Dr. Alter, I Will See You in Hell
Yes, fine, as a misguided heathen, I'm clearly going straight to Hell. There's nothing my dad can do about it, no matter how reverent the Reverend is.
But if my dad can swing me one favor in the afterlife, I hope I'm burning next to Dr. Gary J. Alter, MD, who clearly has an eternity of feminist bitches making large, painful cuts to his genitals in his future. Rachel has been over this, but it keeps popping up on my radar, and so I'm going to have to keep making disgusting noises about it.
For those of you who lack the stomach for it, let me point out the highlights. If your cooter is too fat--causing "an embarrassing bulge in pants or swimsuits"--rather than buying pants that fit you, you can have your cooter remodeled. He'll suck the fat out and trim the outer labia right up. He says, "The surgery is relatively minor and is not very uncomfortable." Sure.
What causes an ugly, fat cooter? "The labia majora may be enlarged from birth, secondary to childbirth, or due to aging." Yes, a fat cooter is either a birth defect or an unseemly side-effect of living. Poor fat-cootered gals.
But before you go gloating, skinny-cootered girls, Dr. Alter has a procedure for you as well: "Labia majora fat injections to increase the fullness of the outer lips of the vagina." You may wonder, what could bring on such an embarrassing problem as the too-skinny cooter? Strangely enough, it also seems to be a birth defect or an unseemly side-effect of living.
Wow, you'd think that there'd be some kind of government study looking into all these deformed cooters, but instead, women, we're left only with our own personal Goldilocks--Dr. Alter--to gaze at our cooters, scalpel in hand, and decide if they are too fat or too skinny, and carve them up to make them "just right."
posted by Aunt B at 11/01/2005 11:23:00 AM
16 Comments:
Okay, sorry, I just have to point out that "Fat Cooter's" would be the most awesome name for a bar ever.
B,
Gotta disagree with you on this one. Given, I don't know anything about this other than what you just wrote, but dig this: Dr. Alter isn't running around the streets yanking panties down and hacking on strangers. He doesn't even yank down strangers' panties and criticize their snatches. I don't think he's victimizing anyone.
Yes, society teaches women to be ashamed of their bodies. It does it to men too. This isn't a "feminist" thing, it's a case study in stupidity. You know what... if people are so fucking insecure about their bodies that they'll pay Dr. Alter to hack up their vaginas, then I have no sympathy. If women are willing to do this, it's their own faults.
If you're dumb enough to let society dictate the dimensions of your camel toe, then you deserve a hacked-up 'giney.
Society says I should be sporting a 12" donkey dick and abs of steel, but I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm not dumb enough to care.
YBHC,
How exactly do you think your job works? Marketing is about creating a need and then offering a way to fill that need.
If you think you aren't succeptible to societal pressures, I wonder why you're all the time looking so cute?
First, Fat Cooters would be an awesome name for a bar band.
Second, YBHC, let's not confuse labia with vagina. You don't bikini wax a vagina, not without considerable difficulty anyhow.
Third, Dr. Alter (who, I thought, must be a parodic invention, given the name and all) makes his living promoting not just any body's insecurity, but specifically women's bodily insecurity. And not society (as far as I know, there is no collective pronouncement on the fat cooter issue) but Dr. Alter is instructing women (yes, gullible insecure and perhaps stupid women) that to be desirable, they need to pay him to change their bodies rather than buy bigger pants. It's not clear to me that there was a groundswell of fat cootered women stampeding to his office; in fact, it seems more the case that he is drumming up business for himself by engaging in what a sociologist would call "beauty norming." So what part of that isn't misogynist and anti-feminist?
The cosmetic surgery fads of today lead to the harmful insecurities of tomorrow.
Mysoginist and anti-feminist? That seems to imply that it is somehow the dudes what're forcing their views of labial beuty on women, but, please, I dunno, but I don't think its a bunch of men saying hey baby go get your cooter clipped because its too fat, or contrariwise, go get your labia pumped,
cuz I likes me a full camel toe. I bet if you asked every dude your know, you would have a dearth of opinions re the size of a lady's quim - I bet most don't even notice. When the female-male relationship gets to the point where you are taking your pants off, we aren't really looking for a well-shaped snatch - as long as its there were good to go. Now there are always those who are cursed with meat curtains, and for them I am truly sorry and corrective surgery may be necessary, but really, for most women its an aesthetic of which only they are concerned.
If the whole myth of feminism is to empower women then we must accept the fact that some women are dumb and some women are vain and some women are both dumb and vain and yet still rich enough to get their lady-parts altered to make them happy. Instead of criticising these women shouldn't you be celebrating their power to make themselves, at least in their own heads, better?
LE
I know this is a serious issue with deep societal implications and all, but when I read phrases like:
'the dimensions of your camel toe'
'a groundswell of fat-cootered women'
'labial beauty'
'well-shaped snatch' and
'meat curtain' (though that one's new to me)
all I can do is giggle uncontrollably.
It's just one of the reasons why I love it here.
I'd like to revoke my statement and disagree with you (and myself) even further. I wrote ignorantly on that first post.
