Jane Fonda and C-Day
Whoops.
Yesterday was supposed to celebrate V-Day, devised 10 years ago by activist Eve Ensler to combat violence against women.
In that decade V-Day has raised over $50 million, according to Fundraising Success magazine, largely by allowing groups to produce Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues, as a benefit. Groups must apply, and V-Day must approve donation plans as well as receive 10% of proceeds.
Sometimes star power helps sell VM tickets. Enter Jane Fonda, who has performed the play and yesterday appeared with Ensler on The Today Show to promote V-Day.
The ever judgment-challenged Fonda decided to utter a word on morning network television from the VM that will never be ready for prime time and is, in fact, the most despicably sexist word in the English language: the c-word….
They say any publicity is good publicity, and it may be Ensler and Fonda are giggling between themselves today about all the adverse attention Fonda brought V-Day, although in actuality Fonda’s indiscretion overshadowed it. This will inspire liberals, though, who will certain rally and produce VM with even wilder abandon.
BTW, some of V-Day’s goals are laudable. It fights rape, incest, female genital mutliation, and sex slavery around the world.
But Ensler is an outspoken pro-abort, and one of VM’s producers and V-Day supporters is Planned Parenthood.
It is simply illogical to decry violence against women while promoting abortion, of which well over half its victims are female.
See Jane run (her mouth off) here.
[Photo courtesy of Fundaising Success magazine]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Ahh! I love the Vagina Monologues.
The reason that the ‘c-word’ is used so often is to be intentionally provocative. The entire show is revolved around destigmatizing female sexuality, a subject that was taboo for far too long. It creates a woman as her own individual sexual being, as opposed to someone there to satisfy the needs of men. It’s really brilliantly written and a very important feminist work.
Eve Ensler was just here at Dartmouth on Wednesday. It seems that she spoke mostly about raising awareness of violence against women, which is a great cause. It really stuns me, though, that she doesn’t see a connection between this horrible violence against women and the turning of women into pure sexual objects that she has helped to espouse.
His Gal Friday was a movie about women being strong.
And I don’t recall the “C” word being used.
Sometimes “being” a strong woman says more than pretending on stage to be one, or writing about one…
Mother Teresa says more about being a woman in one hours work than all the year VM has been on stage put together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0cWbXd1dU&feature=related
It’s a rather avant-garde piece of literature, I’ll grant you that. Some people like avant-garde, some don’t. But either way, it’s an important place in theatre and culture. Half of the intent of it is to make people angry.
Also, the ‘c-word’ used to bother me tremendously. Lately, however, I have realized that _I_ am the person who gives that word it’s power. I have a choice as to whether to be offended. If it’s simply a word, what’s the point? Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Funny.
When that Spanish women had her “C-word” illegally taped by a stranger without her permission, you displayed it on this very site.
Let me get this straight; using the “C-word” is vulgar, but displaying an unwilling victim’s c**t on your website is virtuous?
Amazing…
The C word is not simply just a word. It is offensive like all derogatory words. It is intended to demean and degrade.
If it is just a word why doesn’t my husband call me that all day in a sweet voice or write it on his Valentines card to me? Because it is offensive in and of itself.
I don’t see how using disgusting language in regards to women, their anatomy, and their sexuality destigmatizes the sexuality of women.
It doesn’t liberate anybody…it’s just unnecessarily crude for the sake of being crude.
I hold it in the same regard as rap songs that talk about H*’s and B*tches. They both use disgusting language to get their point across, but ALL anybody ever hears is the disrespectful language.
Carla- some couples do use terms like that affectionately. To each his own.
I know, Erin.
I personally HATE that word. Was in an abusive relationship for years and was called the C word, instead of my name.
I have never seen VM.
Erin,
As someone who has been actively involoved in theatre for 20 years, not all plays are good.
Let’s not forget the seduction scene. How is that empowering? Want to talk about abusing power.
Please tell me why you think it is an important work? (serious question)
If a woman needs to see a V-Monolouges in order to empower themselves, there is something wrong. Female empowerment should be about more then just sex, however, some feminist groups have forgotten that.
Words, and whether they are offensive or not, are all about context and they way they are used. Certainly the c-word can be used as an epithet, but I prefer to think of it the way it is used in Lady Chatterly’s Lover. I don’t recall the exact text, but I do remember being surprised at the way it admiringly named the part of the anatomy that it referred to and imbued its possessor with feminine power. I haven’t thought the same of the word since, and it informed my interpretation of the The Vagina Monologues (I agree with Erin and I highly recommend it), when I saw it.
Tara, I have never watched the VM play, but I looked up info on the seduction scene…wow:
“The play is meant to decry rape and other violence against women. Yet, the original performances of the play and the published book eulogize the lesbian “rape” of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol. The pedophile section is entitled “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could” – Coochi Snorcher being the nickname of the little girl’s genitalia. Her vagina’s tale of seduction begins, “She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed …”
After becoming more graphic, the little girl gratefully concludes, “I’ll never need to rely on a man.”
Both by statute and by feminist definition, the “seduction” scene is rape. Nevertheless, the Coochi Snorcher declares, “… if it was rape, it was a good rape.”
Ray,
I’m sure your wife is glad you hold that word in such high regard.
if it was rape, it was a good rape
:shudders:
Carla, I am thankful that you got out of that horrible and abusive relationship. How someone can be so cruel is beyond me.
Also, I find it difficult to believe that Erin or Ray would see a white woman “affectionately” calling her black husband “nigger” in the same light that they do a man calling a woman a c word “affectionately”. Or how about affectionately calling lesbian’s “dykes”. Or how about sweetly calling mentally retarded individuals “retards”.
Right.
Tara, I don’t think anybody NEEDS to see VM to empower themself, but it is a very powerful work that tackles issues common to almost all women. I think that many women who have not had a forum to discuss such things due to varying levels of repression, or for whatever other reason, find seeing it and identifying with the stories it tells to be a cathartic experience.
Bethany,
I dislike anybody using the “N” word..white people, black people, etc. I don’t see why black people think it’s so liberating for them to say it. It’s not. It just makes it appropriate for it to get thrown around, which, if you have ever really been called the “N” word, you wouldn’t like. If my daughter ever said that word, I would have some words for her lol.
destigmatizing female sexuality, a subject that was taboo for far too long. It creates a woman as her own individual sexual being, as opposed to someone there to satisfy the needs of men.
Posted by: Erin at February 15, 2008 8:44 AM
Female sexuality is still stigmatized in as much as her offspring are unwelcome.
The result of female sexuality is offspring.
Denying that denies her sexuality.
Mother’s Day is an affirmation of female sexuality as Father’s Day is an affirmation of male sexuality.
Sex is good. Sex causes people, families; those we love and cherish the most.
My beautiful boys came from sex. They are the evidence and affirmation of my sexuality.
Sex without kids is dysfunction by definition.
If you don’t have, don’t want kids fine, but that is hardly affirmation of sexuality.
Individual sexual being? huh? like Asexual? or what does that mean?
Hippie, an excellent, excellent post!!!
Thanks for that, Elizabeth. As a matter of fact, sex positive feminine goddess that she is, my wife IS glad.
Bethany, a lesbian friend of mine has proudly nicknamed herself Dyke Daddy, and has no problem with people using the name when referring to her. Lesbians in general seem to have claimed it as their own. Apparently, it is YOU who has the problem with it.
Bethany, a lesbian friend of mine has proudly nicknamed herself Dyke Daddy, and has no problem with people using the name when referring to her. Lesbians in general seem to have claimed it as their own. Apparently, it is YOU who has the problem with it.
What about calling mentally handicapped people, “Retard”, Ray? what about calling gay people “faggots”.
And just because one person has decided to turn a derogatory term into something she can live with, doesn’t mean it didn’t start as a derogatory term.
Just as the word “Nigger” was begun as a derogatory term and some black people will call themselves by that term, doesn’t mean that the word isn’t originally intended to be derogatory.
Bethany, I’m not the one who brought up those other terms, am I?
If you flipped someone off and they got mad do you think the excuse, “It’s just my middle finger.” would get you anywhere?
It’s never just a word, a movie, a book, a finger. They all produce a reaction in people. They all make a point.
It’s called a comparison, and you obviously haven’t gotten the point yet. Knock knock, anyone home?
Do you or do you not believe that someone can lovingly call mentally handicapped individuals “retards”?
