[a] The purported purpose is to tighten the opening of the vagina and thereby enhance the pleasure of the patient's male sex partner during penetrative intercourse.
[9] The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, according to a report by Fatherly, does not deny that the procedure happens but alleges that it "is not standard or common".
[10] Belgian researchers Julie Dobbeleir, Koenraad Van Landuyt and Stan J. Monstrey have studied the practice, finding evidence of it happening in Belgium at least since the 1950s:[15] Vaginal tightening surgery has been around since the mid-fifties, where gynecologists used to tighten the entrance of a woman's vagina with an extra stitch while repairing vaginal and perineum tears or episiotomies after giving birth.
Frequent complications are vulval and vaginal pain, scarring problems, and deformities that need further surgical correction.
Long-term consequences for sexual relations of episiotomy need further study.Similarly, in Cambodia, the practice has been linked to high rates of episiotomy:[17] A study in the NIH database found that the continued use of episiotomies in Cambodia was due to many doctors' belief that they would provide women with a 'tighter and prettier vagina' if they gave her an episiotomy.A short story by Carmen Maria Machado, "The Husband Stitch", first published in 2014 by Granta and later published in the collection Her Body and Other Parties, describes a woman undergoing the procedure.