Is my vulva 'Normal'? Jessica Pin Tells Us About Her Labiaplasty Experience

You're listening to the Girls Get Off podcast, an R18 podcast on all things female pleasure. Think girl talk, but real girl talk, where we chat all things masty, self loving, sex, orgasms and more. Nothing is off limits, which means you get all the secrets even our guests BFFs don't know. We're on a mission to make talking about getting off as fun as actually doing it. Ready to join the Mastination? Let's get into it. 

Hello and welcome back to the Girls Get Off podcast. Today we have a pretty fascinating episode, I think, with a guest, Jessica Penn. Jessica at the age of 17 had labia plastidae and she talks about her experience because it did not go to plan. She loses a lot of her nerves in her clitoris and I think since having this procedure done, she did a lot of studies and realized that the clitoris is left out. of most anatomy books and people are just doing these operations blind basically, which is bloody scary. Yeah I know. I mean, you know, we have a lot of fun episodes on Girls Get Off and I think that this one was more kind of informational. I think it was, it was cool because we do get people message here and there. I think we've seen posts in the Girls Get Off Uncensored Facebook group where people are saying, has anyone got experience with labiaplasty? And I'm like, I'm sure there's situations where people, it'll make them help them feel more self-confident or. you know, perhaps they've got issues with their labia minora and so on. I'm sure there's valid reasons for it. But it's been really interesting to hear her experience and the reasons, the reason that she went about it because she was self conscious, she didn't feel that she was normal. I tend to think that people would be having similar thoughts now. Even though hers was 18 years ago. Yeah, like you said, people, it's a valid reason to be self conscious about it. Like in that it's valid that they do like feel self conscious about it. But there's no reason we should. Like it's just like every other thing. Everybody's different. There's no normal. I think we're just led to believe that when we've grown up with looking at textbooks and sex ed or whatever, and seeing this nice little packaged vulva, no labia, menorah kinda hanging out anywhere. And yeah, it's just not realistic. I never even considered like the puberty books that I would have looked at that didn't represent that at all. Now that I think about it now, I'm like, oh my gosh, or even the, you know, I think we will refer to a vulva as a vulva and then a vagina as a vagina, like the difference between the two, but she does touch on that a little bit as well. And I think that that's still important, you know, just acknowledging what bits are what on the woman's body, which is important. Yeah, but such a tragic story. Yeah, very tragic. But I like the way, like, I've got to admire the work that she puts in to make sure that the message gets out there. It's very cool. Yeah. And hopefully any 17 year old watching her story will hopefully think twice. And maybe just get like, I think it just comes down to again, like if people are feeling self-conscious about that, like having conversations, I think that's what we work towards at Girls Get Off in terms of like opening up the conversation, feeling comfortable, not only in the bedroom and with a partner or by yourself. but also with things like this and just feeling comfortable in yourself. Yeah, definitely. One thing in the episode, just for anybody that is like me, Jessica starts talking about OB-YGN. I hadn't heard that term in New Zealand before. I figured it was gynecology. I did Google it while we were chatting and yeah, it's obstetrics slash gynecology just to clear that up. So that's kind of the book. and studies that she's mission to change. Yeah, have you heard of anyone getting a labiaplasty before? I've heard of multiple people having had them. Have you? Yeah. You know of people? Yeah, I know of a couple of people. Oh, I don't. And I mean, I don't even, I haven't really asked them about it, but I just, yeah. And a friend who worked at a plastic surgery clinic, she said that they're actually really common. And it's not like you get boobs and people can see them. Do you know what I mean? Like... No one could see them except for people you're letting see you're over. Amazing. Oh well, enjoy the episode. Jessica Ann Pinn is an advocate for inclusion of detailed clitoral anatomy in medical literature and curricula, training standards for vulva procedures and correction of medical misinformation about vulvas. She has gotten 10 major medical textbooks to update their content and more promised future updates. She has also published a cadaveric study with plastic surgeons, convinced OB-GYNs to publish a cadaveric study, and affected changes in OB-GYN and Plastic Surgery Board certification, standardized consent forms and residency curricula. She holds a degree in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Welcome back to the podcast. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on today. Thanks so much for having me. Yay. And to kick things off, Joe and I were chatting a little bit earlier and we thought, hold on a second, our audience might not all know what a labiaplasty is. So if you could just cover that off to start with, that would just be awesome. So the labia minora are the inner lips of the vulva. and a labiaplasty is a surgery that reduces their size so that they don't stick out or that's typically the goal of labiaplasty. Basically, a lot of labiaplasty surgeons say that the ideal vulva has labia minora that do not stick out. That is the beauty standard that they are selling to women and so a labiaplasty is something that achieves that aesthetic. Wow. Just wow. crazy, isn't it? And so initially, when you decided to go down this road, is that why you wanted one because you had kind of read or seen that that's the ideal? When I was 17, I actually had no insecurities around my vulva. I just assumed that my vulva was normal because it was the only one that I had really seen. You know, and my, my automatic assumption was that it was normal. And I do remember checking to see if you could see a bulge in bathing suits and in bike shorts. But I just remember thinking, wow, it's so cool how they just kind of tuck up. So when I was naked, standing, they would hang down. But for whatever reason, once I put on something elastic, they would stay up there and no one could really tell. So I wasn't worried about it. But then what happened was I did not know what a clitoris was. They had not taught me in sex ed. