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This article includes potentially triggering descriptions of sexual assault.
When does a doctor’s care turn into control?
For the first time, Brooke Shields opened up about what she says was an intimate procedure gone wrong. The actor revealed in her memoir, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, that she visited a plastic surgeon years ago—but not for anything cosmetic. What she needed was relief. “My labia…had been an issue for me since I was in high school, and one I’d been ashamed of forever,” she wrote, adding that it made spin classes, tight jeans, even intimate moments uncomfortable. So when her gynecologist recommended a labia reduction surgery (more technically, a labiaplasty), she was hopeful that the plastic surgeon (“supposedly the best”) would resolve this long-standing problem. What she didn’t expect was to be in a situation where, as she put it in her book, “my medical care was taken out of my hands.”
Sure, her labia was reduced, just as she had hoped. But according to Shields, her doctor dropped a bombshell: “‘I was in there for four hours, and you know what I did? I tightened you up a little bit! Gave you a little rejuvenation!’” she wrote in her memoir.
In case you’re wondering about the difference: A labiaplasty is a plastic surgery to reduce the size of the labia minora (the smaller, inner lips closer to the clitoris), sometimes necessary for decreasing irritation. Vaginal “rejuvenation,” on the other hand, has a few different interpretations, according to Sameena Rahman, MD, a board-certified gynecologist at the Center for Gynecology and Cosmetics in Chicago. “It’s really a marketing term that encompasses a number of procedures,” Dr. Rahman tells SELF—such as a vaginoplasty to tighten the internal vaginal canal or noninvasive laser devices that claim to “reshape” vaginal tissue.
Shields didn’t specify in the memoir what her “rejuvenation” entailed—the point is, it was an entirely different procedure than what she said she agreed to. “I had never asked to be ‘tightened’ or ‘rejuvenated’ (translation: given a younger vagina),” she explained in her book. “This man surgically altered my body without my consent. And he thought he had done me a favor by throwing in a ‘bonus procedure’? The sheer gall of it enraged me.”
Shields isn’t alone in her outrage. Lots of people felt the same way after reading about her experience: fans and readers who put their trust in the hands of these experts; fellow doctors who’ve made it their life’s work to advocate for safe, respectful care; and everyday folks who relate to the Hollywood star. One would think Shields’s story is a rare outlier, but her story actually reflects a disturbing, overlooked reality for too many others.
Brooke Shields’s “deeply upsetting” experience hits home for many
Years ago, Amanda consulted a plastic surgeon for a breast augmentation. She wanted something subtle—she and her doctor had agreed to go approximately two cup sizes bigger. “When I came out of anesthesia, he said everything went well, but he thought I could use a little bit more on my frame,” Amanda tells SELF. “He said he talked to my fiancé about going even larger. They agreed it would ‘look better.’” She ended up with a 32E instead of a 32C, she says.
To be clear, there are moments when a doctor may need to veer from the original plan, Dr. Rahman explains, specifically when someone’s life or health is at risk. However, “we’re talking life-and-death scenarios, where we need to act quickly and do what’s right for the patient based on our assessment at the time,” she says. And when the situation isn’t a medical emergency? People like Amanda can be left with an unnecessary “improvement”—and lasting harm—they never signed up for.
Another woman SELF spoke to, Brooke (not Shields), can relate to this too: After giving birth to her first child, she says she needed treatment for vaginal tearing. However, Brooke tells SELF that, without her knowledge, her doctor also performed a so-called “husband stitch”—an additional, medically unnecessary suture to “tighten” the vaginal opening, supposedly to make sex more enjoyable (often for men, of course). But this procedure had the opposite effect on her. “I couldn’t walk normally or squat even after the six weeks,” she adds. “I refused any intimacy with my husband because the pain was so unbearable.”
Eventually, Brooke says another doctor revealed it was even worse than she thought: Apparently, her ob-gyn hadn’t just given her an extra stitch. “My vaginal opening was almost shut,” she says. “I had scar tissue sewed inside my vaginal canal that was swollen and unable to heal.”
Kimberly also experienced having her control stripped away firsthand. She tells SELF that, while giving birth, her obstetrician revealed he’d be performing an episiotomy—an outdated incision to manually cut and widen the vaginal opening during delivery. (Once common, the Mayo Clinic says routine episiotomies are no longer recommended unless absolutely necessary, due to its potential risks.)
The announcement took Kimberly by surprise, as she had just started pushing—and she insists there were no health concerns for her or the baby. “I explicitly said, ‘No, don’t cut me.’ I asked ‘Why?’ multiple times. But he did it anyway,” Kimberly recalls. Not one, not two, but she says 12 cuts were made despite her objections—a number that the gynecologists SELF spoke to say is far beyond what’s typical.
How common is this type of medical mistreatment?
These kinds of experiences aren’t isolated incidents, according to Karen Tang, MD, board-certified gynecologist and author of It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (but Were Never Told). And the issue at hand runs deeper than a few rogue docs overstepping their bounds. “It’s not just Brooke Shields. It’s not just two or three people. There are plenty of women who have faced similar situations where they had decisions made for them without their input, or they felt coerced into a decision that they weren’t comfortable with,” Dr. Tang tells SELF.
A 2023 CDC survey, for instance, found that one in five women reported mistreatment during maternity care, including being made to accept unwanted treatment. Meanwhile, another study published in 2021 revealed that nearly 27% of new mother respondents reported experiencing informal coercion by their doctor through tactics like manipulation or intimidation.
