She was so soft spoken on the phone that I had to ask her to speak up several times. Badu told me she was an African woman from Kenya who had been circumcised. Two years ago, she began looking for information to understand what had been done to her as a ten year-old child. She came across my name online and made the call.

The blogosphere is littered with posts about female genital mutilation happening today, right now at Cornell University with boingboing's Female Genital Mutilation at Cornell? It's Complicated leading the charge.  This is my official position on intersex surgery and why we must rescue our sex organs from religion, unnecessary medical procedures and institutionalized heterosexuality.

Some Background

Dear Dr. Betty,

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and was telling him something that I really hadn't talked to anyone about before. I am a 20 year old student, I define as lesbian, I masturbate via clitoral stimulation only, and have never been intimate with another person.

Dear Dr. Betty,

I am a Muslim girl and I shouldn't be wondering this but I can't help it. In my country, when a girl is born they perform clitoridectomy where the clit is partially removed. I asked my mother why they do that and she said it's so that the girl won't orgasm easily so they won't turn into "bad" girls. I'm really upset by this because I thought after I get married I would get to experience the kind of feelings the characters from those erotic books feel (another thing I shouldn't be doing is reading erotica).

Teaching is about repetition so here I go again saying the same thing once more with different words. There seems to be no “common sense” when it comes to women’s orgasms because most of us demand instant success the American way…add hot water and stir. Or we are naturally angry for not being taught how to experience sexual pleasure in the first place while our male partners ejaculate every time. It’s no wonder you’re mad, confused and wondering “What wrong with me?”