brethren priestess online

This weekend I’m going to watch the Vagina Monologues at Cal Berkeley, with my boyfriend and some of my other best friends. We will be joining in a fine tradition of participating in this mini-movement for a vagina-friendly world. I performed in and coordinated the Vagina Monologues at my college, Lewis$Clark College, for two years, so I know the script so well it has steeped into my consciousness and my very interpretation of life experiences. I find myself quoting lines without knowing it, with no one around me getting the reference. I have some concerns about the play’s rather moderate feminism - it isn’t the end-all of feminism, by a long shot - and I wish that we had more strident, comprehensive public faces of our movement to supplement it, but for what it sets out to do, it is a blessing to a violent world.

But some folks remain a bit confused about the need for this movement. Apparently, according to the Daily Kos, at least one theatre has received complaints about the decency of the play’s title, and changed the advertised name to “The Hoohaa Monologues.” (I do not have to make this up.)

This raises three thoughts for me. First, if you are producing a copyrighted play, don’t you have to keep the legal name of the play intact?

Second, I am reminded of the flack we got at my alma mater when we put the play on. Like many college students, we would advertise our event in chalk writing on the sidewalks, and we would wake up the next morning to find the word ‘Vagina’ smudged out, leaving an invitation to ‘The … Monologues.’ People still came, and the chalk vandals proved exactly why the play was needed.

Third, how sad is it that the word vagina is what’s freaking people out? I know I am blessed with an ardently feminist community to enbubble me, but vagina seems kinda dated and patriarchal! The word cunt is much more comprehensive of a term for the whole of the female sexual anatomy that requires sensual stimulation, not just the portion of it that comes in contact with the male organ; vagina is inherently patriarchal, with its etymology coming from the word for ’sheath (for a sword).’ Even the Vagina Monologues themselves include a brief reclaiming of the cunt.

But apparently we still need to get folks from hoohaa to vagina, before we can get beyond vagina to cunt. What a world. It’s no surprise that what we can’t even talk about openly and accurately and nonsexistly, we don’t treat with respect bodily, either - as the many victims of sexual assault, STDs, and the sex industry could tell us better than I.

The Vagina Monologues remain an important step in the world’s feminist journey, as long as we keeping putting one <dog> in front of the other, keep our <peepers> on the prize, and remember to hold each others’ <mitts> as we go.