Shal­iza Has­sanali

Sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures to tight­en vagi­nal tis­sues, im­prove sex life and self-es­teem are in high de­mand by women in Colom­bia. Though vagi­nal re­ju­ve­na­tion is not yet a big craze in the Caribbean, in Colom­bia, labi­aplas­ty and vagino­plas­ty are the surg­eries most sought-af­ter by women be­tween the ages 30 and 50. The tra­di­tion­al kegel ex­er­cis­es-which strength­en the wall of the pelvic foor in or­der to in­crease sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion, among oth­er things-have tak­en a back seat to vagi­nal re­ju­ve­na­tion, a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure than can re­store or im­prove the vagi­na's cos­met­ic ap­pear­ance or func­tion. The man who is mak­ing it all hap­pen is Dr Juan Dario Al­vair, a lead­ing plas­tic sur­geon at Fos­cal in Bu­cara­man­ga, Colom­bia. Al­vair was one of the spe­cialised doc­tors who the Sun­day Guardian spoke to dur­ing a health press trip to Fos­cal, or­gan­ised by Proex­port of Colom­bia be­tween Ju­ly 2 and 7. Labi­aplas­ty and vagino­plas­ty, Al­vair said, can be per­formed to en­hance the woman and her part­ner's sex life. Fos­cal of­fers a long list of cos­met­ic and aes­thet­ic surg­eries.

Al­vair said while hos­pi­tals in the Unit­ed States have been of­fer­ing this ser­vice, women from Cana­da, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Spain, Cu­ba and Venezuela have been flock­ing to their hos­pi­tal to have the sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures done be­cause of its rea­son­able fees, which range from US$1,500 to $5,000, de­pend­ing on what the client wants. The fee for vagi­nal re­ju­ve­na­tion at a cen­tre in Man­hat­tan, USA, Al­vair said, was list­ed at US$9,900. Labi­aplas­ty is a cos­met­ic gen­i­tal sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that will re­duce the size or change the shape of the small lips on the out­side of the vagi­na (the labia mi­no­ra).

While some women are born with large or ir­reg­u­lar labia, Al­vair said oth­ers de­vel­op this con­di­tion af­ter child­birth or with age­ing. "The ap­pear­ance of the en­larged labia can cause em­bar­rass­ment with a sex­u­al part­ner or loss of self es­teem. It can great­ly en­hance the cos­met­ic ap­pear­ance of the out­er vagi­na giv­ing women greater con­fi­dence. It makes women feel younger and sex­i­er," Al­vair not­ed.

Al­vair ex­plained that while child­birth can be seen as the most re­ward­ing life­time ex­pe­ri­ence, the last­ing ef­fects for both the moth­er and her spouse or part­ner is not as grat­i­fy­ing. "The phys­i­cal en­durance on the body can be un­com­fort­able and hu­mil­i­at­ing." Al­vair said the surgery tones the mus­cles in the vagi­nal re­gion, en­su­ing su­pe­ri­or con­trac­tion and func­tion, and caus­ing greater re­spon­sive­ness dur­ing sex.

Men thank doc­tors for boost­ing their sex lives

Vagino­plas­ty is a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that tight­ens the vagi­na and sur­round­ing tis­sues, yield­ing a vagi­nal tight­ness be­fore the pa­tient gave birth. This is done by re­mov­ing ex­cess vagi­nal lin­ing and tight­en­ing the sur­round­ing soft tis­sues and mus­cles. "Dur­ing de­liv­ery of a ba­by, the vagi­na and sur­round­ing tis­sues and mus­cles be­come stretched. Af­ter de­liv­ery, the vagi­na may re­turn to a more nor­mal size, but it of­ten fails to re­turn to its pre-preg­nan­cy di­am­e­ter. Gen­er­al­ly, the more vagi­nal de­liv­er­ies, the worse the con­di­tion gets," Al­vair point­ed out. Al­vair said as a re­sult of this, women tend to com­plain of de­creased sen­sa­tion and sex­u­al sat­is­fac­tion dur­ing in­ter­course. "Com­mon­ly, this is due to a lack of fric­tion," he ex­plained. If the vagi­nal mus­cle is overex­tend­ed, Al­vair said, the woman may re­quire more than one surgery. "As much as five are need­ed." With hun­dreds of gen­i­tal surg­eries and re­ju­ve­na­tions per­formed on Colom­bian women by Fos­cal, Al­vair said hus­bands, lovers and part­ners have been re­turn­ing to the hos­pi­tal to thank its doc­tors for boost­ing their sex life and im­prov­ing their lovers' self-es­teem and con­fi­dence. "Ac­tu­al­ly, the men are the ones who push the women to get the surgery done. It is re­al­ly amaz­ing."

The surgery, Al­vair said, takes just a few hours. "De­pend­ing on the type of surgery, the woman can go home in un­der two days or a few hours." The pa­tient is ad­vised to re­frain from sex for four weeks.

Es­ther Primus, man­ag­er of Liv­ing Lovel­ly, a weight-man­age­ment, body-sculpt­ing and aes­thet­ic cen­tre in Curepe, said she held a con­sul­ta­tion with a US hos­pi­tal a few months ago and was told that each surgery would cost US$15,000. This fig­ure ex­cludes room, med­ica­tion, nurs­ing care, meals and air­fare. "That was then...With the de­mand grow­ing for the pro­ce­dures, I am sure the prices have in­creased," Primus said. Primus said while she knows that Trinida­di­an women have been qui­et­ly go­ing to Venezuela, USA and Cu­ba for vagi­nal re­ju­ve­na­tion, one med­ical cen­tre in the coun­try of­fers it at a cost of $50,000, which she felt was too ex­pen­sive.