Romanzi, a gynecologist who performs pelvic reconstruction surgery, said she came up with the idea for the spa one day while walking by an outlet of BriteSmile, the tooth-whitening chain. She liked that the stores cater to people with healthy teeth. So Dr. Romanzi developed her own concept of “pelvic fitness” for healthy women. She said that Phit (www.theperfectphit.com) will help women get “in shape from the inside out.” The spa is essentially a gussied-up examination room down the hall from Dr. Romanzi’s medical practice.”
Dr. Romanzi is enthusiastic about healthy vaginas. Good for her. Probably a good trait in a gynecologist. I hope my podiatrist is equally interested in healthy feet. But for this she’s a “quack”?

Oh, and your “quack” is “a clinical associate professor of gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital.” I suppose you’d recommend her firing; after all, isn’t “quack” the equivalent of “unworthy to practice medicine legally”?

Toad: “we want to keep having lovely sex with our lovely husbands, and we're conscious of the effect of babies and/or time on our vaginas, so we're ripe for this kind of spa. It's a marketing niche, sure, but I don't see why it's so awful.”

I don’t see why it’s awful at all, and it’s obviously of benefit to women in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s as well.

Bless,
Doug

There is a very nice German restaurant we go to named Kegel's and now I'm really wondering if the strange noises coming from the back were something other than the local rotary club trying to sing the Horst Wessel Song.

(Milwaukee can be a very strange place at times.)

Rod: "I'm not saying cooter floss caused the downfall of Rome. Jeez, you and Ossicle need a drink."

Well, I've finally poured my first gin and tonic of the day, here in hot Santa Fe, and cranked up the ZZ Top before hitting an evening of work. In that spirit, please do take my comments today in the context of friendly jousting. I appreciate your "fall of Rome" paradigm that you're bringing to your analysis of lifestyle posts like this. I do think sometimes you force the facts in to your pre-determined categories to fit the paradigm.

There is certainly cause for concern about an overemphasis on surgical enhancements for the sake of sexual attractiveness, and the underlying cultural factors behind this destruction of the holy beauty at heart of sex as God desires it to be. But I think your fire is misdirected in this case, for all the reasons I detailed above.

May God have mercy on us all.

Christ Bless,
Doug

Rod, you just never recovered from that story about the stripper pole kit for 12 year olds.

So turning shaving into a sexual fetish is pretty foreign to me.
Posted by: stefanie | July 2, 2008 10:43 PM

Differences in women's swimwear and undergarment styles between the Boomer and current generation may account for some of the change in grooming styles.

Sorry, the anonymous pedant awhile back was me, as y'all probably guessed. Rod, I think you're talking past most of us. I'm all in favor of trouncing those who try to make women feel ashamed of their normal bodies. But could you for goodness sake find an example that actually DOES that? Otherwise, you run the risk of looking as if it's you who's trying to make women feel ashamed of learning something about their own bodies and making the most of them.

I'm weighing in as a Gyn nurse. I work at a large academic hospital on the benign-GYN/GYN-oncology floor. We have a group of urogynecologists who are phenomenal. We see people of all ages who have problems with incontinence secondary to childbirth, injuries, surgical or radiation treatment for cancer and so forth. We also see people with prolapse problems: vesicovaginal (vagina colapsing and obstructing the urethra/bladder), rectovaginal (rectum prolapsing into vagina or vice-versa) and simple uterine prolapse. These usually create their own problems, pain and incontinence being the most common. Sometimes these problems are mild enough to be treated with exercises (Kegels!) or exercises combined with biofeedback in a clinical setting. Part of the exam does involve tightening the pelvic muscles around the doctor's finger(s). This is simply the most effective way of assessing pelvic floor muscle strength. (I'll leave out gory details of the rest of the exam.)

Of course, on the unit we see patients with problems that are only surgically reparable. I won't bore anyone with listing all of the kinds of surgeries we do but suffice it to say there are quite a few. While performing some of these surgeries, it may be necessary to "tighten up" the vagina as part of the overall treatment. And yes, some patients elect to have this done simply because, "if you're going to put me through all of this, you might as well pull things back together a little bit too." This seems perfectly reasonable. And no, I haven't met the first porn star.

