Designer vaginas: Link between porn and cosmetic surgery unclear, study finds

The notion that pornography is making women unhappy with their genitals and driving an increase in the demand for "designer vaginas" has been challenged by Australian researchers.

A survey by Bethany Jones from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and her colleague, Camille Nurka, found the majority of women surveyed were content with the appearance of their vagina.

It also found most most would not consider cosmetic surgery, known as a labiaplasty, to change it.

In recent years, many media outlets have reported an apparent rise in the popularity of the labiaplasty, some attributing this to women's exposure to pornography.

One article published on a prominent news website for Australian doctors even claimed internet pornography alone was to blame for the increase in "designer vagina" surgery during the past decade.

After reading such reports, Ms Jones and her colleague were driven to investigate the situation.

Their aim was to find out whether exposure to porn, typically involving images of "tucked in" vulvas with no protruding labia, led women to become dissatisfied with the appearance of their genitals.

Conducted via Facebook, their online survey recruited 1,083 women, 85 per cent of whom were from Australia, to answer questions about pornography consumption and what the study described as "genital satisfaction".

"We looked very coarsely at women's pornography consumption," Ms Jones said.

"We didn't break it down, we just said overall pornography consumption and asked them to rate their satisfaction with their genitals and whether they would be interested in pursuing labiaplasty."

The survey found that the vast majority would never consider labiaplasty.

Only 8.7 per cent (93) participants indicated they would be somewhat likely, or very likely, to consider a labiaplasty.

While the study found some correlation between exposure to pornography and a willingness to consider a labiaplasty, it also found there was no meaningful connection between porn consumption and whether a woman was satisfied or dissatisfied with her vagina.

Depression, anxiety could be a factor: researcher

Ms Jones said while the survey was a preliminary study, the results indicated that pornography consumption alone could not explain women's satisfaction with their genitals.

"Pursuing cosmetic surgery is an extremely complex behaviour. We really should be looking at things like variables of individual difference, psychological characteristics, and mental health indicators," she said.

She said research on cosmetic surgery more generally showed that that mental health indicators such as depression, anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder played a role in people's decision to pursue cosmetic surgery.

"So it's not unreasonable to assume that they might also play a role in labiaplasty," she said.

Ms Jones said she was also interested in investigating whether the broader objectification of women by the media, as distinct from pornography alone, was a factor.

'Medicare claims only part of the picture'

The researcher said media reports and anecdotal evidence from the cosmetic surgery industry that suggested labiaplasties were becoming more common were also problematic.

In Australia the number of labiaplasty procedures rebated through the public health system via Medicare has doubled over the last decade, according to a 2012 figure from the Department of Human Services.

Ms Jones said the figure has been widely quoted in articles about the rise of the labiaplasty in Australia.

But she said Medicare data only painted part of the picture.

"Many of these surgeries are being done on the private sector, and we don't know what's happening in the private sector; we have no reporting from that in this country," she said.

"It may be rising rapidly in the private sector as well, or it might not... We might find that women are moving out of the private sector and into the public sector to pursue this kind of surgery, hence the increase in Medicare surgery.

"I'm not saying that it's not increasing... we just don't have the data to make that claim."