“Your comfort matters”: Analyzing the Visual and Textual Rhetoric of an Instagram Labiaplasty Advert

Advertising on social media is an important and pervasive form of modern discourse. Through description and critical analysis, this piece unpacks the textual and image-based messages inscribed within and through an Instagram advert for labiaplasty. I argue that the advert is both grounded in—and perpetuates—neoliberal ideals of self-improvement and “self-care” and patriarchal notions of neat and controlled “feminine” bodies. Although this article focuses on a single advert, this is emblematic of a larger societal issue and serves therefore to underscore the importance of equipping young people with media literacy tools.