Sex without kids is dysfunction by definition.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nope.
There’s sexual anatomy and activity that has nothing to do with reproduction.
The vast majority of the time, people have sex to produce an orgasm – not a child. Some of us have a lifetime of amazing sex without ever having a child. The clitoris is entirely unneccesary to perform reproduction, and hidden estrus is a testament to the evolutionary triumph of sex for pleasure without reproduction.
There’s sexual anatomy and activity that has nothing to do with reproduction.
The vast majority of the time, people have sex to produce an orgasm – not a child. Some of us have a lifetime of amazing sex without ever having a child. The clitoris is entirely unneccesary to perform reproduction, and hidden estrus is a testament to the evolutionary triumph of sex for pleasure without reproduction.
Actually, orgasm is very important in the conception process:
http://infertility.about.com/od/reproductionbasics1/a/femaleorgasm.htm
Let’s face it, Ensler is trash, Fonda is trash, and the VM is trash. VM is common vulgarity disguised as something noble. Like a lot of things in our very flawed vulgar culture.
I will respect and support Ensler when she comes to the realization that the ultimate violence to women is abortion – plain and simple – if and when she does this, I will follow her to the ends of the earth to help her – for the time being she’s just another middle aged baby boomer who’s in a suspended state of adolescent animation – just like Jane.
I notice that all the people who support the Vagina monologues are silent about the so called “seduction scene”. I would like to hear any of your thoughts on this…
Bethany,
LOL. There’s comprehensive sex ed for you:)
Bethany,
When I bring that up to my freidns who this VM is so great, they brush it off and say that it is taken out of context. I don’t know how one takes an adult female’s seduction of a minor female out of context. Can’t quite figure that one out.
LOL. There’s comprehensive sex ed for you:)
Yeah, really, Tara! haha
I meant friends. Having a hard time tyoing this morning.
Tara @10:37, really… I’m sure if it was a male 24 year old seducing a 13 year old, they’d have a somewhat different opinion! Somehow rape is okay as long as it’s a woman doing the raping!
Will we EVER be totally free of Jane Fonda? Just when I think she’s gone for good, she resurfaces…like a bad flu…
Oh, and BTW…this time, she’s supposedly a Christian…
If anyone knows Doug Henning, could you PLEASE arrange it for him to make Fonda and Ensler DISAPPEAR ?????
You have to look at it in context. The “c-word” monologue is about the idea that women’s parts are seen as dirty, or something to hide. It shouldn’t be. Cu** shouldn’t have to be a bad word. Calling someone a vagina should not be a bad thing. Instead women should be proud of who they are.
People who oppose the vagina monologues do so because they don’t see it within the context of the movement. They just see words like “vagina” and “cu**” and just run for the hills.
About the rape and seduction monologues, there are sides to every issue and the monologues explore it. The idea is to make you think about it.
Won’t my daughter be touched when I call her vagina when she gets home from school.
I don’t understand how this play makes women feel better about themselves. Seems like nonsense to me.
Carla, we live in a society that treats vaginas like something dirty to be ashamed of. Our society has many degrading terms for vagina. When we start to think about it, vagina doesn’t have to be a dirty word. We shouldn’t have to give it other “offensive” names to address it. Let’s stop giving these words their power. The female body is beautiful. It is nothing to be ashamed of.
Yes, society has some twisted, ugly notions that I do not subscribe to. I do not need to see VM to see another attempt at “empowering women.”
My daughter knows what a vagina is, she knows she has one and it is beautiful because God made it and made her. He calls her beautiful. He calls all women beautiful and their bodies are beautiful because He thought of them, He made them. I find my identity in Christ, as does my daughter, not what society says or doesn’t say.
I think we are on the same page? In the context of me teaching my daughter her inherent value in light of the God who made her, vagina is the correct name for her parts, not the C word. Never the C word.
Oh, you changed your name, PHLPIP.
Regarding any scene in VM, my understanding is that they are all true stories. Would you prefer that we pretend they didn’t, and don’t, happen?
Bethany, I reject your comparison, and here is why. The origins of the words you are using is simply different.
The C word is more like the B word. It refers to something other than a human female. Dog trainers use the word bitch to describe a female dog all the time with no malice whatsoever. Calling a human being a dog is offensive. Similarly, the origin of the c-word refers to the female genitalia, not women themselves. To call a woman that is roughly analogous to calling a man a term refering to male genitalia, of which there are many. I agree, this can be offensive, depending on the company and the circumstances. But slang terms referring to genitalia, when used in discussions about genitalia, ribald or not, have appeared throughout human history, and I do not buy that the terms themselves are offensive to anyone but the overly prudish among us who insist on using the the terms vagina and penis, and I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy for them.
The N word, by contrast, is and has always been directed at black people themselves. It invokes a painful history of slavery and discrimination, and is clearly offensive. Even its “friendly” use among black people is controversial.
The word “retarded” is an adjective that literally refers to mental slowness that is genetic, and not the fault of the person who has the condition. The verb retard has legitimate use as a technical term referring to things (for instance, railroads use braking devices known as retarders in classification yards), but its use directed at people is clearly offensive.
Here is my point, Bethany. Words used to describe objects, including parts of the anatomy, or even living beings other than humans, may be offensive when directed at people, but are not necessarily so when used in their original meanings.
Jasper, imagine you had had an experience in your life that was painful or made you feel shameful, and your feelings around that experience led you to shut down about it, and pretend it had hot happened, or believe that you were alone in this and that others would simply not understand. Then you were exposed to a performance in which someone else related a similar experience and even exulted in surviving it, leading you to realize that rather than being alone, you were in fact part of a brotherhood (or in this case sisterhood) of people all around you who did understand and would be there to support you if you only had the courage to talk about it. This would be revelatory, and in the case of VM, to many women it is so.
“I hold it in the same regard as rap songs that talk about H*’s and B*tches. ”
Well H*’s and B*tches mean basically a prostitute and a loud, violent woman. I don’t want to be seen as a prostitute or violent person but a c**t is slang for a part of the female anatomy. While I wouldn’t like to be called a c**t as my name I wouldn’t have a problem with someone complementing me on it. Much like someone would say, “you have beautiful hair” they would say
“you have a lovely c**t.
“Female sexuality is still stigmatized in as much as her offspring are unwelcome.
The result of female sexuality is offspring.”
So are you saying a woman can’t be sexual without being fertile? I think there’s more to women then bearing kids. Take Mother Teresa. Are you saying she was any less a woman because she didn’t give birth? How about Queen Elizabeth? Opera?
Call me overly prudish Ray. Penis and vagina are the anatomically correct terms are they not? My sons have a penis, my daughter has a vagina.
I do not need your sympathy, whatever that means….
“vagina is the correct name for her parts, not the C word. Never the C word.”
I think vagina is a bit to sterile for me. You know, when whispered lovingly. It makes me think of anatomy class.
Vagina’s are amazing though, when you think about all the wonderful things they do. Like push out a baby. Self cleaning.
And Carla, I’m sorry you had to be in a relationship with a man who couldn’t appreciate you for all your beautiful glory.
If you don’t want my sympathy, then don’t take it, Carla, but to me a life lived without the fun of pet names for genitalia, given that we all have to live with a set of them for a long, long time, is a sorry one indeed.
I think I’m gonna call my daughter a “nigger” or “nigga” as it has been termed by African Americans. I wonder how empowered she will feel. She is black, that’s part of the black culture..she should feel very proud.
Man, sometimes you guys are a**backwards.
You only call someone a d**k when they’re being obnoxious or rude…and a d**k is slang term for penis. It’s considered a derogatory term..let’s start empowering men and calling them all d**k’s.
Like I said, becoming empowered by calling yourself a derogatory word is a**backwards.
Hey thank you Jess. My husband sees that in me now. :)
Ray, my husband calls ME babe.
p.s. Ray,
Carla’s hilarious…you should read her blogs..I do to have a good chuckle every day. :)
Jess,
You are right. I had a c-section so I won’t know that glory..I think I’m okay with that though. I don’t even know what a contraction feels like. I’m okay with that too lol.
You don’t need pet names for genitalia to enjoy sex. My boyfriend never says anything during sex unless I ask him.
My friends call me Jess. My family calls me Jessica. I only let three people call me Jessy. I have two other names my closest friends will call me. One of them I would take extreme offense to if anyone but my absolute best friends called me it. But when they say it it’s cute.
