Emma P, the founder of LargeLabiaProject.org and OurBreasts.org (both of which aim to show that body parts aren’t “better” or “worse,” just “different), took issue with a few of our points in the recent post, “10 Myths About Labia Debunked“:

I do have a big problem with what you’ve written in myth #8 about porn performers:

MYTH #8: Porn stars are naturally blessed with pale pink, neat and tidy labia.
FACT: Porn stars and other women who make a living from their vulvas often undergo a complicated and risky surgery called labiaplasty to look like a Barbie doll or a small girl. In nude photographs, women’s labia are often digitally shortened via Photoshop or airbrushed out completely. Yep, even the freakin’ labia aren’t safe from Photoshop these days!

You’re actually perpetuating a different myth about the prevalence of labiaplasty and a lack of large labia in the porn business. This is something I’ve been trying on and off to debunk on my blog for a while now viewing many adult-rated videos that could feature on sites such as https://www.fulltube.xxx/ and the many other porn sites you can find online. From what I know to be true, what you’re saying in that point just isn’t correct. You didn’t cite your sources – where did that come from? I know your site is as much about entertainment as education, and it’s not a learned, peer-reviewed journal, (neither is mine) but it’s not necessarily helpful publishing that sort of thing.

I’m not a porn advocate at all, and I think that many things about porn are just plain wrong, but as far as large-labia-angst goes, I think porn is being unfairly blamed. It would be convenient to lay the blame there, but it’s not the right thing to do. There’s as much variety in the types of porn you can find as there are in the types of bodies being portrayed. The Hungry Beast documentary you’ve linked to (incidentally watching that years ago prompted me to start my blog), and the work that Vanessa Schick did in her research, Evulvalution: The Portrayal of Women’s External Genitalia and Physique across Time and the Current Barbie Doll Ideals, shows that in some softcore porn having visible labia minora causes problems for censorship boards, or in the case of Playboy it’s self-censorship to meet some bizarre ideal of the publisher. But there are many more sources of porn that show all sorts of everyday vulvas and labia. Have a look at these posts, grouped under “Large labia really do exist in porn” which albeit aren’t scientific, but a cursory glance through them and actually looking at various porn sites will show you that there’s no such thing as an archetypal “porn pussy”.

What people see all depends on what type of porn people consume. And psychologically if someone has a predisposition to be thinking about one thing (such as there’s only small labia in porn), that’s what they are more likely to see. It’s like the old “whatever you do, don’t think of a polar bear,” and instantly you do. It’s the same as when your friend is pregnant and suddenly you start seeing pregnant women everywhere, whereas you never did before. They were always around though, you just never noticed. Or if you’re buying a new car, all of a sudden you’ll see a lot more of the same model you like. So, if you are focused only on small labia, that’s what you’re more likely to see (and not notice the rest).

As for porn actresses being more likely to have labiaplasty, I think that’s just wrong. I conducted a short informal survey of people in the porn industry, run through a discussion forum on the Xbiz website (you need a membership and have to be in the adult business to participate) and had feedback from female and male movie performers, cam show girls, studio directors / producers / production staff / marketing staff etc. Their feedback was otherwise anonymous, and very candid. The results showed that:

• There’s no ideal pussy size or shape, although people were more likely to be cast if they had a good looking pussy, which wasn’t defined and is totally subjective.
• Basically if a girl is prepared to fuck on camera then she’s not going to be turned away if she has large labia.
• Nobody had ever heard of performers being asked or pressured to have labiaplasty, although obviously some people have, just like in the broader community.
• Feedback from a couple of strippers, who had large labia minora, said they tended to get a better response from guys in the clubs they work than girls with not visible labia minora.

What porn is responsible for is starting the mainstream fashion of shaving/waxing pubic hair. Before pubes started coming off, labiaplasty didn’t even exist and there wasn’t this growing anxiety about what’s normal or attractive. Large labia aren’t new. They’ve been around since humans have walked the planet. But when everyone had a bush, they weren’t on display. Porn started removing pubic hair to make use of better camera/film/digital technology that allowed clearer close ups, and more detail. Without pubes in the way they could show skin on skin penetration, oral sex, etc. But then porn started becoming mainstream, with performers on talk shows and becoming minor celebrities, the Playboy Mansion and retail clothing (8 year olds wearing Playboy branded cutesy clothes, which is fucking disgraceful), and modern culture started becoming pornified. Even calling porn performers “pornstars” glorifies the job. So we all followed the porn-inspired trend and started shaving our muffs, and seeing adult labia.

That explains why we’re seeing our vulvas now, but it doesn’t explain why there’s so much anxiety about a couple of centimeters of skin. I don’t have answers for that. But clearly at one end we have sex education systems that are greatly lacking, vulva diagrams in textbooks that don’t show diversity, etc. At the other end we have cosmetic surgery vultures creating a whole new exploitative revenue stream and cashing in on this newly invented self-esteem void. And somewhere in the middle we have a festering mass of insecurity, coming from . . . ? There’s probably not just one cause of it. Undoubtedly porn plays a role, but it’s not the sole cause. The thing is, there’s next to no research in this area, so we just don’t know why. (One university is conducting a study on “Genital Modification in Australia,” which your Australian readers might want to anonymously participate in.)

Oh and speaking of myths, when you said in another post that “most of the ladies in porn have big boobs: It’s a job requirement, so if they weren’t born that way, they go under the knife to get that way,” that is also incorrect and pretty biased. Check out this post about research done analyzing porn industry statistics, and showing that by far the most common bra size in porn is 34B.

Regards,

Emma
LargeLabiaProject.org
OurBreasts.org