# Doctors implant lab-grown vagina **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 11, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892 "2014-04-11T18:44:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/41 "2014-05-01T01:10:45Z")
Sounds like they’re not pussyfooting around. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/42 "2014-05-01T04:37:04Z")
If she says “Thanks to that surgery I got really shafted”, is that a complaint or an endorsement? ---
**Author:** ![horsetech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dec6dc/32.png) [@horsetech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horsetech)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/43 "2014-05-01T08:06:53Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > “He tampered in God’s domain”. He tamponed in God’s domain. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/44 "2014-05-01T09:52:39Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > And properly-working eyes? HGH. New lenses won’t work well, unless you have the hormone levels to keep them flexible. Conversely, HGH makes your old lens work like you were young again. Of course, it probably also makes you at risk for heart attack and cancer: what was it that Pangloss said? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/45 "2014-05-03T14:54:19Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > what was it that Pangloss said? …quit rubbin’ your eyes or you’ll go blind? I hate Google Translate… ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/46 "2014-05-03T15:30:25Z")
are they one size fits all? Warranty? Buyer’s Remorse clause? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/47 "2014-05-03T19:44:40Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > On a serious note, I wonder if this would have an impact on gender reassignment surgery. Could genetically male stem cell make a vagina? Maybe by replacing the X with a Y, preferabbly from the father’s cells. Could it make penises for transwomen? Una said so, but in case some people don’t have the background…men have the genetic information to make vaginas, and all fetuses develop identically until (IIRC) six weeks, when the Y-chromosome says “make a penis.” It does it by kicking out lots of male hormones, again, IIRC. The XY women Una referred to don’t have receptors, or at any rate, enough of them, to respond to the male hormones, so they continue to develop as females. I’m not sure how the information to make a penis is encoded. Women with Turner’s syndrome (a single X) usually have normal-appearing vulvae and vaginas, although they sometimes have malformed uteri, and at any rate, are sterile because they have abnormal ovaries, and therefore hormone levels; but they can have normal sex lives. A fetus with a single Y and no X isn’t viable, and ends in spontaneous abortion, so I’m not sure anyone knows what kind of genitalia it could develop-- it doesn’t have the basic structures in place. Anyone here who knows about mapping the genome, and exactly where the coding for the structure of the penis is? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/48 "2014-05-03T19:49:09Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > are they one size fits all? If you think about the fact that they can grip a penis pretty tightly, and still pass a newborn, they aren’t “one size,” not even within one woman. There’s a way of extracting a kidney for live donor transplant vaginally, and they even get longer and shorter depending on a woman’s level of arousal, not to mention her position (sitting, lying down, etc.) So, yeah, one size fits all. Or, most, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/49 "2014-05-05T04:31:17Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > …quit rubbin’ your eyes or you’ll go blind? I was just adjusting my contact lenses. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/50 "2014-05-05T14:05:17Z")
Yeah, it’s all fun and games until… ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/51 "2014-05-05T14:44:52Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > My first thought was what about growing kidneys, livers, and most importantly, hearts? … > > Hopefully the day of replacement kidneys isn’t too far away. The donor organ banks are over whelmed with people in need. > [@Red\_Stilettos](#): > > We are still a good ways away from lab grown organs. This basically replaced structure. A functioning heart, lung or kidney is much more complex, with many more cell types working in concert to achieve a desired outcome. At a very basic level, all these vaginal cells have to do is survive. They aren’t responsible for generating a heartbeat or oxygenating blood or digesting food. About a dozen years ago I read a book by Larry Niven, called _The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton_. It’s a science fiction detective story, set in the near future. One of the premises for the story was that organ donation became such a significant industry that a huge crime network developed in organ stealing. Even limbs. I couldn’t help thinking at the time that Niven had projected the future in the wrong direction. The other staple of sci fi stories is growing full clones to harvest their parts, make your spare. Again, I was thinking they just aren’t thinking in the right direction. Sure, organ replacement is big business, and tissue replacement is a newer industry along similar lines. But my thought was that advances in cloning techniques and stem cell technology would eventually lead to growing organs individually, rather than cloning a whole human just to get the replacement heart. One of the big challenges has already apparently been solved, the ability to make scaffold structures that the tissue can grow on to form the proper organ shape and structure the tissue in the right layers. So I’m pleased and not surprised to see the successes that are being made in this area. It bodes well for the future. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/52 "2014-05-05T14:52:00Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > If you think about the fact that they can grip a penis pretty tightly, and still pass a newborn, they aren’t “one size,” not even within one woman. There’s a way of extracting a kidney for live donor transplant vaginally, and they even get longer and shorter depending on a woman’s level of arousal, not to mention her position (sitting, lying down, etc.) > > So, yeah, one size fits all. Or, most, anyway. 😉 um… that didn’t really require an answer 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892/53 "2014-05-05T18:42:24Z")
> [@MacLir](#): > > “Look out! It’s engulfing the Empire State Building!” :eek: > > Couldn’t resist that one. :dubious: If its first choice is the Washington Monument, we could name it ‘Martha’. > [@aceplace57](#): > > A poorly trained lab tech could swab the throat for the cells. Yielding the world’s first talking vagina. 😃 > > [I saw that movie in the 70’s at a drive in.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075830/) How would you know it’s a talking vagina? Maybe it’s just her answering cervix. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vagina/685892.md?page=2)