(Caution: adult-only content)
With moral decline reaching epidemic proportions, it is hard to find much of anything nowadays to actually shock us, move us, or spur us out of our lethargy. If the following item does not do it, then we are in worse shape than we may have thought. We will then need resurrection, not just revival.
The article in today’s paper really floored me. And I must confess to having had to turn to the dictionary to discover what a few of these terms meant. But even without, one can pretty well guess what it is going on here – and it is appalling. The bottom line seems to be this: teenage girls are having surgery on their private parts so they can look more like porn stars.
That seems to be the substance of this shocking article in today’s press. The article in question actually deals with the aftermath of all this: young women going to get psychiatric help after having had this cosmetic surgery. Both are bad enough. Together they are reprehensible.
Here is how the Sunday Age ran the story: “Women as young as 18 are being referred for psychiatric treatment after cosmetic surgery to enhance the look of their genitals fails to make them feel better about their bodies. The head of psychiatry at St Vincent’s Hospital told The Sunday Age three women had been referred to its body dysmorphia clinic this year after undergoing labioplasty surgery. One feels permanently ‘disfigured’, has not had sex for three years and has become so anxious about the way her genitals look she is on medication.”
The story continues (and pardon the graphic imagery): “Professor Castle [the head of psychiatry at St Vincent’s Hospital] said some medical specialists were not so scrupulous and would operate repeatedly on patients who should not go under the knife. ‘I’ve seen girls having these operations at 18,’ he said. ‘Then they go back because they want another procedure and finally the gynaecologist or surgeon says maybe this isn’t quite right.’
“He said the young women he treated often felt pressured into surgery because they feared men would not find them attractive if their labia did not conform to a standard seen in pornography, in which the labia are often airbrushed out. Last week The Sunday Age revealed the number of Medicare claims for labioplasties had tripled in less than a decade.
“‘It’s really sad, these women say they had the surgery because they didn’t want to be teased, they thought they looked abnormal, they thought men wouldn’t like it. Young women can be very insecure and if they haven’t had a sexual relationship they get scared of what might be said.’ Professor Castle has called for legislation requiring makers of pornography to label all images that have been airbrushed, in a bid to give young women more realistic expectations of their bodies.”
Another article speaks about how this is becoming a fast-growing trend all around the Western world. “Demand for cosmetic vaginal surgery is rising in the United States, as well, where the procedures typically cost upwards of $5,000. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 1,030 vaginal rejuvenations were performed in the U.S. in 2006, a 30 percent increase from the previous year (the group only tracked the procedure for those two years).”
It seems everywhere young women have found a new role model. So who says the porn culture is harmless? This is horrendous, and it is all because popular culture is forcing young girls to get “the look,” and the mainstreaming of the porn culture is aiding and abetting this. Today pop culture and the porn culture have merged to wage war against our young people.
For years the porn industry has sought to present an image of being a legitimate business, a mainstream industry. Well, it has now pretty well succeeded in this. It has merged big time with popular culture, and today it is often quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
Porn stars have released books which have become best sellers. They appear on prime time chat shows. Porn stars appear quite regularly now in popular films, TV shows, and music video clips. TV shows – and movies – like Sex in the City are about only one thing: sexuality in every shape and size imaginable.
With the pornification of pop culture now nearly complete, is it any wonder that we are learning about how our own daughters are mutilating themselves in order to get the look? Since when have porn stars become role models and examples for our young people?
Of course the sleaze industry keeps insisting that sleaze is harmless and does not affect anyone. Yeah right. Try telling that to these 18-year-olds. They should be at the prime of their life, seeking careers or further education, and instead many of them are cowering basket cases, with physical and emotional mutilation, worried about not having the latest porn star look.
We can tell when any civilisation has reached the end of its rope: when its citizens cease to blush, cease to display any sense of shame, and cease to recognise evil when it stares them in the face. When we can read about something like this without thinking twice, without feeling a sense of disgust, then we have clearly lost our way as a culture.
Given such a moral deadening which is creeping over the entire Western world, we need not speak of if it will finally die out, but simply when it will.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/psychiatric-help-required-after-vaginal-surgery-20101113-17rx0.html
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/czech-republic/101021/vagina-porn-plastic-surgery
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