"I think with my mind, not my vagina," proclaimed the sign I made to protest the Vagina Monologues last Saturday. After handing the sign to a fellow Network of Enlightened Women protester, I picked up my ticket from will call and sat down in Neeb Hall to watch the show.
I had read the script but was curious to see in person how the show "celebrated the vagina" and "helped end violence against women and children," as its supporters had said.
Let me make some things clear straight off. I believe human sexuality is precious, powerful and personal. I comprehend the importance for women (and men) to understand their sexuality. Genuine awareness is key to making good decisions about sex, and knowledge is the best form of defense for women (and men) to protect themselves from sexual assault.
Examples of genuine awareness and knowledge were few and far between in the Monologues. Instead, I was treated to overzealous vagina worship, including self-identifying oneself with one's vagina, and a generally humorous but preachy message that the road to freedom is paved with uninhibited sexual "liberation."
Nothing about obtaining sexual health and safety. Instead we were given a loopy therapy session, teaching us to deal with our poor, oppressed vaginas in abstract terms.
A rare few segments, like "Under the Burqa" and "My Vagina Was My Village," gave a meaningful, powerful voice to hurting women who described the horrors of living in a society that promoted misogyny and rape.
But apart from some slides giving facts about sexual abuse and a couple of segments that showed the tragic ways women can develop an unhealthy self-loathing, there was an overwhelming theme that illogically stood above any other message the show tried to convey.
It wasn't a matter of promoting healthy sex or even questioning what that was, it was about promoting any self-serving sexual pleasure.
Everyone in the theater was so wrapped up in their love of the "sacred vagina" that they apparently didn't hear the lines that demoted women exclusively to their sexual organs.
"My vagina. Me."
Or how about Bob, the solitary "positive" male character in the entire show? He is ideal because he worships the goddess Vagina. He tells a woman, "I need to see you," meaning her vagina.
The saddest part of all is that the woman says, "I began to see myself the way he saw me."
As a vagina for consumption. Nothing more.
One monologue tells us in an admiring and enthusiastic tone, "Sex workers have rich, compelling, complex relationships with their vaginas."
Women who sell their vaginas are so much more enlightened, you see!
The particular lesbian dominatrix glorified in the show gives us this pearl of wisdom: "I love vaginas. I love women. I do not see them as separate things."
Is this what feminists, who originally fought so hard to distinguish women as more than sexual objects, are now condoning?
A new layer of hypocrisy comes in one of the most controversial monologues. In "The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could," a young girl has traumatic experiences with her vagina, including being raped by a man. A few years later, still under age (13 or 16, depending on the version) and afraid of her vagina, she is "saved" by being raped again.
After giving the teen vodka and lingerie, a 24 year old has sex with her, then "makes me play with myself in front of her." Yes, that's right, this time the rape is OK because it done by a woman. Forget therapy or genuine concern for the girl's mental health, the sexual pleasure was enough to be her "salvation."
There are those who have asked how I, as an educated women, can object to the Vagina Monologues.
How can I not?
Reach the reporter: francesca.vanderfeltz@asu.edu.