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. Maybe that's partly why. But I had no idea. And so I got online at 17 and was googling, what is a clitoris? And like, where do I find my clitoris? You know, that's what I was googling. And I remember I ended up on the Wikipedia page for clitoris. And from there, I ended up on the Wikipedia page for vulva. And in case anyone doesn't know what a vulva is, because I actually didn't at 17, a vulva is just every, like all external female genitals is the vulva, basically. It's just like everything that you can see on the outside that all counts as vulva. So all the goodies. And I had no idea because I was just taught that women have vaginas. So like I grew up. learning that I had a vagina. And one thing that I say is that when we call vulvas vaginas, we define female genitals as fundamentally a birth canal and a cavity for male pleasure. Right. And so I tend to think that's really disturbing and it's sort of like a linguistic vulvectomy. And I think that's where that kind of plants the seed for insecurities around vulvas because we don't even name them. And I do remember thinking like, what is this extra stuff? You know? You know what I didn't feel much? I just didn't think hard about it, but I do remember thinking like, I thought I was just supposed to have a hole down here and like, there's definitely more than a hole. You know? And especially like, once I went through puberty, you know, like when I was little, so I guess some little girls do have labia minora that protrude, but generally like little girls have like, they more often have innies. Like innies is like the standard. for little girls. So like I didn't have labia minora that stuck out and then one day it was like, what's going on? But I didn't really think about it very much, but my body definitely changed, which is very normal, very common. So a lot of the time when I see like girls talk about this, they talk about, oh, they've been insecure since they were 12. Or like, you know, since around, like that's when it starts because that's around when your body changes. and nobody talks about how your labia minora change. And the crazy thing is they put so much effort into telling girls that like their breasts are gonna get bigger and stuff like that. And it's like, do they think we can't see? You know, I mean, it's kind of a joke cause we can just look around and it's kind of obvious that like, you know, the adult women have boobs more often. I mean, like there are some adult women who are still flat-chested. And I think that's kind of how labia minora work. You know, like. Not every one, like it's some women's labia minora get a lot bigger during puberty. Some women's don't, you know, that's sort of my perception of how it works. And there's nothing wrong with having small labia minora, just like there's nothing wrong with having large labia minora. It's all normal. And it turns out about half of women have labia minora that stick out. But when I was 17, I was looking up this information online. I remember the vulva on the Wikipedia page for vulva had like tiny, tiny labia minora. I mean, those are some of the smallest labia minora I've ever seen. Even since then, that was the example that they had. And so I was looking at that and I was like, what? Like, cause it just wasn't, especially cause I was down in front of the mirror trying to find my clitoris and like, I could not relate to the, to the, cause this was like a labeled photo of a vulva. And I was like, we are not working with the same thing here. So. So then I ended up Googling like labia minora. Um, and when I Googled labia minora, information about labia plastic came up and I'm pretty sure that's still the case. Um, if you Google labia minora, like I think labia plastic advertisements will come up. And I remember before and after photos for labia plastic surgery came up. And I looked like the before photos. And I think, you know, being the daughter of a plastic surgeon, I just kind of thought that like if you had something ugly, you fixed it. That's sort of how I was raised, which is a little bit fucked up, but it just seemed like, you know, like one of my cousins, her ears stuck out, so she got them pinned back and, you know, like one of my friends at school, like she had like a giant nose, so she got a nose fixed. That was just the thing to do. So I was like, well, I've got an ugly vulva, apparently. Wow. But I actually like first I went to my mom and I said, Mom, I'm worried that like my labium nor are too big. And she goes, What are those? Because Oh, you mean those flappy things? She says those are supposed to be ugly. And that did not make me feel better. So then she put me to her OBGYN and her OBGYN told me I was normal. But she wouldn't tell me how normal I was. And at that point, I had done such a deep dive that I had read that it was recommended for OEGYNs to tell all patients that they are normal, no matter how unusual they are. So being told that I was normal, it didn't do me any good. Like, so I was like trying to figure out, so I asked her, I said, what percentile am I in? Cause I was like a big nerd, so I needed a number. I said, of the last 10 patients that you've seen, how many have bigger labia mura than