I’ve been waiting for over ten years for the feminists to come to their senses and condemn The Vagina Monologues (TVM) as being bad for women. I knew it would happen some day and finally that day has come! Feminists at Columbia University have officially stepped up and admitted that Eve Ensler’s popular play needs a serious overhaul in order to avoid hurting women. But the question is: what specific aspect of TVM have they condemned as both hurtful and hypocritical? Perhaps an overview of the controversial book-turned-play is in order.
In the first chapter of TVM, Ensler tells her readers that she wrote the feminist play because she “was worried about what we think about vaginas” and also because she “was worried about (her) own vagina. It needed a context of other vaginas-a community, a culture of vaginas.” Note that she said context, not c*ntext. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Ensler got the inspiration for her play by talking to other women about their vaginas. I mean, she actually did vagina interviews. One of the questions she asked of women was “If your vagina got dressed what would it wear?” Responses included, “A beret,” “A leather jacket,” “Lace and combat boots,” and “An electrical shock device to keep unwanted strangers away.” Talk about plugging into current research in a serious academic outlet! Watt sheer genius!
In preparing to write TVM, Ensler also did some focused interviews. One was with a woman who participated in a “vagina workshop.” In this revealing chapter, the vagina student describes the director of the workshop as one who “helps women see their own vaginas by seeing other women’s vaginas.” Guys, remember this if your wife ever catches you downloading porn. I wasn’t really looking at her vagina. I was just learning how to look at yours!
Ensler explains that the vagina workshop really did help this woman change her view of her own vagina. She had previously seen it as “an anatomical vacuum randomly sucking up particles and objects from the surrounding environment” and an “independent entity, spinning like a star in its own galaxy.” It may sound sort of like a black hole but it isn’t. In fact, the absence of black holes is part of the problem. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The student, after being unable to locate her clitoris with a handheld mirror, was then reassured by the vagina workshop director that her “clitoris was not something (she) could lose.” Of course, this was long before Chastity Bono lost her chastity and gained a bono. The play is outdated, buts that’s not the real issue. Again, I risk getting ahead of myself.
Another chapter of TVM urges women to spend time looking at their vaginas in order to love them. In fact, the reader learns that vagina hatred is a part of the internalized hatred of the patriarchal culture. The book explains, “Like, if we’d grown up in a culture where we were taught that fat thighs were beautiful, we’d all be pounding down milkshakes and cookies.” It like totally sounds like they did their surveys in like a sorority house or like something like that. But that’s not like true. Just keep like reading.
I would have expected that “My Angry Vagina” would the most harmful chapter to women simply because it conjures images of angry feminists who wear combat boots. But the title doesn’t capture the real scope of this chapter. In fact, the first few pages merely offer a diatribe against tampons. Then, it gets even weirder by discussing the prospect of talking vaginas capable of doing “vagina impressions.” Imagine changing your impression of Winston Churchill into an impression of Monica Lewinsky! Or maybe we should just go back to imagining no possessions. Never mind. Keep reading.
Ok, I think we may have just found the really-harmful-to-women part. A chapter called “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could” chronicles the seduction of a sixteen-year-old girl by a twenty-four year old lesbian. That must be it, right? Nope. Keep reading.
Perhaps the lowlight of TVM is not the statutory rape of a sixteen year old girl but instead an interview with a six-year-old girl, which asks: “If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?” “If it could speak what would it say?” and “What does your vagina smell like?” Of course I just wondered why Ensler would ask these questions of a six-year-old girl.
After nearly 120 pages of this obscenity, the author does finally admit, “I realize I don’t know what’s appropriate. I don’t even know what that word means. Who decides?” And so by now my readers are wondering what part of TVM is so objectively inappropriate that it can no longer be tolerated – even by feminists steeped in multicultural relativism. Before answering the question, please pause and imagine a drumroll. And the answer is: none of the above.
Columbia University feminists are calling for a reform of TVM, not because of substantive objections about what the plays actually says. They are instead objecting on procedural grounds. Specifically, they are saying that the play needs to be reformed because it has become “white dominated.” It’s a familiar phrase but they’ve given it an unfamiliar spin. Over the span of the last several years, Columbia feminists have noticed that the play has been performed almost exclusively by white actresses. They say it has been dominated by “white vaginas” while “black vaginas” and other “vaginas of color” have been underrepresented. So now they’re calling for vaginal affirmative action in the form of a complete ban on white actresses.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. You just c*nt make this stuff up. They’re actually banning whites from performing in the vagina monologues. And it’s all happening at a prestigious Ivy League university. But in the midst of all this racially driven feminist rage they seem not to have noticed another group that has been underrepresented in TVM in recent years. I am talking, of course, about white men.
But I’m fixing all that next year. On June 6, 2014, at my university, UNC-Wilmington, I’m proud to be sponsoring our first annual penis monologues. It will be complete with numerous monologues such as “The Little Hoo Hoo Dilly That Could” and “My Angry White Hoo Hoo Dilly.” We’ll even hang signs on the wall saying “Hoo hoo dillies unite!” and “No cha chas allowed!”
The feminists have had a nice run for a few years. But as far as I’m concerned, they can have V-Day all to themselves. We’ll have our revenge on D-Day. How dare the feminists dominate the realm of intellectual sterility, public indecency, and puerile vulgarity! There’s no better way to create equality than to have everyone take a dive into the academic cesspool.
