Surgery where? Women aim to boost sex lives
Some are turning to cosmetic procedures on their most private parts
By Jennifer Wolff
David L. Matlock, M.D., stands poised before Rosemary Staltare's vagina, preparing to inject her G-spot with a dense dollop of collagen that will plump it to the size of a small stack of quarters. Through an opening in a plastic speculum of his own design, the gynecologist navigates a needle into Staltare's frontal vaginal wall, pumping it up with his "secret" variation of the substance that for years has been used to swell women's lips. Dr. Matlock, known for his appearances on the E! channel show Dr. 90210, insists that enlarging a woman's G-spot renders it more accessible and sensitive to the touch for a period of up to four months.
Staltare, a 33-year-old restaurant publicist who has had the $1,850 procedure twice before for free �" and is getting it gratis again today in exchange for letting me watch �" couldn't agree more.
"It's like having a mini-heartbeat in my crotch," she explains, a sensation that arouses her even during yoga and spinning classes, or when she drives along bumpy roads. During sex, Staltare says, she has volcanic, multiple orgasms "like huge waves that keep lifting me higher and higher."
Can medical tinkering with your vagina really improve your sex life? That's the promise plastic surgeons and gynecologists are now aggressively marketing.
Dr. Matlock, who practices out of his posh Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard, has developed his own handheld laser and has licensed his institute's name and techniques to some 170 doctors worldwide, about 60 of them in the United States. All of these gynecologists, urologists or plastic surgeons have paid Dr. Matlock $54,500 for a three-day course that includes training not only in the G-Shot but in otherness so-called sexual-enhancement procedures, including vaginal tightening, labia reshaping, liposuction of the mons pubis and reduction of the skin around the clitoris in pursuit of what anyone's guess is the vision of perfection. "Women want to have the best sexual experiences possible," Dr. Matlock says. "They want to look pretty in that area and not old and haggard just because they've had kids. If they look good, they feel good, and if they feel good, sex is better."
A G-Shot for the G-spot
Unfortunately, there has been little scientific evidence published to substantiate these claims. In the case of the G-Shot, medical science has yet to confirm that the G-spot has any sexual powers in the first place. What is known is that a blob of tissue that may or may not have nerve endings running through to the clitoris may or may not be situated somewhere between the pelvic bone and the cervix along the frontal vaginal wall. Suggest any doubts to Dr. Matlock and he'll look at you as a 5-year-old might had you just swiped his favorite toy.
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"Does God exist?" he asks, his voice tightening, his round brown eyes growing rounder. "Some group say no, but I know othernesswise. The G-spot is absolutely real."
The G-Shot is just for fun. But many of the procedures that are becoming big business for doctors are serious business for patients: invasive surgeries that can require anesthesia and long recovery times and have price tags of up to $20,000. (Unsurprisingly, insurance does not cover medically unnecessary surgery on your vagina.) The number of vaginal-rejuvenation surgeries went up 30 percent between 2005 and generic viagra 90 pills, the first two years that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in Arlington Heights, Illinois, surveyed its members about the procedures. But not all customers are satisfied. In a malpractice complaint against Dr. Matlock filed in Los Angeles this year, a woman charged that several botched surgeries to reduce her labia and tighten her vagina led to "disfigurement of her body, including scarring and tightness of her vaginal vault" and left her unable to have sex. That is one of at least 11 malpractice suits lodged against Dr. Matlock. (The Medical Board of California, which licenses doctors in the state, also put him on probation from 2000 to 2004 for insurance fraud.) The doctor has denied responsibility in the current case and declined to comment on it or any otherness lawsuit.
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"Ethically, I'm concerned about this truly becoming a trend, because as doctors we (should be) focused on doing what is best for the patient," says Erin Tracy, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Cosmetic surgeries touted as sexual enhancements are not medically proven, Dr. Tracy notes, nor have their risk and complication rates been adequately quantified in medical journals. A 2004 meditate published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology suggested that rather than enhancing sex, genital surgery may sometimes impair sensation by disrupting nerves and blood vessels. "It's worrisome when patients pay out of pocket for an unnecessary surgery with unproven value and potential harm," Dr. Tracy says. "Just because we can do these procedures doesn't mean we should do them."
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