I do? And she was like, she wouldn't tell me. And I was like, holy shit, this woman is keeping the truth from me that dark. I thought the answer meant like everybody, because otherwise she would have just told me. Now, what age were you now? Is this still at 17? This was at 17. Yeah. And based on what I know now, OBGYNs just don't pay attention to the vulva. You know, like when they're doing these exams, you know, they're not paying, they're not like paying attention to how big the lips are. They're just trying to, you know, they're just trying to coin. going past the bull, but like, you know. Yeah. It's not the focus. Inserting the speculum, looking at your surveys. That's what they're focused on. So I know that now, but at the time I didn't. And I also remember like, so you might remember this, but she had like those models in her office of like, you know, like a 3D model of a pelvis. And those are pretty much all like, they don't represent external generals very well. So there was that too. So anyway, so I did not feel better after that appointment. And I continued to feel self-conscious and just like almost sort of desperate, because I thought I really had this embarrassing problem. Because what I had read online and in peer-reviewed medical literature was that protruding labia minora are considered unfeminine and embarrassing. And I had also read that they are caused by aging, sexual activity, masturbation and excess androgens. And I remember googling androgens and finding out, well, basically, those are male hormones. Stop. So I thought, oh my gosh, this is mortifying. And it turns out none of those claims are true. But they continue to be, you know, more increasingly widespread in medical literature. So they can publish in plastic surgery journals and in plastic surgery textbooks. And they just came up with a new one recently on Medscape. They said, they're caused by horseback riding now. Which, you know. Stop. Yeah, it's a new one. They just keep getting creative. One of my followers sent me an OBGYN, like an OBGYN was claiming on this website, Real Self, that large labia minora are caused by pulling on clothes. So, so the way this myth made, I mean, there's all sorts of ways that these myths, you know, get created, but like basically women have complained about their labia minora. pulling on clothes and so that's led doctors to say that it's caused by pulling on clothes. But it just, anyway, I think they're just adding to the stigma. They also say it's associated with urinary incontinence and infections and they just add all this negative messaging to it that for me at 17 made me feel very ashamed. So I went to my dad and I said that they, honestly, and I hate having to admit this, but I said that they hurt me. when I rode my bike and that was not true. Now I have actually seen other women say that it does hurt them when they ride their bike but I actually, I question whether it's really the size of the Labia Minora if it's another issue and I also would encourage everyone to get another bike seat instead of changing their body. That was never suggested to me. No one ever said, it turns out they make bike seats for women that have like a little dent in that. in that area. But that was not suggested. So what happened was, you know, my dad, he asked around at the hospital, and his colleagues told him that people do it all the time, and it's no big deal. And he asked for a recommendation. And this OBGYN that is very highly respected by other doctors, was recommended. And so that's who I went to. And he, you know, so I've gotten like more and more self-conscious about how I talk about this, but I'll just like get past it really fast. He completely amputated my labia minora and he did a clitoral hood reduction without my consent and he damaged my clitoris. So in the years after that, you know, I blamed myself and I had a lot of difficulty talking about it. And when I did bring it up to my doctor who asked, you know, I saw his partner after that and so what she told me was that I looked normal, which sadly is not true, but I'm not, you know, I'm not self-conscious about it. Because it's like, that's how I got into this mess and like men don't even notice, honestly. You know, I've tried to, because there are other women who have had the same result where they're labia minora, they just get completely amputated by mistake, which is a ridiculous outcome but it's actually fairly common because there are no training standards. this technique that they recommend where they pull your labia and then they mark them while they're under tension. And so then what happens is they end up taking off a lot more than they intend. And so I've talked to a lot of women who have had way more of their labia menorah removed than they expected. And yeah, so it can be uncomfortable. I was talking to a woman yesterday. pain from, you know, because what happens is then your vestibule ends up getting exposed. It's a little irritating. Anyway, TMI, but despite that, like men don't seem to notice. So what I tell women is like, don't worry. Like don't worry about what it looks like. And I tell women like contemplating labialplasty and also if they already had one and it's just like an... unsatisfactory aesthetic result. Like, they're not like men, they're oblivious, you know. Anyway, so that's what happened. I lost clitoral sensation. What's crazy is I always thought that women orgasm from their vaginas and that like, penetrative sex was going to be mind blowing. Like I thought that there would be Fireworks and so I knew that I had lost sensation So I knew that like the things that I had enjoyed before my surgery were no longer pleasurable like kind of lingus I'm like just like rubbing on the outside, but I thought oh Well, there's another way there will be another way And I actually saw a 16 year old a 16 year old on reddit saying the same thing So she's only 16 and she's lost clitoral sensation and she