I think it was poor journalism to throw in numerous comments about waxing, etc. Clearly, the founding doctor had a more medical motive in mind. You may think what you want about the very cosmetic, visible parts of the "spa" treatment (you won't find *me* there) but the rest is a very valuable service. Consider that something on the order of 20-30% of women with incontinence actually seek treatment. This is seen as a very humiliating problem. By elevating prevention and treatment to the level of a "spa service", more women might take advantage of treatment options than would have otherwise. Human nature.

I'm getting tired and have to be heading back to the hospital in a few hours so I'll end it here. Everyone needs to calm down. I've seen valid points made on most sides. As a mother of five I'm probably heading down this road myself. It's really not worth the infighting. I enjoy reading this blog, but not when it turns into a circus.

Goodnight.

Mat. Anna

The great thing about Kegel calisthenics is that you can do them while reading combox commentary.

And one, and two, and three ...

"So, I wonder why Old Susan is singled out as "having a manic episode"? Ah well. She was making a good deal of sense to me. And yes, I have read the article. While you can certainly make a good case against unnecessary surgery on the vulva and vagina, the spa in question didn't perform those procedures. Maybe Erin and Rod should read the article!"

The spa DOES do surgery: labiaplasty. Maybe you should go to the website, 3 W's DOT perfectphit DOT com. (I guess "titephit" was taken already.)

Rod:

I read the story. But my take-away is slightly different. What if a less intimidating "spa" setting, allows women to open up and seek help for an embarrasing problem that many of them would be reluctant to discuss?

Plenty of women are still taught to be ashamed of their bodies - both by the culture and in their families. The lopsided balance of power in many doctor-patient relationships (particularly with older male OB/GYNs) creates an atmosphere in which only the most assertive, self-confident women are going to seek help.

I don't have a problem with the "spa" concept if it allows women to seek help for urinary or sexual problems that are a result of normal childbirth. Would you rather they suffer in silence?

From the British Journal of Urology: Two separate studies appear now on the British Journal of Urology International Web site (http://www.bjui.org): one addressing the prevalence of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and the other highlighting data on duloxetine, an investigational agent for this medical disorder currently under regulatory review. The first is a large cross-country prevalence survey showing that 35 percent of the 17,080 women analyzed reported having urinary incontinence (UI). Thirty-seven percent of these incontinent women reported having SUI, the most prevalent form of UI(1).

If having a medical "spa" makes it more likely that women will seek help, then that is a net positive.

Sorry, that last was me.

Max: I think for this conversation the problem is that the Perfect Fit lady's spa does a bit of both.

Yes, you're right.

Max: But I think the bigger picture here, at least for those of us turned off by the whole thing, is the marketing.

Every "personal" physical problem in the world is marketed on TV now. From Ulcerative Collitus, Impotence, Herpes, to what have you.

Right, and now slack hoo-hoos join the parade. Sigh. As you say, we're probably closer to agreement than not.

Rod: "Doug, I think we're talking past each other. I think this culture is erotomaniacal -- every time a Viagra ad comes on, I think I'm watching a Saturday Night Live parody."

See, it's like I've been telling you for years. Your problem is that you watch too much TV. If I watched TV as much as you did, I'd probably assume we were in the last days of the Empire as well!

Rod: "I mean, how on earth did we ever live without a vajayjay spa? (Or, for that matter, a pecker spa, which they'll invent once they figure out how)."

This sounds like a dodge to me. You could easily apply to a range of choices we have that are even less connected to sex than a pelvic health spa. "How did we ever live without ... a dojo, a health club, a farmer's market, a video store, a Chinese food restaurant." We didn't have any of these in my hometown in the 70's. Now they're common. None of them are a sign of the Apocalypse.

Rod: "Only a culture as erotomaniacal as ours could come up with such a thing, and market it as health."

I'm not buying it. This is really nothing different than the modern American version of a traditional health practice that as many folks have pointed out here goes way, way back. My wife's reaction to this was to note that this sounds like the services offered by traditional midwives in a lot of third world cultures. It's a crunchy trend, not a never-before-conceived perversion of healthy and natural sexuality.

