Cutting clits at Cornell

TheMadcapSyd · Jun 17, 2010

Welp, choppin' clits at Cornell.

While the whole world was debating the American Academy of Pediatrics' position on "female genital cutting"—the AAP was against it before they were for it, and now, after an outcry, they're against it again—Alice Dreger and Ellen Feder have been raising the alarm about "medical research" currently being conducted at Cornell University. A pediatric urologist at Cornell—Dix Poppas—has been operating on little girls with what he judges to be oversized clitorises, cutting away important clitoral tissues, and then stitching the glans to what remains of the shaft. Poppas claims that, unlike past clitoral-reduction procedures, his procedure is "nerve sparing."

First big problem: "nerve-sparing" surgeries don't always work. And the chunks of these girls' clitorises that the doctor is cutting away—large pieces of their clitoral shafts—may be just as important as the clitoral glans. Dreger:

To shorten these clitorises, Poppas is saving the glans (tip) but cutting out parts of the shaft. Bo Laurent has pointed out that Masters and Johnsons showed that many women masturbate by rubbing the shafts of their clitorises. (Think about it: the clit is the homologue of the penis. How do men masturbate?) Many women seem to find their clitoral glans almost too sensitive. Poppas's patients are loosing the option of touching parts of their shafts, because he's throwing them out (after the cut-away parts have been sent to pathology to see if he accidentally took out a nerve).

There's lots to be outraged about here: there's nothing wrong with these girls and their healthy, functional-if-larger-than-average clitorises; there's no need to operate on these girls; and surgically altering a girl's clitoris because it's "too big" has been found to do lasting physical and psychological harm. But what's most outrageous is how Poppas is "proving" that his surgery "spares nerves." Dreger and Feder:

But we are not writing today to again bring attention to the surgeries themselves. Rather, we are writing to express our shock and concern over the follow-up examination techniques described in the 2007 article by Yang, Felsen, and Poppas. Indeed, when a colleague first alerted us to these follow-up exams—which involve Poppas stimulating the girls’ clitorises with vibrators while the girls, aged six and older, are conscious—we were so stunned that we did not believe it until we looked up his publications ourselves.

Here more specifically is, apparently, what is happening: At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. Using the vibrator, he also touches her on her inner thigh, her labia minora, and the introitus of her vagina, asking her to report, on a scale of 0 (no sensation) to 5 (maximum), how strongly she feels the touch.... Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls....

Although we have tried, we have been unable to locate any other pediatric urologist who uses these techniques. Indeed, we doubt many would, because we think most would—as we do—find this technique to be impossible to justify as being in these girls’ best interests. We understand that these tests might produce generalized knowledge that shows whether Poppas’s techniques are better than some other surgeons’, but it isn’t clear to us how this kind of genital touching post-operatively is in individual patients’ best interests. If the testing shows a girl has lost sensation through the surgery, her lost clitoral tissue cannot be put back. However, the tests would seem to expose the girls to significant risk of psychological harm.

In the course of our inquiries, made in preparation for this publication, nearly all clinicians to whom we described Poppas’s “clitoral sensory testing and vibratory sensory testing” practices thought them so outrageous that they told us we must have the facts wrong. When we showed them the 2007 article, their disbelief ceased, but they then seemed to become as agitated as we were. At an international conference two weeks ago, when Dreger told Ken Zucker, a psychologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and member of the clinical establishment, about this, Zucker said that we could quote him as saying this: “Applying a vibrator to a six-year-old girl’s surgically feminized clitoris is developmentally inappropriate.” We couldn’t find a clinician who disagreed with Zucker.

Yang, Felsen, and Poppas describe the girls “sensory tested” as being older than five. They are, therefore, old enough to remember being asked to lie back, be touched with the vibrator, and report on whether they can still feel sensation. They may also be able to remember their emotions and the physical sensations they experienced. Their parents’ participation may also figure in these memories. We think therefore that most reasonable people will agree with Zucker that Poppas’s techniques are “developmentally inappropriate.”

The 2007 article documenting Poppas's research is here.

Now more from Dreger's post at Psychology Today:

So why the heck do Poppas and other surgeons do these surgeries? They believe it is necessary to ensure "normal" sexual development.... Many of us happen to think "normal" sexual development is actually likely to be thwarted by having parts of your genitals taken away without your consent, and thwarted by follow-up exams like the ones we are describing. Ellen and I have gotten to know hundreds of adults born with sex anomalies who went through these medical scenes growing up. Many have told us that the genital displays involved in the follow-up exams were more traumatic than any other part of the experience. Indeed, when I once asked a group of women with androgen insensitivity syndrome what they wanted me to work on primarily in my advocacy work, they said stopping the exams, particularly those in which med students, residents, and fellows parade through to check out the surgeon's handiwork.

