So over the weekend Mrs. Dingbang and I went to a strip club. First time for her, first in many years for me. Had a great evening.
This happens to be a very high end strip club known nationwide, and the women were remarkably natural looking, with very little silicone in sight. Beautiful women of great variety.
The wife reiterated the next day that she enjoyed it but said the women’s genital appearance made her feel unusual. I thought she meant the way they all were shaven or had little landing strips, so I told her that’s just the way gals do it these days, and strippers probably more so.
But she said it wasn’t that. It was that all the women had no visible labia at all. No lips to be seen, just a neat little vulva. Once she mentioned it, I recalled noticing that, too. I happen to like the other look more and would have enjoyed at least a bit of variety in that arena.
She wants to go back but wonders if she’s unusual in that regard. I’ve tried to assure that, ahem, I’ve seen a few in my day and she is by no means unusual. And she enjoys porn sometimes, so she’s seen that for herself. (This is not a self-esteem issue in relation to the stripper gals. The wife is hot and she knows it, and we had a lot of fun playing with the idea that she was totally qualified to be on stage herself.)
I’m wondering if this is a selection bias by the folks hiring these girls. Is that the “preferred” look for strippers, maybe considered a neater appearance, and therefore that’s all you see there?
It definitely is the ‘beauty ideal’. So there might be some selection bias, but I’ve also heard that ‘correcting’ the inner labia is one of the most sought after procedures in plastic surgery (from a Dutch documentary ‘Beperkt houdbaar’, I believe).
I’m not sure what this means. The vulva is the whole external genitalia, and includes two sets of “lips”, although often only the outer are seen when a woman is just standing there. Is she talking about the labia minora, the inner “lips”? While there’s great variation among women and having visible labia minora is indeed well within the realm of normal, it’s not as common as having labia minora shorter than the labia majora (the outer “lips”). So statistics may just have been at play.
Also, when sexually aroused, the labia minora swell along with everything else. Often women who don’t have visible labia minora at rest do have visible labia minora when they’re aroused. So you’re more likely to see visible labia minora in a woman who is turned on (during sex or in porn) than a woman who is simply dancing.
Or, sure, it’s possible that the owner is icked by labia minora and doesn’t hire women he doesn’t find sexy. But if there was as wide a variety of body types as you say, that’s probably not the case. A good owner knows his idea of sexy isn’t everyone’s idea of sexy.
And as polar bear says, some women with large labia minora don’t like them, and have a (rather simple) plastic surgery to “correct” that.
So it could be a number of things, not just one answer, but I’m not even sure I’m parsing the question correctly.
If your wife is feeling weird about her lady bits, there’s a really neat plaster mold art exhibit of hundreds of vulvas. The variety out there is simply astounding. Chances are great that she’s perfectly normal, because “normal” covers a huge ground.
Spoilered to meet the two click rule, as it’s not work safe:
Damn, thought I’d gotten all technically correct when I said vulva instead of what the junior high school me was screaming in my head.
“Visible labia minora” apparently is what I meant. Thanks for the clarification.
And the wife doesn’t feel like a freak or anything, just wondering if she was in the minority. The labia minora minority, I suppose.
Perhaps I’m just used to seeing women incredibly aroused in my presence, so their bits are more visible. 
Can’t imagine why I didn’t have that effect on the 50 women on stage that night.
I still don’t understand. Are you saying that, in general, whenever you’ve gone to see strippers, you can usually/always/most of the time, see their labia minora/inner lips? Really?
Now I have noticed in porn that a lot of women in the sex work industry apparently get labiaplasty – to make the labia majora/OUTER lips appear smaller. I think that looks unnatural.
No, as I said in the OP, it’s been years. And I was too drunk at the bachelor party to take notes about the girls’ anatomy.
I don’t think it’s that complicated. Smooth “mound” with a slit versus something else also visible, whatever the proper terminology.
Ok, I guess pictures are needed because I’m getting confused by the anatomical terms and what I’m trying to convey.
The strippers all looked like the “after” picture here. It’s from the site of a doc who does labiaplasty, which may be telling:
Not strange looking or unusual, but the odd point was that they all looked that way. None of them looked like the “before” pic on the left, or anything even more modestly in that vein.
So maybe labiaplasty is a job requirement and/or benefit of employment.
