A medical information page, without needless anatomical detail. Genitals vary greatly from one person to another: the first useful consultation, before any surgeon, is with a gynaecologist or a urologist who will say whether what you believe abnormal is.
For women
- Labiaplasty (reduction of the inner labia): the most frequent intimate operation, more than 150,000 a year worldwide recorded by ISAPS, rising sharply among under-25s under the influence of pornography and social media. A real medical indication when hypertrophy interferes with sport, clothing or intercourse; otherwise a cosmetic choice whose result is good but whose complications (painful scars, asymmetry, loss of sensation, dryness) affect 5 to 10% of patients. Cost £2,000 to £4,000 in the UK, $3,000 to $6,000 in the US; NHS funding only for disabling hypertrophy; the NHS and the RCOG advise against it under 18, and the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology refuses it before development is complete.
- Vaginal "rejuvenation" and "tightening": surgical vaginoplasty (perineorrhaphy) is justified after obstetric tears or prolapse; the vaginal lasers and radiofrequency sold against dryness, incontinence or "laxity" have not proved effective, and the US FDA warned in 2018 of burns, scarring and chronic pain; the ACOG and the RCOG recommend pelvic-floor physiotherapy first.
- Hymenoplasty (rebuilding the hymen before a marriage): a short operation of no medical interest, answering a demand for virginity and proving nothing (half of women do not bleed at first intercourse). In the United Kingdom, hymenoplasty and virginity testing have been criminal offences since the Health and Care Act 2022 (up to five years in prison), including when done abroad on a UK resident; Sweden criminalised them from 1 December 2025; in France, the operation is legal for a consenting adult but virginity certificates have been banned since 2021. In the US, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East it is legal and advertised; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists calls it medically unnecessary; Indian and Pakistani clinics practise it discreetly, as do clinics in Egypt and Turkey.
- Repair after FGM: clitoral reconstruction, developed by the French surgeon Pierre Foldès, frees the buried part of the organ and repositions it; results (Lancet, 2012, 2,938 women): pain reduced in most, clitoral pleasure recovered or appeared in more than half. Available in France (funded since 2004), Belgium (CeMAViE, Brussels), Switzerland (Geneva), Germany (Desert Flower Center, Berlin), in the United States (Dr Marci Bowers, California; Clitoral Restoration programmes in New York), in Kenya (Nairobi, with the Clitoraid and Foldès missions), in Egypt privately; in the UK, the NHS offers deinfibulation (reopening after type III FGM) in specialist clinics (Guy's and St Thomas', Birmingham, Manchester) but not routine clitoral reconstruction; in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda a few teams operate during missions. See Female genital mutilation.
For men
- Penile lengthening and widening: the average erect length is 13.1 cm (5.2 in; Veale meta-analysis, 2015, 15,500 men), and 45% of men wish they were larger while 85% of women say they are satisfied with their partner's size. No method reliably lengthens a normal penis: cutting the suspensory ligament gains 1 to 2 cm when flaccid and nothing when erect, with a risk of instability; hyaluronic-acid injections thicken temporarily (a year); subcutaneous silicone implants (Penuma, cleared in the US) cause infection and deformity in one case in ten; injections of silicone, petroleum jelly or oil by non-doctors cause necrosis, amputation and deaths (fat embolism during a fat injection, first fatal case published in Stockholm in 2019). Surgery is justified only in true micropenis (under about 9 cm erect); urologists recall that excessive concern about size is often body dysmorphic disorder, treated without a scalpel.
- Phimosis, short frenulum, circumcision: see Circumcision; frenuloplasty (a frenulum too short, painful or that tears) is a twenty-minute procedure, funded.
- Peyronie's disease (painful curvature from a fibrous plaque, 3 to 9% of men): collagenase injections or straightening surgery (Nesbit, grafting) once the disease is stable (at least three months without change).
- Penile implants for erectile dysfunction resistant to drugs: see Erectile dysfunction; high satisfaction (85 to 90%), infection in 1 to 3% of cases.
- Vasectomy: see Sterilisation.
What the law forbids in every case
Any intervention on the genitals of a girl under 18 without medical reason is mutilation (Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 in England and Wales, 14 years in prison, including abroad; federal law and 41 state laws in the US; Criminal Code s. 268 in Canada; state laws in Australia); early "normalising" surgery on intersex children is banned in Malta, Portugal, Germany, Iceland, Greece and Spain and restricted by hospital policy in the UK, US and Australia; "virginity testing" has been condemned by the WHO, UN Women and the UN human-rights office since 2018 and is banned in the UK. Finally, any practitioner offering an intimate operation without prior medical consultation, in a beauty salon or on a simple online booking, is practising illegally.