Creating, maintaining and questioning (hetero)relational normality in narratives about vaginal reconstruction

Analyzing 10 interviews with women diagnosed with and treated for congenital absence of the vagina, this article theorises the notion of ideal (hetero)relational normality. It explores how the women negotiate, relate to and challenge this notion and examines the normative and bodily work that it calls for in my case study. The article specifically underscores the corporeal dimension of (hetero)relational normality. I argue that this notion of normality shapes the women’s bodies through medical interventions, while concurrently being reinforced through the corporeal shapings that the women undergo. That is, the corporeal shapings consolidate enacted norms concerning heterosexuality and form understandings of female and male bodies. The analysis also reveals how the women nevertheless find ways to re-negotiate and question the notion of ideal (hetero)relational normality and its intertwinement with medical practice. The article contributes both to the critical examination of genital surgery and to feminist discussion of how to critically examine heterosexuality without rejecting it. Furthermore it provides a deeper understanding of how medical interventions designed to create a vagina or dilate a vagina considered ‘too small’ (i.e. vaginal reconstruction) are made meaningful by the women affected.