Sex without kids is dysfunction by definition.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nope.
There’s sexual anatomy and activity that has nothing to do with reproduction.
The vast majority of the time, people have sex to produce an orgasm – not a child. Some of us have a lifetime of amazing sex without ever having a child. The clitoris is entirely unneccesary to perform reproduction, and hidden estrus is a testament to the evolutionary triumph of sex for pleasure without reproduction.
Posted by: FetusFascist at February 15, 2008 10:12 AM
Well, of course the clitoris and orgasm have everything to do with sexual reproduction, that is the enticement to have sex and thereby reproduce.
As for sex for pleasure from an evolutionary standpoint, 89% of human females enjoying sex for pleasure get pregnant each year if not on birth control.
That certainly isn’t sex without reproduction.
Any doctor will tell you that if you are having sex and not getting pregnant, there is something wrong with you and will suggest evaluation and treatment. No doctor will tell you that not getting pregnant is an evolutionary triumph.
Evolution is based on species reproducing. Think about it.
Words are not evil. Only the people who say them. In that tone i’d like to say:
CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT
Do not fear it! Embrace it! Make it normal and it will lose its shock-value.
hippie,
But can you still be sexy and sexual without being fertile?
Half of the intent of it is to make people angry.
All due respect, Erin, I disagree with this. I have seen (and performed in — with my mom!) the play numerous times, and I don’t think any intent is to make people angry. It is nowhere near as radical as people who refuse to see it tend to think it is. When my very small town put on a production a few years ago, we ended up getting requests from several nearby synagogues and churches to do shows at their places of worship — and a lot of the people who came to those things said, afterwards, that it was not at all what they were expecting, that they expected to disagree or find it vulgar and didn’t.
Ah, yes, the much-obsessed-over Coochie Snorcher That Could monologue, a favorite of people who refuse on principle to see the play and rely only on bare-bones descriptions of it. You know what I think about that one? I think it’s about grey areas and heartbreak. If a girl has been raped, has been taught to be ashamed of her vagina, that is a very sad thing. If a girl has lived such a scared, lonely life that the only positive concept of her own sexuality comes from a woman, ten years or so older than herself, someone identifiably “removed” from her life — that is a sad thing. I do not think that statutory rape laws define relationships as either good or bad — I think they provide a very useful legal guideline, one we need, but I do not believe that their existence turns consensual sex into rape. I think that there are situations where a 17-year old woman and a 23-year old man can have sex and have it be a neutral thing, for example — not the majority, but some. So I view the Coochie Snorcher as a piece about grey areas and sadness and hope — because if your whole life is black, and you’re so freaking happy to have a little grey, that is really sad, and that’s a condemnation of the way a lot of women in this country are growing up.
There are monologues in the work that are not meant to be positive examples — a woman whose husband keeps cheating on her, an elderly woman who was traumatized as an adolescent by her own sexuality — and I think that they’re important to hear. No one listens to the one about the woman and her husband and says, “You know, it’s awesome that she left her husband! We should all leave our husbands and celebrate the divorce rate!” People look at her story and see a broken relationship, a relationship whose brokenness comes in part from her husband’s unrealistic expectations about his wife’s sex organs, a relationship where a woman is made to feel ashamed of the way her body naturally is. Not all the monologues are meant to make people stand up and say, “WOOHOO YEAH!” Some are very sad, and some are uncomfortable. I think that the phrase “a good kind of rape” is sad and uncomfortable. Like the best you can hope for is good rape rather than bad rape. That’s a sad, sad way for a girl to grow up thinking of sex, and if women are growing up that way, then we can listen to it and be made uncomfortable by it and examine why it is that way, or we can just say “DISGUSTING THAT’S RAPE I’M NOT WATCHING IT.”
“Female sexuality is still stigmatized in as much as her offspring are unwelcome.
The result of female sexuality is offspring.”
So are you saying a woman can’t be sexual without being fertile? I think there’s more to women then bearing kids. Take Mother Teresa. Are you saying she was any less a woman because she didn’t give birth? How about Queen Elizabeth? Opera?
Posted by: Jess at February 15, 2008 12:33 PM
I was talking about female sexuality. Mother Theresa was a great woman but what was sexual about her life and activities? She was not having sex.
I am not saying she isn’t a woman. I am saying she wasn’t having sex.
Queen Elizabeth has four kids, so that pretty much indicates plenty of sexual activity.
I don’t get the question about opera.
My favorite opera is Carmen and it certainly has sexual themes.
No the first Queen Elizabeth. That’s why I didn’t add “the second.”
Shoot, Oprah. So sorry. And embarrassed. Yes Carmen was a good opera.
Well stated, Alexandra.
Who said anything about shooting Oprah? :-)
Do not fear it! Embrace it! Make it normal and it will lose its shock-value.
Like the word nigger has you mean?
Jess,
you asked,
hippie,
But can you still be sexy and sexual without being fertile?
Posted by: Jess at February 15, 2008 1:22 PM
to me this is just word games based on usage. My background is linguistics, so these adaptations and connotations are just that.
sexy is in common usage just meaning attractive. You don’t have to be fertile to be attractive.
sexual means related to sex, even a story can have sexual themes that doesn’t make it fertile.
Also a fertile person can choose not to have sex.
If sex and reproduction weren’t linked we wouldn’t need birth control. There would be no unplanned pregnancy or abortion or this website.
I assume you know all this anyway. I state the obvious.
Yeah I just didn’t know if you were saying you didn’t think a woman could be sexually attractive unless they were able to have a child.
Ray, NO! Oprah is awesome. No one is shooting Oprah when I’m around.
No the first Queen Elizabeth. That’s why I didn’t add “the second.”
Posted by: Jess at February 15, 2008 1:30 PM
Okay, I understand. ER I.
I have heard ER I did have a lover but never got pregnant and decided therefore not to marry. As sovereign and non catholic, she didn’t need marriage to make her child legitimate.
I have also heard she didn’t want to lose the throne and felt a man might find a way to wrest it from her.
I can’t assert that with much certainty. It is not my area.
Nope.
There’s sexual anatomy and activity that has nothing to do with reproduction.
The vast majority of the time, people have sex to produce an orgasm – not a child. Some of us have a lifetime of amazing sex without ever having a child. The clitoris is entirely unneccesary to perform reproduction, and hidden estrus is a testament to the evolutionary triumph of sex for pleasure without reproduction.
Posted by: FetusFascist at February 15, 2008 10:12 AM
FF,
Nope. Your theory doens’t make any sense. Women and men were designed to have orgasms so sex would be fun and people would reproduce. If it wasn’t any fun or enjoyable, people would stop reproducing.
Yes Bobby I eat animals, so I am no longer pro-life. The term has gotten even vaguer, apparently. So…I guess I’ll start calling myself pro-human life.
Ahh! I love the Vagina Monologues.
The reason that the ‘c-word’ is used so often is to be intentionally provocative. The entire show is revolved around destigmatizing female sexuality, a subject that was taboo for far too long. It creates a woman as her own individual sexual being, as opposed to someone there to satisfy the needs of men. It’s really brilliantly written and a very important feminist work.
Erin, have you ever seen ‘The Aristocrats”?
http://imdb.com/title/tt0436078/
Damn…. Get out in the sun for a bit….
Amazing…nothing but praise about a scene which in a positive light portrays a 24 year old woman raping a 13 year old. So much for empowering women…
Elizabeth 12:50…great post.
Doug that movie was awful! Any movie that dissects what makes a joke funny is SO not funny!
Doug 2:22 LOL
The Vagina Monologues 1998
The top reason I don’t like VM’s:
Planned Parenthood does.
oh my goodness, how sick. I just read the entire script (this is the “changed” version, where they make her 16 instead of 13. It’s like reading porn. How disgusting that anyone thinks this type of thing could ever be empowering to a woman. )
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/TVMscript2006.pdf
I would have at least thought that on the subject of a 13 year old girl being victimized by an adult, that the pro-choicers/feminists would have been in agreement with us on this. Amazing…
oh my goodness, how sick. I just read the entire script (this is the “changed” version, where they make her 16 instead of 13. It’s like reading porn. How disgusting that anyone thinks this type of thing could ever be empowering to a woman. )
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/TVMscript2006.pdf
Posted by: Bethany at February 15, 2008 2:36 PM
Bethany, you’re such a prude! lol!