Really, this seems about as controversial as, and in a lot of ways in harmony with, NFP.

Bless,
Doug

Rod: I mean, how on earth did we ever live without a vajayjay spa?

The spa obviously isn't reaching a lot of people (M. Anna above probably is reaching far more as an ob/gyn nurse, when she does patient education.) But what did women do in the "good old days?" As others have pointed out, they *suffered in silence,* wiping up after themselves, hoping no one would notice. They put up with sexual dysfunction at best, pain and prolapses at worst.

Again - the spa is *not* for the women who wind up on M. Anna's floor, unless they require a medical referral (and there's no reason to believe the doctor interviewed doesn't refer cases of medical necessity.) But the point here is to *prevent* problems in *healthy* women.

And there's nothing "erotomaniacal" about wanting to be sexually healthy; wanting a good sex life; wanting more intense orgasms. Sexual bonding is very important to many people in their relationships. Nor is it disgusting or degrading for women to talk about it amongst each other.

(Or, for that matter, a pecker spa, which they'll invent once they figure out how).

That's because most of the problems with men's equipment requires medical intervention (although men *can* do Kegels too.)

Only a culture as erotomaniacal as ours could come up with such a thing, and market it as health.

Because it *is* health, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you had a person out of shape who wanted to get stronger, you'd send them to a personal trainer, to the gym to work out. If the person had a medical concern, they might want to see a physical therapist as well. This is no different - except it involves sex. But for some people, it's not possible to have optimum sex unless they *find someone* to talk with about their problems, and how to fix them.

And yes, to whomever mentioned ulcerative colitis and other conditions - would you rather people remain in ignorance about them and how to treat them?

DELORES!

Rod: "I mean, how on earth did we ever live without a vajayjay spa? (Or, for that matter, a pecker spa, which they'll invent once they figure out how)."

This sounds like a dodge to me. You could easily apply to a range of choices we have that are even less connected to sex than a pelvic health spa. "How did we ever live without ... a dojo, a health club, a farmer's market, a video store, a Chinese food restaurant." We didn't have any of these in my hometown in the 70's. Now they're common. None of them are a sign of the Apocalypse.

Rod: "Only a culture as erotomaniacal as ours could come up with such a thing, and market it as health."

I'm not buying it. This is really nothing different than the modern American version of a traditional health practice that as many folks have pointed out here goes way, way back. My wife's reaction to this was to note that this sounds like the services offered by traditional midwives in a lot of third world cultures. It's a crunchy trend, not a never-before-conceived perversion of healthy and natural sexuality.

Really, this seems about as controversial as, and in a lot of ways in harmony with, NFP.

Bless,
Doug

Max Schadenfreude: I'm not sure cutting one's self down there just to look better is a good sign.

Doug: Why not? We men have had it going on for thousands of years.

Doug, you are scrotum deep in Semitic mythology. The Greeks deemed circumcision an abomination (well, they were never that adamant, being rational Greeks, but you get the idea). This is the essence of the Pauline indult. No mohels need apply.

And Max, in the same vein, the Greeks considered a lengthy prepuce aesthetic. So, "looking better" is a matter of whose gym you work out at.

That said, it seems to me that there is far too much emphasis on all this erotomania -- I agree with Rod in this. A chaque con son goût as I pointed out earlier. But on a pragmatic level, I am mystified why pendulous labia are thought aesthetically noisome, and a supererogatory clitoral hood escapes scorn. Quels cons, ces Américains.

Max Schadenfreude: I'm not the one advoacting such thinking.

I apologize, Max, ineptly worded on my part. I didn't mean to imply that you were. I only wanted to add an ancillary point but I understand your point.

I find the idea of a pelvis spa laughable, but I don't see that going somewhere to enhance the appearance of your groin is fundamentally any different than going to a barber for a haircut, a manicurist for you nails or a dentist to get your teeth whitened. They each focus on making a specific part of your body look its best. A woman isn't any more or less vain or "fixated" for getting a bikini wax than Rod is for trimming his beard.