says Well, this is an old comment. She said, well, now I can't have a clitoral orgasm, but I can probably still have a vaginal orgasm. But she says it hasn't happened yet, but she just believes that. And so it's just really sad. I tend to think that all orgasms are clitoral orgasms. TMI, I have figured out how to make the best of what I have left. but I don't have clitoral gland sensation. And the glands is the most sensitive part of the clitoris. And so that experience was extremely traumatic for me. And what happened was I just, when I brought it up to doctors, they told me I just needed to relax, that I just needed to fall in love, that my loss of sensation could not have happened because of my surgery. And so what happened was, I eventually, I taught myself the anatomy, I figured it out, and I figured out, the nerves of the clitoris are right under the skin of the clitoral hood, and what he had done was he had cut into my clitoral hood, and what's really sad is at the time of my surgery, I didn't even know the difference. Even though I had looked this information up online, I somehow didn't notice the difference between the clitoral hood and the olivium minora. I just wasn't paying attention. You know, so I didn't really understand the difference. And, you know, even since then, one issue is in OBGYN textbooks, sometimes they'll describe the clitoral hood as if it's part of the labia minora. And they'll describe it like in the same section as labia minora, right? So on Wikipedia, some people at one point actually define the clitoral hood as part of the labia minora. And I said, no, do not define it that way, please. Because I think the distinction is really, really important because the clitoral hood is basically the shaft skin and the foreskin of the clitoris itself. Right. So it's, you know, it's really important. Like in my opinion, the clitoral hood should basically be considered the clitoris. Yeah. Wow. Um, I'm sitting here quite pissed off. You like, this is just not fair. Yeah, I think there's just no other way to put it really. It's a tragedy. And I think I really admire the way that you've been able to turn this around for yourself in terms of the good work that you've been doing to try and like change this for other people because it's so important. Because like you say, you didn't even want to have this conversation with people at 17. You didn't, you obviously, you know, you weren't chatting with it with your friends or, you know, like it's not out in the open. And that's what led you to this. you know, the situation, because people don't talk about it enough. So they don't know what's, what's like you're saying normal and not normal. Like even when you're saying that in terms of puberty and the changes in the labia minora, I was like, oh my God, I didn't even think about that. I'm like, that's so right. That's not even taught about in puberty. Like you just saying that right now is like, oh my God, I didn't even know that. Yeah. Isn't that wild? So, so wild, so wild. Um, my gosh, my mind's just. gone completely blank. Sorry, I think I'm just... And so like I mentioned, I think what you're doing now is hugely important and I think it's amazing. So talk us through what your focus is now in terms of the literature around the clitoris. Okay. So basically what I realized is that ignorance about clitoral anatomy was really pervasive among OB-GYNs and also among plastic surgeons. And so what I've done is I've tried to get the anatomy disseminated. And so first I, well, I first went after OB-GYN because I was harmed by an OB-GYN and I had noticed that the nerves in the clitoris were omitted from pretty much all OB-GYN literature as of 2018. So they were described in one article in a low impact factor journal, but the description of the clitoris wasn't even correct in that article. and it wouldn't have been seen by very many OB-GYNs. So that barely counted. So for the most part, this anatomy just was not covered. And so what I did initially was I contacted the American Board of OB-GYN and the American College of OB-GYN. And the executive director of the American Board of OB-GYN said, I'm sorry you're mistaken about this. He said, I've checked my textbooks and it is covered. So basically, What happened actually was I said nerves of the clitoris instead of in. So now I'm very careful to say in because there are nerves in the clitoris itself and they are just as big as the nerves in the penis and they are obviously extremely important to female sexual response yet they have traditionally been omitted from anatomy diagrams in OB-GYN literature and also in general anatomy textbooks. So, you know, what I have done is I have gotten six OBGYN textbooks updated and two anatomy textbooks updated and then also, I don't know, three anatomy textbooks updated, but one, the update's not very good. I just try to take credit anyway, you know, and then also a plastic surgery textbook. Wow. But yeah, so like I, so I've changed 10 textbooks so far, technically. but one hardly counts because basically it's Gray's anatomy. And so what happened was I exchanged multiple emails with the chief editor, Susan Standring, and basically the nerves in the clitoris are not shown or described in Gray's anatomy anatomical basis for clinical practice. And I exchanged multiple emails with her and thought I had gotten through to her because she said we will be including this in the next edition. And so technically they did change what they did is they added a citation. So they cited a study of the nerves. So technically I changed it, but I didn't change it in a meaningful way. So I've changed nine textbooks in a really meaningful way. Cause what I'm, sorry, Jo, I've buttoned for a second, but from what I can tell and from watching a lot of your content, it's not like they were never in there. So I think there's, you know, research that was done, what the 1800s or even earlier than that, that actually described