Designer vaginas are all the rage in Lebanon

“IN THE GULF the ladies want a big butt and a big vagina. Not the Lebanese. They want smaller vaginas. They are more like the Europeans: they want the labia inside.” So says Dr Hussein Hashim, a plastic surgeon in Beirut, as he sits behind a desk scattered with buttock implants. He and his colleagues perform surgeries with names like “The Barbie Look” or “The Beverly Hills Rejuvenation”—operations that trim the inner labia, tighten the vagina or reduce the fold of skin covering the clitoris.

Labiaplasty is the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery in the world. Lebanese women, who have a penchant for biological improvement, are particularly keen on it. Only Spain and Brazil do more vaginal procedures per head. “Beauty used to be all about the face. Now it’s about the body. Buttocks and vaginas are the big thing,” says Elie Abdel Hak of Lebanon’s plastic-surgery society.