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Date: | Wed, 19 Feb 1997 10:14:54 -0600 |
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> The clitoris is
>basically a vestigal penis" said Grekin, and let us hope his (Grekin's)
>number is unlisted.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why should anyone call Grekin? What he
says is entirely true. All fetuses start out female -- the basic mammalian
body plan is female. Add nothing, and you get a female. Add testosterone
beginning around the 10th post-conception week (for human development), and
you get a male. Penis and clitoris come from the same tissue; scrotal sacs
are fused labia. What the big deal?
By the way, Playboy several years ago had a similar article on the nipple
taboo. It's "Nipple Phobia," Playboy, 1995, January, pp. 42-43, written by
G. O'Brien. This article in Health sounds like a direct rip-off. I use the
final line of the Playboy piece as an epigram at the beginning of my "Beauty
and the Breast" chapter. It reads: "So what is it about this small gland of
postnatal nourishment that puts a great nation in a dither? Perhaps the
problem has to do with generations of men who didn't get enough nipple when
it really counted."
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Texas A&M University
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