or, What One Man Learned from the Vagina Monologues.
Warning: if you’re offended by the word ‘vagina’ you really should read this post, because ‘vagina’ appears at least 20 times in it, in addition to two of its more vulgar relatives. It’ll be good for you!
One of the cool things about attending the Vagina Monologues, especially with Jana and a friend, is that the monologues about the vagina (which was used in the production to loosely refer to a variety of female parts, including but not limited to both sets of labia, the clitoris, and even the urethra’my friend Holly has a post in which she laments this imprecision) lead to dialogue about the same. Which is the point, methinks.
Maybe one in twenty in the audience were men, which was a shame. We all could use more exposure to vaginas. It occurred to me during the intermission that there’s way too much focus in our society on the penis. It stands out. It demands attention, especially when at attention. The vagina is hidden, mysterious, and our conversational taboos keep it in the dark. There needs to be more interest in vaginas on the part of men. “No,” you say, “Men have too much interest in vaginas already!” But I wonder how much of the existing interest is in the vaginas for the penis’ sake, and how much interest is for the sake of the vagina (this is a self-critical remark–I’m not excluding myself from this group). Men with consenting lovers should travel the landscape of the vagina and the parts around it with their eyes and minds (and more) until it becomes familiar territory.
There were moving pieces on the Asian comfort women (read: sex slaves) to whom the Japanese government refuses to dignify with an apology, the victims of systematic rape in Kosovo and Bosnia, and girls and women suffering from genital mutilation in Africa (I wish that they had focused on the sexual assault against women in our own society–the above causes were worthy, but by only briefly referencing American issues it had the effect of making sexual violence a foreign affair). There were hilarious monologues on the varieties of orgasmic moans, and Bob, the vaginal connoisseur, and insightful ones about first menstruation and a vaginal discovery workshop. Other highlights:
The closing monologue talked about giving birth and sanctified and glorified the vagina. Jana made this point on the drive home: in spite of society’s denigration of the vagina, it’s part of our common experience. We may not all depart this world through a dark tunnel with a light and the end, but we definitely arrived through one (except for you C-section babies, you’re special).
I thought for a moment, then said, ‘The incest taboo is strong with me. I don’t like to think too deeply about my mother’s vagina. I’d be more comfortable thinking of some generic, universal vagina that we all came out of.’
‘You mean the Great Vagina in the Sky,’ she said. ‘Heavenly Mother’s Vagina?’
For some reason, that image felt natural to me.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Holly // Mar 18, 2006 at 8:45 am
John–you might be right that this 70-something woman felt a great deal of sadness about “closing her vagina for business,” but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. Realizing, of course, that I might be revealing more about myself than others might care to know, but I don’t necessarily find it sad that someone would put a metaphorical “closed for business” sign on her vagina. I quit dating for, oh, almost seven years, beginning in my mid 30s, because I just didn’t want to deal with men and their efforts to access said orifice. I know so many other women–including one who went on a five-year sex fast in her 20s after being dated-raped for the second time–who’ve just said “I refuse to make myself sexually available to men, at least for a while.” Of course I reserved the right to change my mind, and did, eventually. Now that I’m dating again in my early 40s, it’s just better and easier. I’m really glad I took a break, and I can easily imagine that there are women who would feel relief and freedom when they closed their vaginas for business for good.
All of which is to say, I don’t think a “one-size fits all” approach works when it comes to sexuality. I never thought of myself as asexual, but I’m intrigued by and not dismissive of people who claim they are. Because I have deliberately chosen celibacy at several points in my life (including when I was a hot 20-something Mormon virgin everyone thought was sleeping around, because I had the temerity to be outspoken–only slutty women criticize the patriarchy, you know), I know that celibacy does offer significant rewards.
And yes, I have read the “cunt” part of the Vagina Monologues. I still don’t satisfactory, because it seems a token gesture. But it’s better than nothing.
p.s. Do you have some weird spell checker on? I find that whenever I type a word with an apostrophe in it, I get some spell checker function that informs me that a plain old t isn’t a word. It’s UNBELIEVABLY annoying and freezes up the whole system for a moment. Is there a way for me to avoid this?