these. parts of the anatomy, but they were in these textbooks and then they took them out, is that correct? I think they have been discovered and forgotten and included and excluded. Basically, I think the omission occurs because of taboo and lack of perceived medical relevance. So one thing that happened when I crashed the ACOG annual meeting in 2018, basically that's the. you know, main meeting for OB-GYNs in the US, I had a lot of OB-GYNs tell me that the innovation of the clitoris was not relevant to their practice. And these weren't men, they were women actually, because back then I thought that women would be more receptive, and so that's who I was trying to talk to the most. And it was really kind of crazy how disinterested they were. So... Yeah, basically there's this perception that it's just not medically important that has been behind the censorship, which is what I call it. I call it censorship, right? Because this anatomy is so obvious. You have to try to ignore it. You know what I mean? If you're dissecting a cadaver and you decide to stop, you'd have to make an intentional decision to stop dissecting. where the nerve is literally, in my study, it was 3.6 millimeters in diameter, where they typically show it stopping in anatomy diagrams. So if you imagine dissecting and stopping at that point, how do you even rationalize that choice? So I asked my dad, and my dad said, because they just feel awkward. And I think that's what it comes down to. People see a clip, and they're like, oh no, we better not, we better not. But yeah, so there actually are illustrations showing the course of the dorsal nerves in the clitoris from 1672. They aren't very good. Like he didn't do a great job, but you know, it was at least- It was 1672. Yeah. I mean, that was 1672 and like, who knows? Like maybe this guy was good at dissecting, but not very good at drawing, you know? But then there are really good illustrations from 1844. And so, you know, the illustrations published in 1844 were better than anything in modern OBGYN literature until 2019. Stop. Do you think it's because there's not enough, like, I mean, I'm imagining, like, this is obviously not medical advice, but I'm imagining the things that they put in textbooks have to have a lot of, like, research behind them. Do you think it's a possibility that because there's just not enough research done in general that they don't feel like it's a reliable information to be putting in their textbooks? No, this has nothing to do with that. I mean, no. Like, anatomy is simple. So like in articles on this, they always say, oh, there's not much research. They'll be like, there's only been 11 studies. And it's like, 11 is more than enough to like know that there are nerves there. You know, like, yeah, we had 10 specimens in our study and the anatomy is very consistent. You know what I mean? Like they've all got big ass nerves in the clitoris. It's like really simple. You know, it's not. Now. Actually, there was a group of medical students who did a study after mine and they dissected like 96 clitorises. So they dissected the most clitorises by far, you know, in any study ever. And they said they were inspired by my Reddit posts. So that's pretty awesome. Wow. Cool. And what they did is they went over variation in branching. So there can be some variation in how the nerves branch. you know, to us and in other studies, like for the most part, like there's just, there's like one like very visible nerve that you can follow. And so, yeah, that's what we did. It's pretty easy. You know, like sometimes I say like a fourth grader to do it, you know, like if you could give a fourth grader a human clitoris to dissect, they could do it. Like, technically, they could do it. It's not technically difficult. Wow. It's just, you know, there's a limit to like access to cadavers. It's a little tricky. Yeah. I think with, gosh, I forget the correct stats, but I think, was it Morgan or someone we were talking to? And there had just been masses amount of money put into studies and stuff on... erections and male pleasure compared to like the tiniest little bit for females, female pleasure. And this is kind of like the same sort of unfair balance. So the fundamental thing is people consider male pleasure essential for reproduction, right? And people separate female pleasure from reproduction. And I think that's a really big mistake. And I actually think it's terrible PR the clitoris that we say the clitoris is just for pleasure. Because I think that really trivializes just how important it is. And I think it trivializes the loss that women who've had, who've suffered any kind of clitoral damage go through, you know, because it affects you on so many levels. It's not, you know, when you make it sound like it's just for pleasure, it makes it sound like it's chocolate cake or something, you know? Something you don't really need. But actually... So I will argue that the clitoris is reproductive anatomy and that it needs to be acknowledged as having a reproductive role. And so one of the biggest wins that I've gotten, in my opinion, is getting the clitoris very prominently featured on posters for the female reproductive system. So it's a female reproductive system and then the clitoris takes up like a fifth of the poster. And I think that's a good. Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Yeah, and in turn, surely if it's classified as that. reproductive organ, surely more studies and stuff will go into it then, right? Surely, you would? Yeah, so it's not directly reproductive. But the reason why I think that should be considered reproductive anatomy is because, you know, the main reason why females have sex is for pleasure. So there's, yeah, so there's a study on why humans have sex. And actually, the top reason for both males and females is that they're attracted to the person. But then the next two are like, because it feels good and for pleasure. And those are the same for men as for women. So, um, women and men have sex for fundamentally the same top reasons. Yeah. You don't necessarily, you don't necessarily go, Oh, I want to make a baby. You, you want to. That's way down there. That's like, that's like number three. So if it wasn't pleasurable, we wouldn't be doing it. Yeah. Plus. I personally, well, I question how much ancient females would have figured out that like sex led to pregnancy. You know, I mean, maybe they would have figured it out, but it seems like maybe a little hard to like make the connection. I don't know. Yeah, happens kind of weeks after. Yeah, so. But basically, so women engage in reproductive activity for pleasure and the clitoris is the organ most responsible for female pleasure. And so people always think that the clitoris isn't reproductive because women don't orgasm reliably every time. However, I think that may actually be a feature not a bug, because what it does is it makes it so we're more likely to pair bond with men who actually give a shit, right? Like, so. which I think, you know, it's, is functional, you know, like, if you consider that, so I think these days, like the chance of getting pregnant from a one night stand is like 3% or something, it's not very high. And I was reading that in hunter gatherer societies, it was even lower. And so, like your chance of getting pregnant from like a one night stand would have been very low. But if you stay with the same asshole, like you're fucked. Sorry. I mean, So like you have to pick a good one, you know what I mean? Like pick a guy who actually cared. To me that's a convincing, you know function of maybe not orgasming too easily. The other thing is, you know, female orgasm plays a really important role in pair bonding, which I would consider a fundamentally reproductive role because it helps couples stay together long enough to like raise children. So oxytocin levels barely increase at all if women don't orgasm during sexual encounters, and they more than double if women do. So to me, that's really significant. And recently, I had a woman who was harmed from lamiaplasty tell me she feels like she can't bond anymore. And so I'm trying to help her figure out how to... still have an orgasm, because I think that is really, really important. I think that if you're not able to experience mutual pleasure with your partners, it does make it so much harder to bond. And I think that women who say, oh, the clitoris is just for pleasure, like they're not really registering that significance. Now I realize that some women never orgasm and somehow, you know, they, I don't know, but I think... The clitoris is responsible for a lot of pleasure, even if it doesn't lead to orgasm. So it's still serving this really important pleasure function that aids in bonding. And it also aids in facilitating lubrication. Cause I've talked to guys and like, for guys the go-to move to get women wet is to rub their vulvas, right? Or to like go down on women. That's what they do. And if those... strategies don't work. It's like, it's very hard on them. You know? So, yeah, so I think that's really important. And also there's this guy, Roy Levin, who's published this paper arguing that clitoral stimulation induces physiologic changes that make conception more likely. So that's another function. And I also think that, you know, it is fundamentally a denial of female agency to say that clitoris isn't reproductive and you know people will reference like how like women and Cultures that practice female general mutilation still reproduce but That requires entire cultural systems of coercion that wouldn't have existed for most of human evolution And so I really think that like humans like evolved to like have sex because like women actually wanted to have it, you know? So wow, I'd never thought about it like that before. Yeah. Yeah, you're making an interesting point. And the part that I was going to say back a bit that sparked when you were telling your story, I just don't think it would be much different now either. Like you obviously don't look very old. So it wasn't ages ago, but. Oh my gosh. Oh my God. I was going to say you don't look, I thought you were going to say I'm not 18. I'm like, I don't look 18. No, I thought you're in your 20s. That's so funny. Wow. So in 18 years, yeah, I think it would still be so similar for a 17 year old girl now to Google and probably have similar, find similar things and what you found on there. Yeah. I mean, in some ways it's worse. So in some ways it's better because, you know, 10 normative studies have been done of labium in our size. So now if I was looking for those statistics that I really wanted when I was 17, I would find them. Yeah. So for me, like today, if I was in this position today, I probably would not have had a labiaplasty because I would have found this data that wasn't available to me back then. And now there are also, there's like the Volvo Gallery on Instagram, there are activists that have helped. raise awareness about vulva diversity. And so in that sense, like some things have gotten better, but some things have also gotten worse. You know, like now plastic surgeons run ads on Facebook. Like one of my friends got a Facebook ad that said, labiaplasty like a haircut for your genitals. Stop. Yep. Now, you know, all these girls are on TikTok and there are girls who've had labiaplasties talking about how it was the best decision of their life. and there are plastic surgeons promoting labiaplasties on TikTok, you know, just representing it as like no big deal and as like empowering and just this great thing to do. There was one plastic surgeon who literally had two sandwiches and she was like, I make this sandwich look like this sandwich. And then she like put the one sandwich down and like took scissors and like started trimming it off. Yeah. And I like that on TikTok now. Wow. So in that sense, it's worse. And can you imagine being a