Statistics aside, though, Kiana Shelton, LCSW, a Katy, Texas–based therapist at Mindpath Health, points out that a lot of incidents may go under- or completely unreported. “We live in a culture that puts doctors on pedestals,” Shelton tells SELF. “They went to prestigious medical schools.” So many of us may expect them to know what’s best for our health, making it especially hard to challenge their actions. (That same 2023 CDC report found that nearly half of mothers admitted to withholding concerns or asking questions during pregnancy or delivery—and fears of seeming difficult or not confident were among the many reasons given.) Plus, even when women do voice their discomfort, there’s plenty of anecdotal and statistical evidence to back that their pain and symptoms often get dismissed.
If you’re still wondering how these things can even happen, the objectification of women’s bodies (which can influence even the most well-trained medical experts), may be at play too. Despite growing progress, women still only made up 38% of the US physician workforce as of 2023, according to a recent data report. And in fields like plastic surgery, the gender imbalance is even more pronounced: the male-to-female ratio for board-certified providers is nearly four to one, per the American Board of Plastic Surgery.
“There tends to be ingrained paternalistic assumptions about how women's bodies should look and function,” Dr. Tang says—a topic that’s especially relevant as reproductive rights are under attack. Such attitudes, she says, can manifest in subtle ways, such as a doctor pressuring a child-free patient into believing that having kids is the “natural” next step. In more extreme cases, Dr. Rahman says they might escalate into sexist narratives—like the assumption that a “tighter” vagina is inherently better.
The lasting damage of unwanted “improvements”
Simply put, experts say it shouldn’t matter if a well-meaning doctor believes your body could use a little enhancement or “rejuvenation.” “We should see [this situation] for what it is: It’s inappropriate. It’s unethical. It’s a violation,” Sayida Peprah-Wilson, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist and birth doula based in Los Angeles, tells SELF. “If a provider takes it upon themselves to decide, without your consent, that they’ll alter your body, that’s a violation. They don’t get to act on what your genitalia ‘should’ look like. Or what they think you want to see in the mirror. Only you get to choose that.”
And if you believe these uninvited alterations are relatively harmless, doctors say the effects can be long-lasting. Physically, “getting heavier breasts, for instance, can cause issues like back and neck pain,” Dr. Tang explains. “Tightening of the vagina can cause functional problems too, including pain during sex”—something Shields said she still deals with. (“I shared the story with my gynecologist,” she wrote in a later chapter of her memoir, “who told me that [the plastic surgeon’s] ‘tightening gift’ was a huge contributing factor to my pain.”)
Beyond physical distress, the emotional toll can be just as devastating. Kimberly says that the powerlessness she felt when her no was repeatedly ignored mirrored the trauma she’d experienced when she was raped. “My very real PTSD symptoms kicked in,” she recalls. “It was coming back to me. I was so scared.”
Dr. Peprah-Wilson agrees that a nonconsensual experience like this can understandably trigger fear, helplessness, and panic—reminiscent of what survivors often grapple with after sexual assault. “One of the most traumatic elements of sexual abuse is the unexpectedness,” Dr. Peprah-Wilson explains. “The fact that you lost control in a situation, only to wake up from a procedure to realize somebody altered your body—it’s terrifying, especially when it involves intimate, sexual body parts.”
Other possible mental health consequences, according to both Dr. Peprah-Wilson and Shelton, include feelings of shame and low self-esteem—both of which Amanda says she struggled with following her own breast augmentation. She didn’t feel like herself, covering her chest with a turtleneck even in the sweltering, summer months. Added to that distress was the fact that much of her trauma was minimized. “People would say, ‘I’d love to have bigger boobs.’” Amanda recalls. But these types of responses, sometimes meant to be optimistic, are the kinds that often keep emotional pain buried, Dr. Peprah-Wilson says—and important conversations like these overlooked.
How to advocate for yourself during medical visits
Dr. Tang puts it bluntly: “It’s the doctor's responsibility to make sure that they’re getting informed consent, that they are not doing procedures to a patient without their approval.” After all, as Shields makes clear in her memoir, “I could have asked all the right questions and explained exactly what I wanted, and unless I’d known to say, ‘Please do not “tighten me up,” even if you think you’re doing me a favor,’ I couldn’t have gotten ahead of this.”
In the event that your trust is betrayed by a medical professional, taking legal action might sound like a potential next step. However, it’s not always the most straightforward. For many reasons it can be a stressful process—Shields herself said that she never took action against her doctor, “in part because I had started to question myself, to wonder if he was right, that I should feel lucky.”
But for some, like Amanda, focusing on a few small yet empowering steps can be a way to restore some semblance of control in such vulnerable medical settings. Little things, like preparing a list of your biggest fears, researching alternative options, and flagging medical terms you don’t fully understand, can gently build your confidence. Dr. Rahman and Dr. Tang also suggest bringing along a trusted friend, family member, or “witness”—someone who can make it easier to speak up if you’re shy about saying, “What are the odds of [scary complication] happening?” or “Um, that doesn’t really sound like something I’m interested in.”
Understandably, though, if you’ve endured a situation where you believe your body and boundaries were violated by a system designed to protect you, regaining trust and a sense of safety can feel near-impossible. Still, it’s never too late to start unpacking these experiences—whether that involves leaning on your support system or seeking a professional’s help.
Conversations like these, Dr. Tang says, aren’t just powerful for those who’ve been through it; they also serve as “an important learning point for all healthcare providers to reflect on how we treat patients and make sure we’re being as clear as possible.” Because at the end of the day, stories like these shouldn’t be lessons learned—they should never happen at all.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). More resources are available online from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
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