We set our standards high – men and women – often using looks as the milestone by which to measure future mates, forgetting some of the other important genetic traits that might have a bigger impact on our future happiness together.

We were standing around the braai the other day, mates having a few beers, shooting the breeze as guys do, talking about rugby, the state of the economy and whether you should constantly turn the meat or just once – either way.

Then Lee* (not his real name) dropped a bombshell.

“I met this chick the other night and we hit it off right away.  A few drinks later, we were at my place, things turned all hot and I went down on her. Then - gasp – I saw the size of her labia minora and had to get the hell out of there in a hurry!”

Actually I’m telling pork pies.

I have never heard a guy talk about a woman’s privates in any specific detail. She might have been a wildcat or a sack of potatoes, but never that she had ugly junk.

Men love vaginas: their shapes and taste and everything about them. Some even know what to do with them.

So it was with a disconcerting sense of reality that I read about “The Barbie” or Labiaplasty “the procedure that clips off portions of a woman's labia minor (the inner lips of her vulva) so that she looks more like a pristine porn star”.

Even the URL suggests there is something wrong ‘down there’: unhappy-with-your-gross-vagina as if such a thing exists (ok, I did once see a woman strutting along the beach with a tumultuous pubic hedge trying to escape out the sides of her bikini like a waterfall which was kind of gross).

It is reminiscent of genital mutilation, although not in the name of religion and not for any other reason that cosmetic.

Circumcision might be frowned upon as a form of mutilation, although the health benefits of it appear to justify it – however, doctors (and women) argue that Barbie surgery makes the vagina prettier.

Don’t you realise, it is already a thing of beauty.

Don’t you remember “The Vagina Monologues” – setting the vagina free and embracing your womanhood and unique sensuality that has nothing to do with what your lady bits look like and everything to do with accepting yourself without reservation.

A woman confident in her own sexuality is sexier than the most beautiful wallflower and I bet she has a better sex life too.

I suppose breast augmentation, botox and skin tightening is so common these days as to render the Barbie a minimal fuss procedure.

But would you do it? Would it impress your man (or close lady friend)?
 
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