"We live in a country where people are always thinking up new things, new practices, new ways to make money," says Norsigian. "And if you can play upon an insecurity, you can get a lot of people to do a lot of things."
But many of the patients who pay from $7,000 to $18,000 to have their genitals nipped, tucked and rejuvenated aren't buying the arguments of those who would portray them as feckless pawns.
"I consider myself a feminist, and I feel this is so empowering," says Katie Sokey, a 36-year-old South Pasadena resident on whom Matlock recently performed laser vaginal rejuvenation. "It was a way to take charge of my own sexuality" after giving birth naturally to three strapping babies.
Why women risk it
Women seeking plastic surgery in the genital area vary in their motivations, say those in the field. Many are prompted strictly by aesthetics: They are, says Alter, "women who are in tune with what they should look like."
But a number of patients, including Sokey, turn to plastic surgeons with complaints about physical discomfort, whether from lengthy labia, weakened vaginal walls or a clitoris enlarged by steroids or hormone imbalance. And in many cases, these patients report their concerns have been dismissed, played down or greeted with an unsympathetic shrug from the obstetricians and gynecologists they consulted first.
Sokey had three children at home with a midwife and breast-fed them well into their toddler years. She laughs sheepishly at the thought that she has become a champion of vulvar plastic surgery. "I would have never thought I'd end up in a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon's office; this is not my world," she says.
But in the two years after the birth of her third child, Sokey says she consulted three physicians for symptoms that had grown more dramatic with each childbirth. Her vaginal walls felt loose, she felt a "bottoming-out" feeling when she ran or lifted the baby and the downward pressure of her reproductive organs, urinary bladder and rectum had caused her labia to swell so much that normal underwear rubbed and chafed. "Sex," she adds, "just wasn't as much fun," and feeling her marriage was in jeopardy, she went looking for help.
