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Dear Dr. Schlegel

A friend of mine forwarded me a link this morning reporting on some very disturbing research being conducted through your department. I hope that I am only one among many writing to inform you of how appalling they found Dr. Dix Poppas’s “research” and practice of clitoral reduction surgeries, and the even more disturbing follow up practices.

While I can’t condone the practice of clitoroplasty on its own, I cannot find words to describe the visceral negative reaction that reading about the follow up procedure causes me. The idea that using a vibrator (however clinical the language used) to sexually stimulate a six year old girl so that, after having her clitoris cut up to suit his tastes, her doctor can then turn around and tell her she is now capable of normal sexual development is as absurd as it is appalling.

I hope that word of this research spreads, and that as department head you will do what you can to shut down this project and call the “scientists” in question to task for their involvement in this atrocity.

Sincerely,
Heather Hatch
PhD Candidate in Anthropology
Texas A&M University


Links:
Bioethics Forum: Bad Vibrations
Psychology Today: Can You Hear Us Now?
The Stranger: Female Genital Mutilation at Cornell University