teenager scrolling on TikTok having no idea about like beauty standards around vulvas? And then, you know, seeing like a plastic surgeon cut the ham off the sandwich. Yeah. And yeah, like I don't know of one book or article through sex ed through. like my whole 36 years that I have seen a like diagram of a female body and there's a large labia minora. Yeah, I guess my puberty studies were a few years ago as well but they weren't, yeah they weren't like that at all. Yeah and I think the thing that's like what's really speaking to me at the moment is that like wow that was 18 years ago and to think of all the people who've had these you know potentially had these procedures done maybe it hasn't gone very well. I mean, they haven't talked to people in the first place about it. There's no way they're gonna talk to people about, perhaps if something hasn't gone right, like if they're already self-conscious in that way, that's quite scary, I think, that there's people out there potentially with no support around it. That's what I think. Sometimes I talk to my dad because sometimes I feel like... is this even as big of a deal as I think it is? And like, why did I get hurt? And why does it seem like there are these other patrons who are just fine? Like, why did it have to be me? You know, but the fundamental thing is they have been operating blind to basic anatomy. So that not too many women have been hurt is basically luck. And I think that, you know, another problem is, so there have been outcome studies that have been published, but they're published by the top experts in the field. And the until recently, like this, there was one where they actually did like a nerve study and that was pretty convincing. But, you know, as of at least as of 2012, when I went through and I like methodically analyze every outcome study, there was only one that truly assessed the effect on sexual function. And that one did find that 3% of women experience to reduce sexual function, and that's not very many. Um, however, to me that, that is like high enough to be like pretty concerned. And also, um, yeah. So to me, that's pretty significant. Actually, if you consider how important sexual function is to quality of life, you know, like if they said, oh, there's a 3% chance you're going to die, no one would do it. Chance you're going to leave without like with your leg amputated or something. Yeah. And I think in the situation where it's actually like helpful so people can live their lives better and it's more comfortable for them, like that's great. But if it's coming from a place where people are feeling like they're not normal as such, or they're feeling really self-conscious about it, it's just I just think it's a bit of a shame, really. Like, it's a shame that people have to feel that way. And then, yeah, like you say, go and get something with a 3% chance of losing some sexual functions. Bit disappointing. Yeah, and that's, you know, when done by like the biggest... You know what I mean? The expert. Now what he does in that study is he emphasizes how many report improve sensation. But the problem with that is we know that body image, like if you have better body image, you have better sexual function. And women who have negative body image, like they get feel self-conscious, it's hard for them to relax. And we also know that when women don't feel good about their vulvas, they won't even let their partners go down on them. Like there's all these issues that- come up when women feel insecure about their vulvas. And so I argue that these surgeons are creating the insecurities and then they're solving them with surgery, but they would be much better solved with just education and therapy. And it would be really interesting if somebody did a study where they compared two groups and one group got surgery and the other group just got education and help. Because I think... I tend to think that so many women are getting misled into having these surgeries. Like I was misled. And one thing I say repeatedly is misinformed consent is not consent. You know, like there's all this misinformation about causes of labial hypertrophy that are ridiculous. And also they say that half the female population has hypertrophy. Like it's absurd that they say half the female population has excess generals. You know? Like, what? Sounds normal to me. Yeah. It's just crazy. And the other thing is, so like even as of recently, the standardized consent forms offered by the American Society of Plastic Surgery didn't have, they didn't say that there were any risks to sexual function with labiaplasty. And so I had them change that. And I also asked them to create a separate consent form for clitoral hood reduction. And I haven't seen the result of that. Like I haven't seen the new consent forms, but hopefully they did that right. But to this day, the American College of OB-GYN misinforms about risks of literal hood reduction. So one thing very frustrating is I contacted them about how they had misinformation in their last committee opinion. And so I said, you know, I told them to please correct the misinformation. And I also asked them to please provide like, data on normal labium in our size because I said that would be really helpful. And they didn't respond, but then they went and they published a new committee opinion and they removed the misinformation I told them to remove and they provided the data that I asked them to provide. So I know that they took my feedback, they applied my feedback, but then they, you know, they have this chart and it's really messed up because for one, they have So basically it's like the surgery, the goal for the surgery, and then like the risks of the surgery, right? And so with hymenoplasty, which is re-virginization, where they like sew your hymen back together, and sometimes they even sew like, they even like cut into your vestibule and your vagina to like make sure that you bleed. I mean, this is a fucked