Savage Love

 [From the popular "Savage Love" column by Dan Savage]

Q. I'm a straight woman who hasn't had sex in five years. Why? Because every time I get close to a guy he's shocked by the large size of a certain body part. I get, "What is that down there?" "It looks like a Q. I'm a straight woman who hasn't had sex in five years. Why? Because every time I get close to a guy he's shocked by the large size of mybigclit. I get, "What is that down there?" "It looks like a mini-penis," and "I wasn't sure what to think—guy or girl." Is there anything I can do? Surgery? I live in Canada so I'm hoping our health care system thinks this is as emotionally distressing as I do. Please help. I just want to have sex again and feel normal. —Big Clit A. Big clits, small clits, red clits, blue clits—they're all outside my area of expertise, BC, so I shared your letter with Alice Dreger, a medical humanities and bioethics professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Dreger works as a patient advocate for people born with "different-than-average sex anatomies," and she has tons of good advice for the differently clitted. (She also has a website: alicedreger.com.) "Just like penises and breasts and noses come in different shapes and sizes, so do clits," Dreger said. "Study after study keeps showing the same thing: Clits naturally vary a lot more than those diagrams on gynecologists' walls lead you to believe." Unfortunately, not everyone has gotten the memo—from your sex partners, BC, to the medical establishment.