SOCIOCULTURAL ISSUES AND EPIDEMIOLOGY (J ABDULCADIR & D BADER, SECTION EDITORS) Different Cultures but Similar Requests: Adolescents’ Demands for Non-therapeutic Genital Modifications Omar Abdulcadir 1 & Dina Bader 2 & Jasmine Abdulcadir 3 & Lucrezia Catania 1 Accepted: 21 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Purpose of Review It is supposed that adolescent’s needs might be different in different cultures. However, adolescents often want some same things such as being like their peers, being accepted in a group, and corresponding to norms and ideals of beauty accepted in their community. Recent Findings This paper talks about three young girls coming from different parts of the world, with different cultures and believes, each of them asking for a modification of her genitalia because their shape does not correspond to an ideal requested in the culture of belonging and desire to be like other girls of their same group. Sara from Italy, supported by her mother, wants a labiaplasty. Asha from Somalia believes she must have a modification of her genitalia; she does not want to be infibulated like previous generations and asks for a ritual pricking. Jeannette from Rwanda asks for the reduction of her labia minora, made hypertrophic by the traditional practice of elongation. Summary This case study encourages analyzing medical, legal, ethics, and sociocultural issues in three situations involving adolescent girls from different cultures requesting the alteration of their genitalia for non-medical reasons. Keywords Labiaplasty . Female genital mutilation . Female genital cutting . External female genitalia . Genital modifications . Psychophysical health Good morning, we would like to start our presentation by telling you three representative stories of adolescent girls. These girls belong to different cultures, yet they have similar needs, to be like their female relatives or other girls. The names as well as some details reported are fictitious in order to offer three examples of clinical encounters that we, as well as other clinicians, can routinely meet in our practice. The first story is about Sara. 1 Sara is a 15-year-old Italian girl who came to our clinic in Florence, Italy, with her 40- year-old mother. She reported an asymmetry of the labia minora and asked to perform or to give advice on whether she needed labiaplasty. 2 When we made the examination, we found that the left labium minus extended far beyond the labia majora. Given the girl’s age and physical immaturity, we advised her and her mother to take time and wait before any eventual operation. We also offered counseling and advised to meet a psychologist for working on her body image. Our medical arguments convinced her mother, and she accepted our advice. Six months later, however, Sara went to a private clinic of cosmetic surgery and underwent the operation. The surgeon tried to convince her to postpone the surgery until she would be older unsuccessfully and proceeded to the excision of the longer labium. After the surgery, Sara went to the bath- room of the clinic to look at her new genitals in the mirror. She and her mother were happy and satisfied. Before the opera- tion, Sara often cried because she felt different from her 1 Case reported in Catania [1]. 2 Labiaplasty consists of the partial or total removal of the labia minora for cosmetic reasons. It corresponds to the WHO’s description of type IIa FGM. This article is part of Topical Collection on Sociocultural Issues and Epidemiology This paper is a transcription of a talk of Omar Abdulcadir and Lucrezia Catania at “Rethinking Female Genital Operations: New Perspectives on the Zero Tolerance Debate,” a symposium organized by the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Lausanne, May 22, 2019. * Omar Abdulcadir 1 Florence, Italy 2 Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY, USA 3 Department of Pediatrics, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-020-00279-z / Published online: 14 December 2020 Current Sexual Health Reports (2020) 12:289–291