Embarrassing Bodies

A woman comes in with normal labia that are slightly larger than average and the doctor just recommends unnecessary plastic surgery. Labia come in all shapes and sizes. It is not ethical to advocate plastic surgery to fit some cookie cutter mold. I guarantee your partner will not care about the size of your labia. The entire show feels like an infomercial for plastic surgery.

It's terrible how a show that claims to want to destigmatize things does just the opposite, for example in the episode in which a woman doubts whether her inner labia are normal. This woman literally said she just wanted to know if her labia are normal or abnormal. The first sentence the "doctor" says the moment she looks at the labia is "Allison, you've got quite a lot of excess skin around here". On the standing observation she says "from here I can see straight on that they're sticking right down and normally you wouldn't get that appearance". In the few sentences the doctor has said, she calls something that is absolutely not unhealthy and also absolutely not rare, abnormal. The fact that the woman herself had the choice to have the surgery or not does not alter the fact that not one attempt was made to normalize something normal (on the contrary). The media spreads a certain image of the vagina causing many women and men to no longer have a realistic image of the great diversity that actually exists in that area. Because of that many women are ashamed of their own normal, natural, healthy labia and undergo surgery. As a result the group of woman with large labia (and a lot of them with larger labia than the woman in this episode) shrinks. Functional complaints are often used as an excuse while the reason in most of the cases is actually purely aesthetic (to get rid of insecurities). This is not a complaint against the woman who undergo this kind of surgery. I understand them very well. This is a complaint against media starting and fueling insecurities and then making money out of them. Embarrassing bodies has done this too. With this episode, embarrassing bodies only managed to make a lot of women feel bad over something that is absolutely normal and supported the industry that makes money from peoples insecurities. I do not believe that this program serves the purposes it claims to serve, quite the contrary.

I think it's great that the people on this show who come for help get it, they're happy with the outcome, and the audience gets informed at the same time. Other reviews give the impression that this is just another show about cosmetic surgery and it's far from that. I don't think feminists give it a chance. I don't think anyone who appeared was forced to do cosmetic surgery or anything else. I've watched every episode available on Netflix and in my observation, no one ends up doing anything they didn't want to do to begin with. Most of the so-called "cosmetic surgery" people have done on this program amounts to corrective surgery and there's nothing wrong with that. If someone feels better about themself after having a substantially smaller breast made larger (because that is an actual medical condition that causes years of emotional anguish, self-esteem and relationship issues, and requires surgical correction to actually fix...you can't just "get over" that with self-acceptance counselling, not when you're reminded every time you dress and undress) or another kind of physical malformation corrected because they don't like the way it looks, or it actually feels physically uncomfortable, that's their prerogative. It's no one else's right to tell someone not to have corrective surgery, but go and see a counsellor to learn to accept themselves as they are instead. That doesn't help everyone. Years of bullying, ridicule, and torment can leave scars that never go away and for some people, the only way to finally relieve themselves of that is to get rid of what caused it. That doesn't make them weak, it makes them human and no one has a right to judge them. The doctors in this program aren't forcing anyone to do anything. The patients go in saying, "I want to fix this," and they need a referral for it. They don't go in saying, "I think there's something mentally wrong with me because I'm dead set on having a physical malformation corrected. Can you send me to a counsellor to talk me out of it?" The goal of the show is not to convince people that their medical concerns are all in their head (which too many people have heard too many really rotten doctors tell them, and that can drive people to depression and sometimes even suicide). The goal is to teach them that their doctors should be listening and hearing them and validating their concerns, not belittling them and sending them to counsellors and psychiatrists for physical concerns that are really bothering them. Too many doctors are too quick to prescribe anti-depressants for things that aren't mental in origin and all that does is keep feeding the already too high profits of multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, who don't actually know how those medications work...it's all just theory and for the sake of profit (and frankly, I don't think anyone should be in a hurry to tamper with chemicals no one fully and completely understands...I've seen the damage that stuff can do to people when it's mishandled). Being told your physical concern is a mental one by a doctor too many times or by too many doctors can lead to developing mental illness, like depression.

And whatever doctors are called in the UK is what they're called. They're just as well-trained and qualified as doctors anywhere else. If you don't like it, don't go to the UK for medical treatment. Objecting to and making assumptions about someone's job title is just another form of prejudice.

I admit, I was shocked and surprised by the amount of exposure of intimate body parts the first time I watched this program because I'd never seen anything like it before, but you can't mistake the medical conditions for anything else. And what shocks me more now is how long people will leave things before seeing someone. I'm sure it's far worse in the U.S., where far too many people don't have medical insurance and can't afford to see a doctor or get reasonable treatment before things are really out of control and may even become life-threatening. At least in the UK something can be done in most of these cases, which is why I've been really shocked that people still let things go as long as they do out of embarrassment and then "let it all hang out" in front of a camera.

Still, I would rather there be a TV show like this one, which is frank about medical matters (especially the honest, down-to earth discussions about alcohol and STIs with young people) rather than making too light of it and having meaningless distractions, like the U.S. show, The Doctors (which comes off as tabloid TV...too much advertising, scandal, promoting celebrities who don't need any more promotion, etc.). If you're not learning anything, what's the point? But if you think this program isn't good enough because you assume someone's free choice was taken away when they decided to have surgery and it's not what you would have done, then you're jumping to conclusions. Like most things, it's not all about you and you're not them. If you can't remember that when you watch this and be as happy for them as they are with the outcome, don't watch it...nobody's forcing you to.

This show shouldn't even be allowed to exist. They lure people in with the intention of helping them just to show their bodies before giving them horrible recommendations before sending them away. I was horrified when they told a woman to have surgery on her perfectly normal labia. I turned it off right there.

Although I can hardly bear to watch some of the surgeries, I think Embarassing Bodies is by far the best medical show on TV, providing help and hope to a wide variety of people who haven't found it elsewhere.

Patients fall largely into two categories. The first are those whose general practitioners have not yet referred them to the right specialists (or, sometimes, to any). Since insurance isn't usually a barrier in the U.K., I chalk that up to the inevitable range of competencies of doctors.

The larger group are people who have been too embarrassed to seek help, until they can no longer tolerate their situation. We do see efforts to help folks with rotted teeth, bad odors, fungus-ridden feet, or odd scars, but a lot of segments deal with the "private" parts. And no wonder the patients haven't sought treatment, since so many of us, both here in the U.S. and those in Britain, were trained to be embarrassed and ashamed to talk or even think about breasts, genitals, and the rear end -- anything remotely sexual or excretory.

The three "host" doctors occasionally treat cases or offer advice, but more often refer patients to specialists. Surgeries, when needed, are shown in full gory detail. The doctors also travel the nation, using wild visual aids to educate people - especially teens and 20-somethings - about counterproductive habits from binge drinking to tanning to unprotected sex. In my mind, they do a tremendous service, and televising helps get the word out.

Some of the conditions treated are life-threatening, but many are not: giant facial scars, massive rolls of flesh on persons who have lost 150 pounds (11 stone) or more, odors, and yes, the grossly asymmetrical labia. But all these folks are suffering, from the one whose boobs are sagging to the man missing half a face. They're suffering emotionally or mentally, as well as physically.

Surely by now we can strive for parity between mental health and physical health. Each person's sense of self is bothered, in a way that I imagine is not qualitatively different from the dysphoria felt by transsexuals. And similarly, all these folks deserve our sympathy and our help, and Drs. Dawn, Christian, and Pixie should be damned proud to be part of it.

The show is very, very gory. It's also very educational, especially to those of us raised like mushrooms and kept in the dark. And it's fascinating. Well done!