This topic leaves me speechless. Lord have mercy on us all.
oh my goodness, how sick. I just read the entire script (this is the “changed” version, where they make her 16 instead of 13. It’s like reading porn. How disgusting that anyone thinks this type of thing could ever be empowering to a woman. )
Posted by: Bethany at February 15, 2008 2:36 PM
Bethany, you’re such a prude! lol!
This topic leaves me speechless. Lord have mercy on us all.
*mumble mumble*
My pain relievers are at maximum and have been for most the day. I am totally out of it. I’ll get back to this stuff when I can form some kind of coherent sentence.
Now…I’m going to go sleep more…
oh my goodness, how sick. I just read the entire script (this is the “changed” version, where they make her 16 instead of 13. It’s like reading porn. How disgusting that anyone thinks this type of thing could ever be empowering to a woman. )
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/TVMscript2006.pdf
Posted by: Bethany at February 15, 2008 2:36 PM
Bethany,
Just read it. Where is her daddy with the shot gun? Unbelievable. So it’s just fine for a woman to violate her, but not her daddy’s best friend?
OK feminists, explain.
BTW FF,
Would you be having so much amazing sex if you were unable to orgasm?? Be honest.
“and hidden estrus is a testament to the evolutionary triumph of sex for pleasure without reproduction.”
I recall learning that hidden estrus, from an evolutionary perspective, has less to do with that, and is more of an adaptation which helps to pair-bond the sexes. i.e., if the male does not know when the female is fertile, he sticks around all the time just in case, rather than just a wham bam thank you maam during the time when he can obviously see she’s fertile, as in the apes, monkeys, and other mammals. Pair bonding was an important adaptation in early humans for many reasons, such as a lengthy period of immaturity in young, etc.
S.
“Queen Elizabeth has four kids, so that pretty much indicates plenty of sexual activity.”
Ewww, that’s naaasty……. (LOL)!
BTW FF,
Would you be having so much amazing sex if you were unable to orgasm?? Be honest.
Posted by: Sandy at February 15, 2008 2:57 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s my entire point.
Women who never have orgasms breed all the time. Rape victims get pregnant. Only 2-3 other species have sex for pleasure, but non-orgasmic creatures reproduce all the time.
You can have reproduction without sexual pleasure, and sexual pleasure without reproduction – the two are not synonamous.
Hippie’s position was that sex without reproduction was dysfunctional. How many times have you had sex without reproducing?
Tiny children masturbate, and people engage in sex long after their fertile years. Vaginal sex seldom tops the list of human orgasmic activities. I kinda theorize that sharing pleasure is more about pair-bonding than reproduction. (Unless it’s Spring Break or Mardi Gras. Then my pair-bonding theory flies out the window.)
Anon, 3:16,
Interesting and an important point. It’s amazing how women today make it SO EASY for men to ignore all that “bonding stuff”!!! Who needs marriage when you have CONTRACEPTION?!
Women, get a CLUE!!!!!
Bethany,
Just read it. Where is her daddy with the shot gun? Unbelievable. So it’s just fine for a woman to violate her, but not her daddy’s best friend?
exactly, Sandy. And it sounds like that poor girl never stopped being victimized.
Feminists who support VM. Do you also support NAMBLA? There are testimonies from young boys which sound remarkably similar to the testimony of this poor girl in the seduction scene…
**Interesting and an important point. It’s amazing how women today make it SO EASY for men to ignore all that “bonding stuff”!!! Who needs marriage when you have CONTRACEPTION?!
Women, get a CLUE!!!!!**
Janet, I’m not being a smart ass, or anything, but I fully intend on using contraception when I get married. That doesn’t “kill” the bonding experience of sex between myself and my husband. It just (hopefully) delays when and if I have children so that hubby and I can focus on bonding with each other more (and we can pursue our careers more fully before any bouncing baby bundles come along). Bonding through mutual support for each other’s goals is much more important to me than baby making.
FF @3:28
The fear reaction is very similar to the orgasm reaction, and therefore many women who are raped experience involuntary orgasm. I know this is an extremely simplified way of putting it, and I know there are better ways to explain it. I’m sure I’ve read up on it before but I’d have to look again.
As for tiny children masturbating, that can be a sign of possible sexual abuse.
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/sexabuse/sexabusec.cfm
Vaginal sex seldom tops the list of human orgasmic activities. I kinda theorize that sharing pleasure is more about pair-bonding than reproduction.
That is definitely part of it, Laura, but every time you have sex, your body tries to achieve pregnancy. Even when on birth control that is simply what your body tries to do naturally.
Bethany, I remember when I was really young I would explore myself. I didn’t get pleasure from it or anything and I certainly wasn’t being abused but I was curious.
*chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp*
That’s what I hear from feminists on the VM seduction scene….
I want to hear an honest, candid opinion people… My goodness, can you not agree that the seduction of an adult with a 13 year old girl was wrong!?!
It astounds me that I haven’t heard anyone standing up against this on the feminist side.
Come on, people. Show me you care about the victimization of women! I don’t see it yet!
Ah, yes, the much-obsessed-over Coochie Snorcher That Could monologue, a favorite of people who refuse on principle to see the play and rely only on bare-bones descriptions of it. You know what I think about that one? I think it’s about grey areas and heartbreak. If a girl has been raped, has been taught to be ashamed of her vagina, that is a very sad thing. If a girl has lived such a scared, lonely life that the only positive concept of her own sexuality comes from a woman, ten years or so older than herself, someone identifiably “removed” from her life — that is a sad thing. I do not think that statutory rape laws define relationships as either good or bad — I think they provide a very useful legal guideline, one we need, but I do not believe that their existence turns consensual sex into rape. I think that there are situations where a 17-year old woman and a 23-year old man can have sex and have it be a neutral thing, for example — not the majority, but some. So I view the Coochie Snorcher as a piece about grey areas and sadness and hope — because if your whole life is black, and you’re so freaking happy to have a little grey, that is really sad, and that’s a condemnation of the way a lot of women in this country are growing up.
Alexandria, if it were a man who had done everything in that story, a 24 year old man to a 13 year old girl, what would be your reaction? Be HONEST.
Bethany, I remember when I was really young I would explore myself. I didn’t get pleasure from it or anything and I certainly wasn’t being abused but I was curious.
If you were not doing it for the pleasure, you weren’t truly masturbating. Not in the sense that I mean.
Masturbate: get sexual gratification through self-stimulation
The fear reaction is very similar to the orgasm reaction, and therefore many women who are raped experience involuntary orgasm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where the hell did you get THAT?
I kinda theorize that sharing pleasure is more about pair-bonding than reproduction.
Posted by: FetusFascist at February 15, 2008 3:28 PM
I kinda theorize that sharing pleasure is about pair bonding and reproduction because offspring are better off when there are two to care for them and not just one.
Okay, I admit this isn’t my idea. It is commonly accepted sociological, psychological and anthropological theory.
Hehehe…Bethany, my mom is a 4th grade teacher and she had a little boy in her class this year who got his first erection at school. He was TERRIFIED. She says there’s also always a couple little girls in her grade level that are ‘grinders’- they’ve realized that grinding against the edge of their chair makes them feel good.
Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation
Hehehe…Bethany, my mom is a 4th grade teacher and she had a little boy in her class this year who got his first erection at school. He was TERRIFIED.
That can happen without stimulation. My two boys had erections when they were a few months old. It surprised me the first time it happened. It doesn’t really mean that they are trying to have an orgasm, Erin.
And as for the girls grinding, I doubt they were seeking orgasm but were just thinking it felt weird and were doing that for that reason. Not because they wanted to achieve orgasm…it’s a much different thing, if you know what I mean.
Oh, I know, Bethany. It’s the onset of puberty and they’re not really aware of what’s going on. Their hormones are two jumps ahead of their comprehension.
I have no idea if I’m even making sense. I’m pretty whacked out on drugs right now.
You make a lot of sense for being on drugs, Erin. Don’t worry, I understand you. ;)
Bethany 4:38, I guess I don’t get your point. Furthermore aren’t these monologues real stories?
I don’t know, PIP, are they? And if they are, are you not disturbed by the fact that this girls’ experience is portrayed in a positive light? As though the rapist is her savior?
Bethany, I would still find the piece sad and uncomfortable even if it had been a man.
No kidding, Alexandria. But would you also find it morally objectionable if the story promoted the man abuser as the “savior” who helped her self esteem?