There's so much to be angry about I hardly know where to start. Applying a vibrator a girl's clitoris after it's been surgically shortened may demonstrate that she still has "sensation" in what's been left behind—that she still has a few nerve endings that function—but that's not proof that she hasn't been physically or emotionally harmed by the surgery and those traumatic follow-up "procedures." These post-op visits with the doctor and his vibrator do the girls no good—what can the doctor do if a girl reports no sensation? reassemble her clit?—and retaining sensation isn't proof that these girls will grow up to be healthy, sexually functional adults. All of the tissues that make up the clitoris—the glans, the stem, the erectile tissues—are important to sexual response, orgasm, and fulfillment, not just the part of the clitoris that's "normally" exposed.

There's another disturbing reason this surgery is being performed: girls with large clitorises are more likely to identify as lesbians when they grow up. Needless to say (or maybe not-so-needless): carving up a girl's clitoris does nothing to change the underlying hormonal and genetic factors that contribute to lesbian orientation and identity. Big clits don't make lesbians—lesbians sometimes make big clits. These surgeries are partly motivated by out-and-out homophobia, by the belief that "fixing" a large clit somehow prevents lesbianism. (Larger penises correlate positively with gayness in males but no one is out there shortening boys' penises.)

Please go and read Dreger and Feder's piece—"Bad Vibrations"—at the Bioethics Forum. And read Dreger's post at her own blog.

And if you're reading this and you're a student at Cornell: female genital mutilation is being practiced on your campus. What are you going to do about it?
Click to expand...

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/06/16/female-genital-mutilation-at-cornell-university

Christ, this is so fucked up that aside from what's going on, this article also for the first time in my life made me agree with Dr. Zucker on something, holy shit the world is fucked.

SpacemanSpiff · Jun 17, 2010

that made me feel like puking..someone needs to cut off his parts

Nyxx · Jun 17, 2010

Wow....we really never left the dark ages. WTF

deleted · Jun 17, 2010

uke:

lillallyloukins · Jun 18, 2010

AWFUL!!! i hope something is done to stop him!

PB_Smith · Jun 18, 2010

Sounds more like a sadistic pedophile than a surgeon.

scratcho · Jun 18, 2010

Now,there's a sick son of a bitch. I don't know why he isn't in jail,doing that under the guise of research indeed. Absolutely unnecessary and disgusting.

Just naughty · Jun 18, 2010

Someone needs to give this "doctor" a taste of his own medicine.Fucking disgusting human being.Just because he's labeled a doctor,he thinks he can get away with mutilating little girls privates & then molesting them! This isn't okay! I would so go sniper on his ass & shoot him straight to hell...

Sam_Stoned · Jun 18, 2010

This is why in the worst possible crime thread I said sometimes murder is necessary in society.

And what did I say the worst was? Fucking with children.

MayQueen~420~ · Jun 18, 2010

Ouch!! Reading that shit made my clit hurt for the rest of the day....that "Dr." is a freak.

Heat · Jun 18, 2010

This is deplorable.

Perhaps some feedback would help to have it cease to exist. I pulled these off of the pages listed and some others.

It may not stop it but if enough people are outraged it might make the funding be pulled.

Weill Cornell: http://weill.cornell.edu/visitors/contact-us.html
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, ORIA at med.cornell.edu, (646) 962-8200

Dean of the hospital, Antony M. Gotto Jr, dean at med.cornell.edu
The college's general address: Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065.

Contact Information
Matthew Aldridge
Sr. IRB Administrator
t: 607-255-6182

Susan Lewis
IRB Administrator
t. 607-255-5138

East Hill Office Building
395 Pine Tree Road, Suite 320
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14850

f. 607-255-0758
e. irbhp@cornell.edu

The hospital he actually works in
212-746-5454

THE STATE MEDICAL BOARD. CALL:
817-868-4000

scratcho · Jun 18, 2010

I just e-mailed the college and expressed outrage at this. Who knows--maybe I'll get an answer. I mentioned the fucker by name.

Heat · Jun 18, 2010

I did also and made some calls but I am sure no one is going to want to be calling or answering back.

That is generally a good sign though.

raz5 · Jun 18, 2010

his name is dix pappas?

anyway, people are fucked up. it's ridiculous parents let this go on.

zen_mistress · Jun 19, 2010

This is just plain wrong.

I found this thread on Snopes. com if it helps shed any more light... one post says that the surgery is doneon children who can almost be considered intersex... whether that is true or not I dont know. but still, shouldnt that child be allowed to choose whether they have genital surgery or not? What if they decide they want to keep their genitals that way... the choice is taken out of their hands....

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=1241937#post1241937

To me this demonstrates how terrified some parents are of their child not being considered "normal"...

52~unknown~52 · Jun 20, 2010

someone should ram a toothpick up his pee hole..... then try to get it out again with a scalple.

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Cutting clits at Cornell

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Cutting clits at Cornell

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

SpacemanSpiff Visitor

Nyxx HELLO STALKER

deleted Visitor

lillallyloukins ⓑⓐⓡⓑⓐⓡⓘⓐⓝ

PB_Smith Huh? What? Who, me?

scratcho Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Just naughty Member

Sam_Stoned Senior Member

MayQueen~420~ ♫♪♫♪

Heat Smile, it's contagious! :) Lifetime Supporter

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Heat Smile, it's contagious! :) Lifetime Supporter

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