At bustedhalo.com, a nun explains the importance of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues:
If the vagina’s pop culture debut came in the late 90s, it seems to me that its male sexual counterpart had center stage all to itself for quite a long while. Having grown up with several brothers I practically needed a penis dictionary to translate the endless double entendres that poured out of them at such a rapid rate. At first I remember being grossed out. But then I gradually began to realize that that was their way of processing that part of their reality. They could talk about it and joke about it just like anything else. There’s something very healthy about that.
I, however, was not afforded the same luxury. My girlfriends and I generally didn’t talk about what our vaginas felt like, what it felt like to have our period, etc. Perhaps because our experience is a lot more internal than external, hidden even on a physical level, it remained an issue that we kept to ourselves . . . .This tendency is extremely detrimental to girls and women because it leads to keeping anything connected with our vaginas a secret:sexual abuse being the best kept secret among them.
Pseudonymous Sister Mary Eve’s full article is available here. Hat tip: Carly Grant.
Feminist Law Profs previously blogged here the decision by a Florida theater’s managers to advertise Ensler’s play as the “Hoohah Monologues,” instead of the Vagina Monologues. Does anyone else find it odd that “hoo-hah” was the tag line of Frank Slade, the fictional character played by Al Pacino in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman?
-Bridget Crawford
