If Your Vagina Could Talk, What Would it Say? "Take me to New Orleans."
Where to begin when talking about vaginas? - not that we did all that much of it before 1996, in public or private. Eve Ensler, the little lady who started The Vagina Monologues, changed that with this one-woman-show that she first performed perched on a wooden stool in a downtown Manhattan theater, using 4x6 cards as prompts. I took my sister to one of those early shows, and when Eve finished the operatic monologue, "Reclaiming Cunt," my sister whispered to me, joking, "She ought to be ashamed of herself." Glenn Close sat in the row behind us, as new to the material as we were.
The protean play with that word in the title is a celebration of the vagina and a searing indictment of violence against women in many forms. It's funny, heartbreaking, incendiary, empowering, and it's like nothing you've ever seen. To date, it's been performed some 10,000 times in 45 languages, in 120 countries around the world, each performance a consciousness raising event and a benefit to raise money that goes to fighting violence against women and girls in those communities.
With all this talk of vaginas, would it sound off-key to say that Eve Ensler has balls? She even co-opted Valentine's Day in 1998 -- Valentine's Day, that takes some doing! -- by calling it V-Day and using the day to encourage performances of the play, to raise more money and more awareness about violence against women. V stands for Victory, Valentine, and -- You Know What.
Thursday night was the tenth anniversary of the first V-Day, and because she has a great sense of theater and of history, Eve held the blowout benefit celebration at the sight of the original party, the exceedingly grand Hammerstein Ballroom, where Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, and Brook Shields each did a monologue and hung around for dinner and schmoozing.
It was billed as an anniversary bash and a kickoff to a major event - V To The Tenth - - that takes place in New Orleans, April 11 and 12, and that has the potential to be spectacular, both as theater and as a fundraising enterprise. The woman with the chutzpah to reclaim the word "cunt" is on a mission to do some serious healing and fundraising there - and to reclaim and rename the infamous Superdome, where two days of activism, international networking, theater, and free wellness programs, will earn it the name Superlove. Supercorny, but better than its previous incarnation. Nearby, at the New Orleans Arena, there will be a star-studded performance of the ur-play, with tickets starting at $25.
Eve had no grand ambitions when she began performing The Vagina Monologues, but so many women came up to her afterwards to confide experiences of violence and violation, she kept working the material -- and the material kept leading to new audiences, new adherents, and cascading opportunities. Those little prompt cards have become a global movement that's so far raised $50 million to fight violence against women.
It's hard to write about The Vagina Monologues or the phenomenon that is V-Day -- or the phenomenon that is Eve Ensler -- without sounding sycophantic. But there's no getting around the fact that there is true, deep, and lasting value at the center of what's going on here, and at every point along the way. What's happened as a result of this play is a tribute to the power of one person - one misbehaving woman -- to move the world. And it's a reminder of how unending, how starkly universal this problem is, the problem of men and boys committing acts of violence against women and girls -- rape, beatings, maimings, molestations, genital circumcisions.
Eve Ensler and V-Day are about rewiring men's brains by beginning to rewire women's brains. I'm not sure I believe the party line, that it's possible to end violence against women, not simply reduce it or recover from it. But there aren't too many more worthy goals, even if we can't make it happen any faster than one monologue at a time.
Elizabeth Benedict's novels include the bestseller Almost and The Practice of Deceit. She's also the author of The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. For a free copy of her recent essay, "What I Learned About Sex on the Internet," please click here: www.elizabethbenedict.com.
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" Honk if you love Jesus "
What would my vagina say? Well, I don't actually own one, but my girlfriend lets me borrow one on occasion...usually after dinner and a fun night out. Next time this occurs, I'll ask what it has to say and get back to you with the results. In context and with proper quotes, of course.
As for the violence thing...men are statistically far more likely to be victims of violence than women. If verbal abuse counted as violence, the disparity would be a thousand times worse.
Your "statistics" can only be "correct" if they don't include sexual assault. Please cite your source for such a ridiculous claim.
I produced booklets on Female Genital Mutilation, so I am very good in VE or what I call Vaginal Analysis.
The Vagina Monologues have been performed in Nigeria.
to JGatsby, who wrote: "I'm just saying that good causes don't necessarily make good drama and I could never sit through the vagina monologues. I think a lot of people would admit that if they weren't afraid of being seen as non-PC."
Gosh, how can you make such a statement? You "could never sit through the vagina monologues." How do you know? Have you ever tried? What do you imagine it is - a man-hating screed, a tedious PC rant? Guess what? It's neither. It's been performed 10,000 times around the world. It's brilliant theater on many many levels and has received major theatrical awards, not to mention tens of thousands of fans. Are you afraid to try? What's your worst fear?
I tried sitting through it.
It didn't make good drama.
Sorry.
Eew! As a New Orleanian, thanks for the warning. I'm leaving town for early April.
But, I'm betting you'll be here for Decadence!
Aside from the violence against women that happens in all societies routinely, thousands of girls as young as three and women of all ages in certain African countries are being raped and killed by men on a daily basis ritualistically.
Sure. Male posters to this blog can laugh and ridicule the Vagina Monologues movement. I know that it doesn't mean we don't care. It just means we don't know how to do so effectively. I hope we find a way.
I'm not ridiculing the movement. I realize that violence against women is a major problem and applaud any and all movements to combat it. I'm just saying that good causes don't necessarily make good drama and I could never sit through the vagina monologues. I think a lot of people would admit that if they weren't afraid of being seen as non-PC.
"Hello, Sailor"?
What? I'm getting a vagina? Great! Can I specify the model and make?
Yesterday Jane Fonda said on "Today" that New Orleans is America's vagina - it's hot, it's wet and everybody goes there to have a good time!
Did you know they are planning on lighting up the Superdome in various shades of pink (to look like a vagina) and the main entrance to the Dome will be done up to look like the opening of a vagina.
My vagina and I live in New Orleans. We love it!
How about the Foreskin Blues?
Feed me?
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