I'm all for this. Yeah, he looks like a walkin' talkin' douche and there are a lot of societal implications associated with his job. Right, I get it. Our culture puts unfair and unhealthy pressures on people. But hear me out...
Here's what changed my mind. I looked at the site and browsed through some of the before-and-after photos. The vaginas and the penises are really, really disgusting. I realized that sometimes body parts are grossly deformed, and the crotch area is no different. I completely understand why these people would feel insecure. If those women fell out of a plane, their labias could act as parachutes. They're abnormally grody. If you want a sicker example, take a look at the cock shots. Those dudes' dongs are buried inside them.
If you had a huge, gross, deformed wart on your hand, you'd probably have it removed instead of "learning to accept and love your body" or pitching a fit because "society keeps telling us that warts are unsightly." Same goes for third nipples, extra toes, and harelips. Sometimes, body parts are just a little too gnarly, and you've got to do something about it.
After seeing the pictures, I realized that you're right... this IS a cosmetic procedure. But I had a different image in my mind. I thought people were mutilating regular labias to make them look like porno labias. The labias and peckers work just fine, they're just atrocious. Who'd want to go home from a bar with someone, hop in bed, and hear "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?" every single time. Because the folks in those pictures probably hear that... every single time.
Guys and gals looking for a good sport fuck don't want to have to search for a missing penis or be scared of a monster vadge. This is life, and anything outside the norm is going to get a second glance, no matter what culture you live in.
I mean, you wouldn't tell a burn victim "you really shouldn't have cosmetic surgery, you should just learn to accept your new Halloween face." Fact is, nobody wants to make children (or, back to the point, drunken hook-ups) run in fear.
I'm sure that living with genitals that far outside the norm has a profound and horrible effect on people, so I totally understand and respect the fact that they'd want to alter them.
Plus, Dr. Alter says it doesn't really hurt that bad. I changed my mind... how much for a 12" donkey dick?
Amen, Peg -- I laughed so hard I actually shed tears.
Nice job, LE. That's my husband everyone. And he apparently does not give a damn what my ladyflower looks like. Does this mean I can stop spending money on bikini waxes?
And here's an addendum in which I'll reply to my Tiny Cat Pants fan mail.
B: We don't create a need for country music. Tragically, people just like it. Like gross private parts, the world would be better without it. Also, I was born this cute (and I've got perfect genitals).
Bridgett: Labia, vagina, whatever. I'm talkin' about that crazy stuff between your legs. And I'm not exactly sure how this guy markets himself, but on the website, I notice way more "boy" surgical procedures listed than "girl" ones (even if you throw the boobs in).
Peg: I've got way funnier euphemisms for a lady's special spot. Click here for an animated song about it.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Well, shit, how else are you supposed to talk about this shit if you can't make it funny? Because, really, alarming and funny run just about neck and neck with this crap.
Anyway, LE, is it only misogyny if everyone does it? Can't just one dude be a pig? And, please, feminism doesn't require me to sit back and nod approvingly because my "sisters" now have the opportunity to do dumb-ass shit. I'm free to buy a gun and repeatedly shoot myself in the foot. Pointing out the stupidity of that would not make you a bad person.
Paul, between Cooter and Enis, that show had subtext.
YBHC, clearly he's lumping together cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery for a reason. And please, clearly I'm not knocking anyone's decision to have reconstructive surgery. You know that; I know that; it's a distraction from the real issue--which is that, even though he does reconstructive surgery on people who really need it--he also carves up perfectly normal cooters because his patients think they need that.
Would it be okay for him to chop off toes because it made it easier for women to fit in cute pointy-toed shoes?
Or could we agree that such a proceedure is fucked up?
B: Yes, it's fucked up to chop off toes to fit into shoes. It's not fucked up to chop off a sixth toe so people will quit screaming.
There's a fine line between actually being a victim of society and resigning one's self as a victim of society. You're a woman as much as these vaginoplasty victims are women. What separates you from them?
You don't buy into this "carve your cooter" culture crap, that's what. And apparently, dudes are getting their junk hacked on too. So maybe in this case, it's not society versus women, maybe it's society versus the tragically insecure.
If your privates are really gross, then go for it. If your privates are fine, then fucking grow up and quit being so self-loathing, right? I don't blame society as much as I blame people who refuse to reject society.
That's the thing about social norms... the more people defy (or ignore) them, the less their dominion. Makes me mad at this "victimized" type that keep fueling it. If cultural norms have no constituency, then they're not cultural norms, are they?
For someone who bucks the system as hard as you do, I'd imagine you'd have more anger than sympathy for those who play ball with it.
Now all night I've had a Santana song in my head, but instead of 'Black Magic Woman' it's:
'She's a fat-cootered woman.......'
Does Atkins or Weight Watchers work for fat cooters?
Third, Dr. Alter (snip) makes his living promoting not just any body's insecurity, but specifically women's bodily insecurity.
Of everything that's been said in here, this quote by Bridgett is the only thing that really bothers me. Why is it so much worse that he promotes women's body insecurity? To me, that statement implies that it's either okay, or not near nearly as bad to play to a man's body insecurity.
W
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