‘Hungry Beast’ Has Masterfully Edited A Clip On Labiaplasty To Suit Facebook’s Content Guidelines

Five years ago, the ABC’s comedy and current affairs show Hungry Beast ran a segment on labiaplasty: the surgical procedure in which people opt to change the appearance of their vulva, most often for aesthetic reasons. Speaking to a cosmetic surgeon, the photo editor for a soft porn mag, magazine publishers and a representative of the Australian classifications board (who only deem vulvas with “discreet genital detail” — read: ‘no labia minora’ — as acceptable for general publication), reporter Kirsten Drysdale continued a number of important conversations around the topic.

Is the procedure’s growing popularity indicative of problems with perceptions of female bodies more generally? What role does the media have to play in this? It it time to commission a Great Wall of Vagina for every street corner so people finally have a faint idea what vulvas actually look like? (The latter was only implied, though frankly I’m all for it).

Known for taking deep dives into complex cultural and political topics such as this — in their most well-known clip, occasional Junkee writer Elmo Keep took on Google and its “plan for world domination” — the video was well-received with nearly half a million views on YouTube. Now, after being included in a recent study from Flinders University, it’s started doing the rounds once more. Announced at the end of last week, psychology researchers found that the clip greatly helped female uni students’ understanding of what vulvas can look like, and informed many who had not previously known about the media’s common practice of airbrushing.

“[This supported] their hypothesis that education would increase women’s understanding about the variation in normal appearance of genitalia,” the university said in a press release. “Significantly, many women who participated in the study said they would provide advice to other women who were dissatisfied with their appearance, opening up the possibility that they could dissuade others from undergoing a labiaplasty due to a perceived abnormality.”

PhD candidate Gemma Sharp expanded on this stating, “it was never our intention to persuade women one way or the other about having a labiaplasty”. We simply wanted to find out whether or not they had a realistic idea of what ‘normal’ actually looked like, and to ensure they made informed decisions,” she said. “Through our study we hope we can contribute to women having a better understanding of their bodies.”

This is understandably a message the show’s former host Dan Ilic wanted to share on social media. Though it’s been off the air for a few years now, Hungry Beast still has a role to play! The number of people undergoing labiaplasty has stayed fairly consisent, the classifications board hasn’t changes its guidelines, and this recent study proves education hasn’t evolved much along the way either. The topics raised here are still as relevant as ever!

That was when he hit an annoying, if not completely point-proving, road block:

Facebook has punished me with a 24hr ban for uploading a @hungry_beast story about labiaplasty to the HB FB page: pic.twitter.com/hhbIuDo28H

— Dan Ilic (@danilic) January 16, 2016

Though Facebook acknowledges “people sometimes share content containing nudity for reasons such as awareness campaigns or artistic projects” and apologise for the blunt approach, they ultimately condemn nudity in their community guidelines. Genitals, fully-exposed buttocks and female nipples are all still a no go. Fortunately, they say nothing about Mark Zuckerberg’s dweeby little face being haphazardly slapped over these things.

Enjoy!

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