up surgery, right? The purpose is to make sure women bleed so that their husbands believe that they're virgins. That's why these are done. And it's in the American College of OBGYN committee opinion on female general cosmetic surgery, right? And they say the goal of the procedure is to restore a virginal appearance. And then, yeah, I forget the risk, but it's like, why is that? Why are they even like, why are they even talking about it? Like they should put out a committee opinion that says we do not do that ever. You know? Oh, God, that just makes me sad to be honest. I know. Yeah, then they have clitoral hood reduction and under goal of clitoral hood reduction, they say improved sexual function, which makes as much sense as saying that circumcision improves male sexual function, right? Because the clitoral head is fundamentally just like the shaft skin and the foreskin of the penis. So if you're like cutting pieces out of it, that's what you're messing with. And under risk, they don't acknowledge that you can sever the nerves and you can cut off the nerve supply to the glands and rob someone of sensation. They don't acknowledge that risk. To this day, that's what's on their website today. Wow. I think that ignorance of anatomy continues to be a problem, ignorance regarding risk continues to be a problem among doctors performing these procedures. Wow. Yeah. And so one thing that I say is that I will shut up as soon as bolders are treated the same as breasts and noses. You know, when the standard of care and female general cosmetic surgery is as high as it is, you know, for breast surgery and like rhinoplasties, that's when I will stop. You know, because, you know, when there is informed consent, when surgeons are regularly getting trained for these surgeries, that's when I'll let this go. Right. But like, and this is something that people fundamentally don't understand. And they always, you know, they always want to emphasize that like a woman should get to choose. And I agree. A woman should get to choose. But like, first of all, they're misinforming women. They're advertising these surgeries as with fraud, you know, like they call them rejuvenation, which is fraud. Um, and they misinform about risks. And the other thing is women seeing these surgeries, they, fundamentally, typically do not understand that this is not like getting like a breast reduction, right? Like if you go in for a breast reduction with a board certified plastic surgeon, you know that your board certified plastic surgeon has learned super detailed anatomy of the breast. You know that they have been specifically trained in residency to do breast reduction. Like, you know that they've been trained in techniques, like with oversight, you know that they've done a minimum number of breast reductions during their residency, right? So there's all these like protections that like make sure that your surgeon is qualified. When it comes to female genital cosmetic surgery, none of those protections exists, at least not in the United States. And I actually think that here it's probably better than elsewhere, you know, because I've been like, you know, complaining so much. You've been done with it. Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm glad you're out there fighting for everyone's. Yeah. Vulvas. Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not really fighting for like women to have like safe vulva cosmetic surgery because I just don't think that we should be doing this. And I think we need to emphasize that what matters is that is like, you know, how our vulvas work, not what they look like. I also think this is a fake beauty standard. Like if you ever look at like men's comments on like my videos or like other videos like this, they're just like, women just get all these crazy ideas in their head and then like, like men will get on my, my videos and they'll comment like, I love roast beef and like women will just get mad at them. But like, but often they just don't care. Just don't care. Yeah. Often they don't care. Like, so there are a lot of guys saying they don't care and there are guys saying they actually like big lips, right? But for some reason it's like, Women, they only want a lot of the time, women are just hearing like the negatives or I don't know. Like, so I don't even think this is a real beauty standard. Like I don't think there's a clear preference. However, in one study, men more often said that they preferred smaller labia minora when they had been exposed to labiaplasty advertisements. So labiaplasty advertisements are influencing people's ideas about what vulva should look like. And so I think even among men, they're influencing men. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. I think that's just amazing. I really want to acknowledge your experience. I think that's just awful. There's no other way to put it. But I think that the work that you're doing is very admirable and you're doing such a good job. And I think from what we do and sometimes the questions that we get in about people. being super self-conscious about this. I think that it's really important. So we really appreciate your work. And where can people find you? What are your handles on TikTok and Instagram? I'm at jessica underscore and a n underscore pin, P I N on Instagram and on TikTok and on Twitter. I am meta clit. So N E D I C L I T. I love it. Amazing. Awesome. That's so great. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. It's been great talking to you. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the Girls Get Off podcast. You can find us on Instagram at girlsgetoff. You can join our Facebook group, Girls Get Off Uncensored. I think we've got more than 20,000 members in there at the moment. And if you'd like to leave us a rating or a review, that always helps us get higher in the charts, and every week we'll pick the most creative review to win a Missy Mini. Thanks for listening.