Actually, I think WhyNot is correct. Mostly, the dancers simply weren’t aroused by stripping and so you did not see the inner labia all engorged and peeking out at you.
Although labiaplasty among strippers is probably not even unheard of and is probably more common than I’m aware of.
Wait… They aren’t aroused by stripping for me? I… I don’t understand…
the strippers aren’t aroused because you don’t have large enough denomination money. approach with a fist full of Ben Franklins and they might produce a bigger response.
To be fair to the OP, I am a gay man who has seen, comparatively, vanishingly few female genitalia in my life, and even I knew what he was talking about.
So, bravo to the OP because I wasn’t confused at all by what you meant :D. Sorry I can’t be more help!
A good part of this is because strippers are 18-22 and childless; it’s far more common to have a tight, closed cooch at that age anyway. As usual, all the idealization is fixated on the image of a 16yo virgin.
/bunk
I know five different women who have had labiaplasty. . . more than people I know with fake boobs or even Botox, actually. Most of them said they did it because it was uncomfortable for them because as they aged (they are all in their 30s) and had children, their labia got so droopy that it would get caught in their jeans/ underwear :eek:. Two of them did it without having kids, though. One is, indeed, a stripper.
Childbirth has no effect on the labia minora that I’ve ever seen or read about, although aging may cause sagging there as anywhere else. Childbirth may have a slight effect on the vagina itself, but as often as not, the hormones after childbirth tighten the vagina as tight or tighter than before pregnancy. Them’s muscles in there, not loose skin.
Yes, if the difference was illustrated by those pictures, then my reply is apt. The left hand “before” picture shows the labia minora in that particular woman to be longer than the labia majora. The after picture, both the labia majora and the labia minora have been tightened and trimmed so that the labia minora are no longer visible…and it appears they’ve done an ass lift as well as a vaginoplasty, but that could be a different position.
This documentary, Sexy Baby, covers this subject. Labial reductions seems to be common in the adult entertainment industry and affecting women’s self image. Great, like women needed more of that.
Back in high school, I heard a friend of my girlfriend use the phrase “tucking in the mud flaps” to refer to girls with longer labia minor who would tuck them up inside the labia majora so that they weren’t visible. Then your boyfriend would think you were all “ideal” as long as you didn’t let him look too closely. (My girlfriend grew up in a group foster home. This was not even the weirdest thing I overheard from her friends there.)
I have no idea how well this really works or whether it would hold up to dancing… (Though, naturally, I’d have to volunteer as an impartial scientific observer if any ladies want to try it out.)
Reduction of the labia minora is really common in all women, not just porn actresses and strippers.
Personally, since puberty hit I’ve had kinda big, protruding ones - ‘tucking them in’ isn’t possible. I’m within the range of normal though, judging by everyone else I’ve seen, and I’ve never found it uncomfortable, or felt self-conscious about the appearance of my vulva. But lots of women do.
Well, since we’re on this topic, I have a stupid(and TMI) question… Do bigger women generally have bigger labia majora? In looking at the link WhyNot posted, among other examples I’ve seen, most of them seem very… flat, to me, like a continuation of the surrounding skin of the inner thigh. I’m… not so flat. But, I’ve been overweight since puberty hit, so I guess what I’m asking is, am I a freak, or just a fatso?? Neither answer will hurt my feelings, and I’m perfectly happy with my genitalia, but I’m curious, and don’t want to go looking for fatporn.
First, check out how they made the castings. It did require some degree of laying back and stretching the area so the artist could make a mold, so they’re a little flatter than they might actually be in a more natural, neutral position. http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/casting-process
Second, yes. There’s fat there, and when you get fatter, it gets fatter. There’s not a whole lot of room, so that doesn’t continue infinitely, but the mons pubis (the “fleshy” area above the labia that’s naturally covered with hair) is a lot bigger and more prominent when a woman is fat, and the labia majora a bit larger. The labia minora remain relatively constant no matter what your weight gain or loss.
There’s a genetic component to the size of the fat and how much fat your body tends to put there when you take in excess calories - just like some women have bodies that like to store fat in the thighs and others put fat on the hips - so it can vary. Sometimes losing weight isn’t enough to get rid of the mons and labial fat pads to a woman’s satisfaction. And, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, there’s a surgery for that.