My vagina needs a nip tuck...no seriously

I was 17 years old when I first heard of the nip tucks being done on women's external genitals. This made me nervous, I didn't know your genitals had to be perfect. How do I know if they are perfect? Can I see a picture?

Later, I watched a "Sex and the City" episode where Charlotte finally uses a mirror to explore herself. Aha! That's how I know if it will be perfect or not.

So I went to the bathroom later that night and found a mirror. As I looked at it, I found so much wrong with every thing. My lips were too big, they were flappy. I have flappy lips. I do not want flappy lips. I immediately called my boyfriend at the time..."I need to have surgery down there...my lips are too flappy."

"Wait what? You're lips, huh?" He replied and I could tell he really wasn't interested in my flappy lips.

"Fine! You can deal with my flappy lips! God you are so inconsiderate!" I hung up and obsessed over it by myself.

While reading my newest book about Feminism "Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti, she discusses how in Africa this surgery is called FGM-female genital mutilation. And in America this is called "cosmetic surgery".

Shows just how hypocritical our beliefs our. FGM is wrong, but having a doctor try and change your lips is right? What is wrong with that?

I am no longer obsessive over my fat lips. Who cares if my lips are Angelina Jolie sized down there...I thought she was supposed to be hot anyway? But the fact that for months I wondered how I could afford this surgery scares me. At the same time I was learning about FGM and did not connect the two together. I was appalled by FGM but accepted the views of a perfect vagina. (Which isn't anatomically right anyway, my "lips" are actually the labia which is part of the female Vulva---which is NOT a car).

In fact, I did not connect it until today when I was reading that chapter by Valenti on beauty. Just ridiculous. I had forgot about my freak out over my fat Angelina lips.

And when I read this over, trying to correct my bad grammar and spelling. I notice just how messed up our beauty standards are. We can have big lips on our face....but not down there? Please. We can criticize cultural practices for tradition across the world, but practice the same thing in America just for beauty. Why is everything so backwards? Why can't I love my big Angelina lips and my little ears?

And who tells me I can't? Because I actually do. I am not going to waste 40,000 dollars on a surgery when I can spend it on school, that's more than the loans I have taken out for school right now anyway. Even though my thighs are thunderous, why can't that be beautiful? Because I am beautiful. And what makes me beautiful is not the size of my lips, or my little ears, or my thunder thighs; it is my passion for helping people. It is my passion for caring. It is my personality. Not my looks, it was never my looks that made me beautiful.

Beauty should never be on the outside; And more Americans need to learn this before they have their labia messed with.(And use the right terminology!!! Vagina is on the inside!!!)