Hi everyone.

I apologize for the length, but please read if you have time b/c I am in serious need of some answers/advice!!!!!

I am 21 years old and I also have always had a terrible insecurity about my vagina as well as my breasts. I am sexually active, but you're absolutely right, I find it very difficult to enjoy sex, especially when men want to keep the light on because I don't want them to see my body.

I have always had weight issues and I recently became unhealthy for a number of reasons and lost 40 lbs. I have always yo-yoed (10, 20, even 30 lbs) with my weight since I was 10 years old and always had a terrible body-image, but this is the most weight I have ever lost. The problem is I am so depressed I have a hard time looking at myself naked in the mirror and I feel I am still fat and disgusting, even though I weigh 110 lbs (10 lbs underweight for my height). I refuse to wear a short skirt, which has always been my dream, but I feel that my thighs are too big and my knees are deformed. Everyone tells me i'm crazy but I don't belive them.

I know this isn't normal, but I feel like my breasts are disgusting because they sag and have stretch marks, as do my hips, and my nipples are so big and get really wrinkled when i'm cold. I just feel that a woman's breasts are what make her a woman, but I feel like I have the body of a 40 year old woman instead of a 21 yr old. This is not by any means to imply that older women have ugly bodies (my mom is 43 and has an 18-yr old'd figure which is just grrreat for my self-esteem), only that I want to be able to enjoy a young, sag-free, stretch-mark free body like all my friends do. Instead it looks like I had 4 children.

This really gets me down, on an almost daily basis. More than anything I get depressed about my vagina. I have labia that hang down also about and inch, and I feel like it is so ugly. This makes me embarassed for guys to go down on me and sometimes interferes with easy penetration and some manuevering has to be done to get the labia out of the way. I feel that my vagina, as well as my breasts, take away my femininity and make me unattractive to the men I sleep with. I began blaming all my bad luck with men on these flaws.

I know I am very good at hiding my insecurities during sex- I don't show that I am embarassed or inhibited, I express enthusiasm and am willing to try numerous positions. But inside I am nervous that after one look at my vagina or breasts he is disgusted and just feels obligated to go through with it.

I've looked at some adult magazines and watched a few adult films and I never notice women with extended labia or sagging breasts. Obviously, there are other women with my same problem (although some of them may not find anything wrong with it and thats great, but obviously others feel the same as me), but such body parts are never portrayed as beautiful- instead women with no labia and firm breats are the "sexual ideal". This is what men grow up seeing and this is what they expect after all those magazines and films...So of course I am self-concious.

I also read that now many women (especially in hollywood) are getting labiaplasty (which is a removal of the labia for aesthetical purposes). I looked at some before and after pics online and some befores were almost insignificant compared to the length of my labia. Not to mention that I saw many of my close friends' vaginas, and none have extended labia, nor do any of them have breasts as saggy as mine. My 2 best friends even suggested I get implants to fill out the loose skin. So it all makes me feel like a freak!

Also, one time a male friend of mine, who happens to be very upfront about sex, was talking to me and a couple other girls about his turn-ons or offs and he said he is disgusted when "girls have that skin hanging from their vaginas"...He said that without even thinking that maybe one of us may have this flaw so it musty be very rare, but either way it hurt my feelings and made me even more insecure.


Every day I wish I could have a pretty vagina so that I can stop blaming the way my body turned out on all my failures with men. I have slept with 8 men and all but 2 were a one night stand. I did not want the majority of these 6 one-night stands to end the way they did. Most of them were guys I already knew/was friends with, and I feel like my inadequate body parts are to blame for them not persuing anything beyond that.

Every time I would get up the guts to ask a gynocologist about my labia and whether they're normal or not I was brushed off with "u should just love your body and be happy". Thats easy to say, but if someone has my intense insecurities which interfere with her ability to be comfortable in her own skin, she would not be telling me to forget it and be happy.

Anyways, i'm sorry for rambling, but I feel like this is the only way I can talk about this and I would love some feedback from other women who share this problem and empathize or even those who disagree. Also, has anyone talked to or heard from men on this topic? With no holding back, how do they feel about extended labia? Last- I need a woman's opinion: how many women (%) do you think have extended labia?