2 John // Mar 19, 2006 at 11:49 pm
The sadness comes from the entire context of her story, which I chose to cut from the post in my attempt to be brief(er). She closed up shop because a bad sexual experience with an inconsiderate boy in her youth.
I have a “to each their own” mentality when it comes to sexuality, but I am saddened when I think of people who could have much more fulfilling sex lives–e.g., women married to men who think that five minutes is more than enough for sex.
Spellchecking: do you get the message before or after submitting? As far as I know there are no spellcheckers turned on–az yoo can seeee bai dis!
3 Holly // Mar 20, 2006 at 6:25 am
I get the spellcheck function as I write the text–it’s very weird. I’ll work on figuring out what causes it.
4 PodMonkeys // Mar 20, 2006 at 7:18 am
I once heard a good line about shaving. Or at least trimming. I can’t remember the exact line, but basically it was something like “Trimming is like a public service.” Like a well kept lawn, or nicely shaped hedges, it can be attractive, and the last thing you want is to get tangled up, or a bunch of leaves in your teeth.
On a more serious note, Something really does need to be done about violence against women and the public’s view on it. I can’t remember her name, but it seems that the WRKO DJ and many callers were saying that the girl who was kidnapped, beaten, mutilated, raped, killed, and left in a NY dumpster deserved what she got because she was possibly out drinking and “other things” at 3 in the morning. All blame was being put on the girl, and not on the assailant.
I read a good commentary in a paper from someone who made a good point that with the amount of planning this guy did, it could have happened to her in broad day light, when she was visiting a college friend. It could have happened to one of these callers or one of the DJ’s family members, but by saying it was her fault, they push the crime away from themselves. They make themselves feel safer by claiming to be better, safer, more cautious, more alert, and more moral than the girl.
When I hear this sort of stuff, I feel as much disgust for every single person that says she deserved it, as I do for the attacker. I’m not sure how much of this problem is a feminism issue, or just the way people try to distance themselves away from these things, as some women will say she deserved it. Of course, not all women seem to help out the cause of feminism.
Basically it pissed me off, and still does when I think about it. No one “deserves” that sort of treatment.
I hope that was mostly on topic. I was meaning on just making the trimming portion, but I guess the other bit was still in the back of my mind.
5 Miko // Sep 13, 2006 at 5:45 pm
ah, I need to see this. the website alleged that it would be playing in my town on V-Day 2006 but it didn’t. I wonder what people who post here think about male genital mutilation. Any thoughts…?
I recently ran across a comment that shaving pubic hair had a pedophiliac aspect to it. I see it as an extension of my other hair: I vacillate between wild, trimmed, and gone. I occassionally ask the opinion of the person who as to look at it, or as PodMonkey so elequently put it, get it caught in his teeth, but it mostly comes down to how I’m feeling and how lazy I am.
I’ve also recently been thinking about the place of the penis in our society: a male gay friend of mine (I distinuish his gender & his orientation because I don’t think I would have listened to this comment had he not bee both) told me that “women think with their vaginas”. I would say we think with our uteruses, but I think it’s a valid comment on distinguishing between those who think with their “little head”s and those of us who only have big heads. The national mall is a good example of the inherent hiddenness of the vagina: the tall, phallic Washington Monument is visible from miles around; the less ostentatious Elipse lies flat on the ground & must be actively sought to be seen. Maybe we do need to seek it out more often.
6 John // Sep 15, 2006 at 12:48 am
I’ll have to do a post on circumcision and the penis one of these days. Or maybe you could do one.
I guess I see the shaving/waxing that women go through (pubic, leg, face, etc.) as part and parcel of idealized youthful beauty. Supermodels try to look like pre-teen girls: flat-chested (or small and high), thin and uncurvy, hairless everywhere besides their heads.
Of course I’m not taking into account personal self-expression. I’m mostly being self-critical: I’ve bought into a lot of what society tells us is beautiful, and it bothers me, though I struggle against the norms. I try to find sexiness/beauty in health as well as fragility, in age as well as youth, in the forms of women that have birthed and nursed, etc.
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