Elizabeth 12:53
I doubt that Ray has much use for a “mommy blog”! THAT is hilarious!! Thanks for reading me.
Well if it’s her POV, it’s not really up to us how she feels.
**Interesting and an important point. It’s amazing how women today make it SO EASY for men to ignore all that “bonding stuff”!!! Who needs marriage when you have CONTRACEPTION?!
Women, get a CLUE!!!!!**
Janet, I’m not being a smart ass, or anything, but I fully intend on using contraception when I get married. That doesn’t “kill” the bonding experience of sex between myself and my husband. It just (hopefully) delays when and if I have children so that hubby and I can focus on bonding with each other more (and we can pursue our careers more fully before any bouncing baby bundles come along). Bonding through mutual support for each other’s goals is much more important to me than baby making.
Posted by: Lyssie at February 15, 2008 3:54 PM
Lyssie,
No offense taken. I was talking about pre-marital sex, not sex within marriage. You know the old saying, “why buy the milk when you can get it for free”…
Well if it’s her POV, it’s not really up to us how she feels.
What are you trying to say, PIP? Do you or do you not feel that the promotion of her experience as a “positive” is wrong?
Do you feel that the promotion of young boys’ experiences posted at NAMBLA are wrong, since they obviously are posted for a certain agenda and the boys are probably manipulated into feeling they way they say they feel?
Or do you think they really feel that way, and that pedophilia is sometimes actually justified based on the fact that the boys claim they enjoy their relationships with the older men?
@Bethany: I find that monologue to be repulsive and I too am shocked that nobody is reacting like they would if it were a 24 year old man and a 13 or 16 year old boy.
Ugh, I consider myself a feminist, but I *loathe* the V-Monologues. There are many other ways to demonstrate how strong women are and empowering women than whining about how people treat you like crap because of the fact you were born with a vagina instead of a penis.
*face-fork*
Bethany, you are really pushing the NAMBLA thing. What’s up with that?
To address your point, there is a huge difference between acknowledging that something illegal happened, and that in this case it turned out to be a positive experience, and promoting an illegal behavior. I am a fan of VM (“support” is your word, not mine) but I don’t advocate that 13 year old girls find older women to teach them sex in a hands-on (or in, as the case may be) manner.
Carla, actually, as the proud father of a 3-month-old boy, I may yet end up posting a “daddy blog” of parental truisms. An early observation is that burping a baby almost invariably brings up a belch from the adult before it does from the little one.
Oh my goodess, thank you Ari-chan. I thought I was completely losing my mind. I’m so thankful to see someone else understanding what I’m trying to say. I think a true feminist doesn’t ignore this type of victimization! And I totally agree with your points.
Bethany, the point is that the show doesn’t present the fact of the situation as a positive. It presents it, and the girl feels it is positive, but the audience feels uncomfortable.
No prob, Carla. I read ya everyday. You crack meeee up.
FF and Alexandra,
We should all be working together to protect children from molestation. It offends me when a 23 year old has sex with a 13 year old. There are age of consent laws and at the age of thirteen “any” sex is actually illegal to begin with. We need to spread the word about stopping these sexual predators. Why do you enjoy watching that trash?
VM is a drama – hence literature. Literature can often be symbolic and open to interpretation:
One interpretation could be that the 13 yo is taught by the 24 yo (her older self) what a pleasurable thing a cunt can be. This would go along with a Freudian interpretation since the 24 y o is daddy’s girlfriend which is what all little girls want to be. Hence, the fulfillment of her dreams comes as both a sexually satisfied woman and as her daddy’s girlfriend.
The literal interpretation just shows a lack of imagination and fear, and leads others to think one is either narrow-minded or dimwitted – like thinking that the earth is 6000 years old, just because “the book” interpreted literally, says it is.
As some other people said Bethany, we see her story as it is- mostly sad, pretty uncomfortable etc. like Alexandra says. If it were a man it would say the same thing. I am sure there are stories where young women have relationships with older men where they don’t see anything wrong with it.
The purpose of the monologues are to get us to think. Very few pieces of literature are meant to “set an example” of proper behavior to others, most of literature is there for us to explore the human condition. The first moral treatise I can think of at the top of my head was published in the 1700s I think called “Pamela.” Not long afterward someone published a ‘reply’ per se, called “Shamela.”
I just finished reading Reading Lolita in Tehran and in it one of the teachers’ students get angry at the great gatsby because it contains characters that are “immoral.” Under Islam, writers are supposed to only write holy things. The point of great gatsby was not to set “moral examples” it was to look at the motives of these people and what it reflects about the social classes and expectations within that social setting. It’s about exploring human motivations and desires.
Likewise the “empowerment” is found in the entire collection of monologues that purposefully explores every aspects to female beings, sexuality, and experience. Not all have to be good, even if they seem good to the character. That’s what we mean by context. If you think “empowerment” means “example” of course you will be disappointed looking into these monlogues.
phylo 1:21,
VM is a drama – hence literature. Literature can often be symbolic and open to interpretation…
Posted by: phylosopher at February 16, 2008 1:21
Oh, like pornographic films?
PIP,
“Empowerment” is so cliche. It’s kind of like the word “choice” – it’s used to promote an agenda but doesn’t really mean anything.
I can respect your opinion, but personally, I have a really hard time seeing any literary value in a show like VM. It’s quite normal and natural to be embarassed by this kind of public talk (it’s called modesty), although its promoters would have us think otherwise.
Sex is sacred in my opinion and to discuss it in a public forum this way seems disrespectful of human sexuality and demeaning to women. I think more modesty in our culture, not less, is what is needed. There is an interesting book on this topic, “A Return to Modesty” by Wendy Shalit which is worthwhile reading for young girls and their mothers.
PIP, Alexandria, from your own admission earlier, and Rays’, the point of the VM play as a whole is to get us to explore the beauty that is our hoohah’s and to overcome the taboo about saying words like “vagina” and “cunt”. The play was not about “making us think about sad and uncomfortable things”. And I don’t consider a play that has the word “vagina” worked into every line 20 times literature. Sorry. Literature has to be creative. How creative does one have to be to be so repetitive with a clinical and then an offensive term over and over again to try to shock people? Not very.
What possible point could this (the seduction) story have been trying to make, if it went along with the theme of the play, which you admit was to promote “empowerment” of women, and to prove that our vagina’s aren’t something to be ashamed of?
The play obviously was promoting the rapist woman as the savior of the victimized girl. She, according to the play’s theme, was the one who gave the girl her self esteem, by victimizing her again and calling it “help” and “love”.
If the audience simply feels sad and uncomfortable, that is a huge shame. The audience should be filled with outrage. That girl deserves better than to be exploited for the agenda of the perverts who created that disgusting play!
“Empowerment” is so cliche. It’s kind of like the word “choice” – it’s used to promote an agenda but doesn’t really mean anything.
Janet, exactly! Thank you.
This might be just coincidence… mmhmm yeah..but…I’m pretty sure that Eve Ensler doesn’t have a problem with it… instead of calling these lesbians wrong for what they’ve done, she’d praise them for helping children with their self esteem!
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MEMPHIS, July 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last week, the Fox News
PIP, Alexandria, from your own admission earlier, and Rays’, the point of the VM play as a whole is to get us to explore the beauty that is our hoohah’s and to overcome the taboo about saying words like “vagina” and “cunt”.
Part of destigmatizing the word vagina is to expose some of the reasons that vaginas are stigmatized in the first place. It’s not just a bunch of women standing onstage going, “Vagina.” I have seen grown men cry at performances of the monologues — because many of the reasons that women are shy or uncomfortable about their vaginas are painful to hear and think about.
What possible point could this story have been trying to make, if it went along with the theme of the play, which you admit was to promote “empowerment” of women, and to prove that our vagina’s aren’t something to be ashamed of?
The point that for many women, their vagina is, from a very young age, a source of pain and sadness, so much so that something that horrifies us and something we would object to if it happened to our children is seen by the speaker as the best thing that could have happened. We want better for our children and for all children than to grow up in such a way that “good rape” is the high point of their sexual development. Some of those monologues are only “empowering” in the context of the entire work, which has a definite plot arc — it starts off with some humorous, lighter pieces; gradually moves into pieces that are more personal and occasionally sad; then finishes with pieces that are inspiring or wondrous — ie the birth monologue that ends the piece. The beginning is cute and not very deep, but the monologues quickly become personal. Sometimes sad, like the elderly woman, but generally things that many women in the audience can identify with: shyness about the appearance of one’s vagina, unfamiliarity with the sexual pleasure that one’s vagina can provide,etc. About midway into the monologues, it starts to get kind of depressing: there’s a piece about a woman trapped in a burqa, a poem from a compilation of testimonies from survivors of Bosnian rape camps; the Coochie Snorcher piece. The “empowering” part is the kind of catharsis that follows as the pieces pick back up in tone and subject matter, to end on a positive note kind of akin to, “There are awful things that surround this topic, but we can change them.”
To say that one individual monologue isn’t “empowering” on its own unless it’s specifically empowering statutory rapists, because it’s sad unless you think statutory rape is a good thing, is like saying that The Lion King is only an uplifting cartoon if you want your parents dead because there’s that scene in the middle where Mufasa dies.
The play obviously was promoting the rapist woman as the one who “saved” the victimized girl. She, according to the play’s theme, was the one who “saved” the girl, by victimizing her again and calling it “help” and “love”.
I think that, as someone who refuses to see the play, you probably aren’t the best to say what it “obviously” promotes.
Oooh! Or maybe Eve Ensler could interview all of these students mentioned above, and use their stories for another play! (at least, those which end with the victimizer being a hero…) She could exploit some more innocent victims for her agenda instead of helping them! How fun! She could be called a genius again and win tons of awards.
To say that one individual monologue isn’t “empowering” on its own unless it’s specifically empowering statutory rapists, because it’s sad unless you think statutory rape is a good thing, is like saying that The Lion King is only an uplifting cartoon if you want your parents dead because there’s that scene in the middle where Mufasa dies.
Was Mufasa killed by someone who was hailed as the hero in the movie?
You know, I never responded to this one
Alexandria:
So I view the Coochie Snorcher as a piece about grey areas and sadness and hope — because if your whole life is black, and you’re so freaking happy to have a little grey, that is really sad, and that’s a condemnation of the way a lot of women in this country are growing up.
Explain to me why the molestation by a MAN was “black”, and the molestation by a WOMAN was “gray”.
Was Mufasa killed by someone who was hailed as the hero in the movie?
No, and THE SPEAKER, NOT THE MONOLOGUES THEMSELVES, says that what happened saved her. At the end of that monologue, the audience almost always shifts uncomfortably and looks around, because they DO NOT THINK that the woman was a hero, they think that the girl has had a very sad life to believe the woman is a hero.
Explain to me why the molestation by a MAN was “black”, and the molestation by a WOMAN was “gray”.
Because she liked the molestation by the woman. She would not go back and change it if she could. Even though it was coerced and inappropriate. Everything in her hates having been raped by that man, so that is “black” because society condemns it, she condemns it. But nothing in her seems to hate having been statutory-raped by that woman — on the contrary, she thinks it was the best thing that happened to her over the course of her adolescent sexual development — which puts her emotions on the subject at odds with the emotions of society. Which makes it GREY.
No, and THE SPEAKER, NOT THE MONOLOGUES THEMSELVES, says that what happened saved her. At the end of that monologue, the audience almost always shifts uncomfortably and looks around, because they DO NOT THINK that the woman was a hero, they think that the girl has had a very sad life to believe the woman is a hero.
Obviously, then, your Lion King analogy was flawed. Unless a speaker within the program had seen those who killed mufasa as a hero, and the show had left off with his idea of the killer being a hero, there is no analogy there.
And yes, I agree that she had a terribly sad life if she perceived the woman as a hero. For all the talking that Eve Ensler does about protecting women from violence and harm, where was she to protect this young girl from which she gathered the testimony? What did she do to help her, except for smear her dirty laundry on the world to make a statement? How is letting her story end with the woman being a hero helping her? And do you really think that this story would not be read by pedophilic lesbians who might desire to do the same to other girls,
and who by reading it will think of themselves as heroes by doing such?
Because she liked the molestation by the woman. She would not go back and change it if she could. Even though it was coerced and inappropriate. Everything in her hates having been raped by that man, so that is “black” because society condemns it, she condemns it. But nothing in her seems to hate having been statutory-raped by that woman — on the contrary, she thinks it was the best thing that happened to her over the course of her adolescent sexual development — which puts her emotions on the subject at odds with the emotions of society. Which makes it GREY.
A child’s perception of his/her own molestation is what makes the molestation bad or good? Better or worse? Black or gray? I completely disagree.
Is the crime which pedophile’s commit on younger children a “gray”, since some of those children do testify that they are happy with their older men partners, at NAMBLA?
And yes, I am pushing the NAMBLA issue because it is absolutely relevant.
Everything in her hates having been raped by that man, so that is “black” because society condemns it
So rape is bad because SOCIETY says so…Man that sounds something that I’ve heard child molesters say.
You did NOT just quote that idiot Wheeler and his O’Reilly “roaming lebian gangs” debacle.
That might be the single funniest thing Loofah O’Reilly ever had to apologize for. There are still websites that are having a field day with that one:
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2007/07/10/oreilly-lesbian-gangs-followup/
Quote: Rod Wheeler
During the O’Reilly Factor segment on June 21st, while engaged in a discussion on Lesbian gangs, I inadvertently stated that gang members carry pistols that are painted pink and call themselves the “Pink Pistol Packing Group.” I was not referring to the gay rights group “Pink Pistols” who advocates for the lawful rights of gays to carry weapons for protection. Further, I mentioned that there are “over 150 of these gangs” in the greater Washington DC area. What I actually meant is that there are over 150 gangs in the Washington DC area, some of which are in fact lesbian gangs. Lastly, I mentioned in the segment that there is this “national epidemic” of lesbian gangs. A better choice of words would have been to say that there is a growing concern nationally, and especially in major urban areas, of increased gang activity, which includes some lesbian gang activity. I apologize for any misunderstanding this may have caused. Sincerely, Rod Wheeler
Thanks for the post Bethany (7:27). I’m going to call my local police department to see if this is going on in my city. This story deserves FRONT PAGE coverage across the country, now! Yikes!
What would Eve Ensler say about this? Good fodder for another play, I suppose.
Alexandra (1:27),
Re: Vagina Monologues:
Half of the intent of it is to make people angry.
All due respect, Erin, I disagree with this. I have seen (and performed in — with my mom!) the play numerous times, and I don’t think any intent is to make people angry. It is nowhere near as radical as people who refuse to see it tend to think it is. When my very small town put on a production a few years ago, we ended up getting requests from several nearby synagogues and churches to do shows at their places of worship — and a lot of the people who came to those things said, afterwards, that it was not at all what they were expecting, that they expected to disagree or find it vulgar and didn’t.
This type of play would better serve its intended audience (rape victims) if it was made into a film for PRIVATE viewing at rape crisis centers, etc. The vast majority of women are NOT HAUNTED by their vaginas, have no problem saying the word, and are not going to “get it”, no matter how many times you attempt to explain the literary value of this show.
“…The point that for many women, their vagina is, from a very young age, a source of pain and sadness”…
It’s not the vagina itself that’s a source of pain and sadness, it might be more accurate to say what was DONE to the vagina is the source of whatever emotion a woman is feeling. It’s very bizarre that the vagina is personified, and in such a depressing sort of way.
Janet, excellent post.
Also, and I am not sure exactly how to phrase it so that it makes sense: Is personifying the vagina, and calling that body part the source of the pain and sadness that these women endure (as opposed to calling the action done by the rapist/molester the source of pain and sadness) a way of blaming women for their own victimization? Making it about their vagina instead of making it about the person who committed the crime against them certainly is bizarre!
phylosopher said:
********
Hence, the fulfillment of her dreams comes as both a sexually satisfied woman and as her daddy’s girlfriend.
********
Phylo,
Little girls should not be made to think it is a “normal” time if their daddy (or anyone else) sexual abuses them. They should be taught to run away from it and to tell a “normal” adult about it. What would you do if you found out a 23 year old woman was having sex with your thirteen old niece? chalk it up to learning and have discussions withn her about it or confront the 23 year old and have her prosecuted as a child molester?
Also, and I am not sure exactly how to phrase it so that it makes sense: Is personifying the vagina, and calling that body part the source of the pain and sadness that these women endure (as opposed to calling the action done by the rapist/molester the source of pain and sadness) a way of blaming women for their own victimization? Making it about their vagina instead of making it about the person who committed the crime against them certainly is bizarre!
Posted by: Bethany at February 16, 2008 12:09 PM
That’s a DEEP question! I think we need a Psychiatrist for that one.
It’s only my opinion, but I think you’re pretty close in your observation. There’s definitely a love/ hate relationship between these women and their bodies, and there does seem to be a real difficulty in getting past it. That was one of the reasons I said I think the VM issues might be better suited to a private counseling setting. Creating a play about it only seems to trivialize the matter, in my opinion.
A child’s perception of his/her own molestation is what makes the molestation bad or good? Better or worse? Black or gray? I completely disagree.
I think that if someone, as an adult, views an event in their adolescence as a positive event, and society views it as a negative, then yes, that makes it grey. This is NOT “a child’s perception of his/her own molestation,” this is an adult’s perception.
What did she do to help her, except for smear her dirty laundry on the world to make a statement?
The woman had already, to some extent, helped herself. It’s not like she was a 16-year old girl fresh out of an inappropriate relationship; she was an adult at the time of the interview. She had found a way out of the shelter system and had created a life she was apparently somewhat happy with, as far as we know. When you interview someone, it’s not your place to tell people that their feelings are incorrect — that what happened was sad, not happy. You listen and you repeat.
And do you really think that this story would not be read by pedophilic lesbians who might desire to do the same to other girls,and who by reading it will think of themselves as heroes by doing such?
I don’t really care what a few sick people do or think — rather, I do care if they make it other people’s problem, but I don’t think a few people’s inability to see reality is reason enough to censor my life, someone else’s opinions, etc. I take my niece to the beach even though some sick pervert could be fantasizing about the way she looks in her 5-year old girls’ bathing suit. I don’t live my life censoring information so that the sickest people in this world will be deprived of crap to be sick-minded about.
I think that if someone, as an adult, views an event in their adolescence as a positive event, and society views it as a negative, then yes, that makes it grey.
So, if as an adolescent, I killed someone and I was never caught, and I view it as a positive, but society views it as a negative, then it’s a GREY area? Are you freaking kidding me?
Or let’s say as a male adolescent, I raped a girl and I thought it was a positive experience, but society says no, then it’s a grey area for me?
WHAT?
I guess that’s how rapists and murderers are formed now-a-days. It’s all a grey area..I like raping, but society says noooo…
Stupid society, if only they would let me go around raping and murdering people.
Elizabeth, if you raped someone or killed someone, you would not be the victim, you would be the perpetrator. So whether you think it’s a positive experience or not, you’ve got another person in the equation who almost definitely disagrees.
As opposed to the woman in question, who was the victim and yet views it as a positive experience. The victim is who criminal laws are designed to protect and to provide justice for, not the perpetrator — so if the perpetrator feels it’s a good experience it doesn’t matter, but if the victim, as an adult removed from the pressures of the situation and with the benefit of hindsight, feels it was a good experience…well, what do we do then?
The woman had already, to some extent, helped herself. It’s not like she was a 16-year old girl fresh out of an inappropriate relationship; she was an adult at the time of the interview. She had found a way out of the shelter system and had created a life she was apparently somewhat happy with, as far as we know. When you interview someone, it’s not your place to tell people that their feelings are incorrect — that what happened was sad, not happy. You listen and you repeat.
Oh yes, her life sounded like it was full of a foundation for her to have a happy life as an adult. I’m sure she had no remaining psychological problems whatsoever as an adult.
Are you kidding? It sounds like you’re either kidding or just deluding yourself.
The woman had already, to some extent, helped herself.
Um, prove that? Didn’t sound like it at ALL to me, since she was referring to a rape as a “good rape”. What well adjusted person considers their molestation to be a good thing?
It’s not like she was a 16-year old girl fresh out of an inappropriate relationship;
Alexandria. Let me make something very clear to you. That girl was NOT in an “inappropriate relationship”. An inappropriate relationship is a relationship between two consenting ADULTS which is inappropriate. This girl was being RAPED by an ADULT. This was not “inappropriate”. That is an unbelievable understatement. And it was NOT a relationship. That girl was the VICTIM of this older woman WHO RAPED HER. She was NOT in a “relationship” with this woman. She was VICTIMIZED by this woman. See, the very point that even YOU have fallen for the idea that this woman did a even halfway (grey) positive thing for the girl, PROVES that this play promotes rape! If YOU fall for it, who else do you think might?
she was an adult at the time of the interview. She had found a way out of the shelter system and had created a life she was apparently somewhat happy with, as far as we know. When you interview someone, it’s not your place to tell people that their feelings are incorrect — that what happened was sad, not happy. You listen and you repeat.
Right. Just keep excusing it. You’re grasping at straws. What was done was WRONG. And you know it.
Bethany, have you read anything I’ve written? Where did I say anything to indicate that I think what happened was anything other than WRONG?
I HAVE SAID THAT IT WAS BY DEFINITION RAPE. I HAVE SIMPLY REFUSED TO COMPLETELY TOSS ASIDE THE FEELINGS OF THE WOMAN WHO WAS, BY LEGAL DEFINITION, RAPED. I THINK THAT LISTENING TO THINGS LIKE THIS PROMOTES DISCUSSION OF THINGS LIKE THIS, WHICH CAN HELP PREVENT THINGS LIKE THIS.
Um, prove that? Didn’t sound like it at ALL to me, since she was referring to a rape as a “good rape”. What well adjusted person considers their molestation to be a good thing?
I can’t prove it, and I’m sure she does have lingering psychological issues as a result of her awful childhood and adolescence, which is why I said “to some extent.” All we know of the woman is what we’re told in the monologue, which includes the information that her life was hard enough that she ended up in a shelter, and that she eventually found love and found a way out of the shelter.
I DO NOT THINK SHE IS WELL-ADJUSTED. I THINK THAT A LIFETIME OF SHAME AND RAPE HAS LEFT HER SO BROKEN THAT SHE VIEWS RAPE AS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE “GOOD.” I THINK THIS CAN AND SHOULD BE DISCUSSED.
Alexandria, you said:
“The woman had already, to some extent, helped herself. It’s not like she was a 16-year old girl fresh out of an inappropriate relationship; she was an adult at the time of the interview. She had found a way out of the shelter system and had created a life she was apparently somewhat happy with, as far as we know. ”
This implies to me, that you think she is well adjusted. Also you called what happened to her a “relationship”, which it wasn’t. Not at all.
Also, the idea that you think the rape was justifiable by the woman, was implied by your use of the term “gray” for her rape.
Gray would mean that it wasn’t necessarily good or bad.
Hello everyone.
I refrained from speaking on this blog topic because I had planned on going to the Vagina Monologues last night for the first time to see what it was all about, and how I interpreted much of the play. In reference to this highly controversial skit, I have to say that I see both points from Alexandra and Bethany…but I believe Alexandra is closer in her interpretation of the skit. It WAS a very uncomfortable part of the presentation, and no one in the audience thought that the rape of this woman in her teens was a positive thing. In my opinion, the audience was left silent and brooding afterward. It was really heartbreaking that someone could go through such hell as a young girl and find solace in a rape, something that no one should ever have to go through. This piece really was not advocating rape, and when performed properly (as in this case), it really does raise a question about society when a young girl living in a problematic and dangerous household can view a rape from an older woman as something “good”. There is NOTHING good about rape, from either sex, and, to me, it was a piece raising awareness about not only the terrible home lives of some children, but also about the rapes that occur between members of the same gender. I think this piece, while on the surface seems like smut and inappropriate, was really on target when performed properly. Just my two cents.
Keep in mind I didn’t agree with EVERYTHING in the show….but I can definitely see where Alexandra is coming from. It was a sad piece. If anything, I’m MORE motivated to end violence against children in the home and to raise awareness that same-sex rape is an issue. I hope that clears things up, Bethany…I can absolutely see where you’re coming from if you just read the script of the piece.
All we know of the woman is what we’re told in the monologue, which includes the information that her life was hard enough that she ended up in a shelter, and that she eventually found love and found a way out of the shelter.
Found love? See, yet another thing that implies you think the rape was “okay”. That the woman was her “hero”.
She didn’t find love, Alexandria. She was victimized yet again.
You only think it was “rape” by definition, and by society’s views. I have never heard alexandria say from her point of view that the rape was “wrong”.
Other than the legal aspect of it, you think what that woman did to her was perfectly acceptable.
I understand your point of view, Lyssie. Thanks for understanding mine.
Lyssie, can you see where Alexandria keeps saying things like “found love”, and “inappropriate relationship” that she is implying that she truly does not see the rape by the woman as an actual wrong?
I haven’t seen Alexandria say yes, that is absolutely wrong, and it is tragic that this girl would actually think that being violated was a “good” thing in her life.
Even though I see how you are trying to look at the play, the message is not clear enough for a general audience to understand. It only makes it appear that the girl has been helped by her rapist.
Which is precisely why Janet said that it should be discussed privately in rape shelters, where the message would be understood more clearly, and not trivialized in a play for everyone to see.
Lyssie,
I’ve only seen parts of VM on HBO, but I liked your comments on it. They make more sense to me because you understood it from Bethany and Alexandra’s angles. That is important in good discussion.
Elizabeth, I completely agree. I think Lyssie has always been very fair in debate. That is one thing I love about her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF8z50AuS6w
I watched one woman’s performance of the coochie snorcher play… Watching it didn’t really make it seem any better for me…in fact, it made it worse.
Okay, this should clear it up for everyone.
The play did NOT have the intent of making people feel uncomfortable about the second rape.
From Eve Ensler’s own mouth:
“This monologue is one woman’s story as she told it to me. I met her about five years ago, in a shelter. I would like to tell you it’s an unusual story
Apparently, Eve Ensler thought that the rape of a 13 year old by a 24 year old, INSIDE A SHELTER where the girl is SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTED FROM ABUSE, is a “happy ending”.
The Bible is full of rape, incest, child abuse, murder, genocide and torture.
Certainly you wouldn’t read that crap, much less let the kids see it – unless, of course, you approve of those sort of things.
Yes, it sure is full of those things, Laura…and guess what the difference is? God doesn’t approve of rape. But Eve Ensler sure does…as long as it’s by a woman!
And had that skit ended with any implication that what the woman did to the girl was WRONG, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it one bit.
It’s not the “rape” by itself that is the problem to be written about necessarily, but the intent of the author to promote the rape as a GOOD THING.
I think that’s pretty obvious.
Bored much, FF?
Bethany, are you sure that Ensler meant that it has a better outcome because she overcame her past enough to leave the shelter, and get the help she needed enough to move on and fall in love?
It seems like she was saying it has a better outcome because she did get the help she needed.
*didn’t mean
I’m a bit confused Bethany…I believe the woman in the story ended up in a shelter long after her rape. She was not raped in the shelter, but found love there with another woman who had been in similar situations. She recounted her story to the author while there, talking about her childhood, and the one “good” thing she remembered about her vagina….which, to me, is so sad it hurts. The shelter story WAS the positive part, where she escaped the cycle of abuse with another woman from the same horrifying background. Her memories, however, made for the sad story in the play. She was not in the shelter when raped. She lived with her mother and was seduced by this older woman one day.
Misery loves company.
That’s what I get out of it.
Found love? See, yet another thing that implies you think the rape was “okay”. That the woman was her “hero”.
She found love AS AN ADULT with a completely different person. It sounds like, from what we know, her life sucked a lot: she was abused, and raped, and then raped again, and she ended up in a shelter. But she was able to find love and happiness and some degree of independence and self-sufficiency. That was the “love” she found that I referred to.
I haven’t seen Alexandria say yes, that is absolutely wrong, and it is tragic that this girl would actually think that being violated was a “good” thing in her life.
Really? How about right here, where I said,
If a girl has been raped, has been taught to be ashamed of her vagina, that is a very sad thing. If a girl has lived such a scared, lonely life that the only positive concept of her own sexuality comes from a woman, ten years or so older than herself, someone identifiably “removed” from her life — that is a sad thing.
or here:
I think that the phrase “a good kind of rape” is sad and uncomfortable. Like the best you can hope for is good rape rather than bad rape. That’s a sad, sad way for a girl to grow up thinking of sex
Lyssie, thank you for your opinion. There are things in the Monologues that I’m not all that keen on either, so I enjoyed hearing what you had to say.
Lyssie, 12:04, you may be right. I may have misinterpreted that passage.
However, I still see the point of the play of being exactly that. Which is the reason that confused me in the first place.
Even if it were true, that the whole intent of that part of the play was to make people feel uncomfortable or sad…how does this really help people in this situation?
Yet, I do not see that as being the intent of the play at all. I see it as a testimonial for how great rape is.
If a person has a product that they want to promote, what do they do? They share testimonials of satisfied customers. They simply share the person’s testimony, however, they do it for a specific reason- to promote their product. They would not include those who saw their product as inferior.
Similarly, Eve Ensler has a product that she wants to promote- the vagina, personified. She shares “testimonials” in the form of monologues, from people like the coochie snorcher girl, who say that her vagina was bad and horrible but then a rapists healed her and made her love it.
She shares this testimony to promote her “product”. Notice that she doesn’t have any testimonials about women who were tormented by a rape by a woman. And she doesn’t have a disclaimer which says that she does not agree with what happened to the girl. She should, if she disagreed with it.
Please, can anyone tell me why “reclaiming ourselves as women” has anything to do with a vagina? Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I AM a vagina. That is just plain insulting and demeaning to women everywhere. It has nothing to do with empowerment of women at all- quite the opposite!
From…. http://www.cblpi.org/programs/vday/factsfallacies.cfm
The Vagina Monologues Facts vs. Fallacies
Top 10 Common Claims Made by V-Day Organizers/Supporters
1) “The play empowers/liberates women.”
False: The Vagina Monologues is a lie. It does not empower women with its message that: women’s identity and image are wrapped up in their sexual organs. True empowerment lies in the heart and the mind. Consider these images from the play:
* “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” is a monologue about a successful tax attorney who leaves her career to become a lesbian dominatrix prostitute, specializing in the use of sexual “props,” i.e. whips, handcuffs and ropes. Liberating or ironically violent?
* “The Vagina Workshop” describes a woman who attends an orgasm workshop and participates in a group masturbation session. The workshop leader tells the woman her sexual organs are “the essence of me, both the doorbell to my house and the house itself.” This mindset is exactly what the early suffragettes were fighting against.
* Reclaiming C**t
Really? How about right here, where I said,
If a girl has been raped, has been taught to be ashamed of her vagina, that is a very sad thing. If a girl has lived such a scared, lonely life that the only positive concept of her own sexuality comes from a woman, ten years or so older than herself, someone identifiably “removed” from her life — that is a sad thing.
or here:
I think that the phrase “a good kind of rape” is sad and uncomfortable. Like the best you can hope for is good rape rather than bad rape. That’s a sad, sad way for a girl to grow up thinking of sex
Sure, you said “sad”. No where did I ever see you saying it was “wrong”. (except from a legal standpoint).
Saying that you think something is “sad” doesn’t necessarily mean that you also believe it is “wrong”.
For example: I think it’s “sad” when people choose to not have children all their lives. But I don’t think it’s necessarily “wrong”. See my point?
I honestly know absolutely nothing about this play other than what I’ve read above.
This is sick and nothing more to me than the devil’s playground.
I’d rather fill my thoughts with good, virtuous things than this filth.
Anonymous, I agree wholeheartedly. I have felt dirty and ashamed from just discussing this, and from what little research I’ve done the last couple days on this subject. I need to start thinking about other stuff before I lose my mind.
I honestly would have thought that on this one issue, feminists would have agreed with us. I was unfortunately very wrong about what “feminist” actually means today.
Saying that you think something is “sad” doesn’t necessarily mean that you also believe it is “wrong”.
You said that I had not expressed a belief that the woman’s feelings were ‘tragic.’ Which is basically the same thing as ‘sad,’ for the purposes of a discussion on the view of a sitaution. And in case my labeling of the girl’s experience with with the woman as ‘coerced,’ ‘inappropriate,’ and ‘statutory rape’ were not clear enough, I think that coercion, inappropriateness, and statutory rape are wrong.
Even if it were true, that the whole intent of that part of the play was to make people feel uncomfortable or sad…how does this really help people in this situation?
How does talking or thinking about anything help people who are actually in that situation? How does Jill writing about women who are told that their babies are deformed and who go on to find out that that information was incorrect — and you reading Jill’s writings — help women in that situation? It forces the conversation, it brings information like this into the public sphere of discussion, it emphasizes how much pain carelessness and frivolity can cause and have caused.
Without even touching the selling of personified vaginas, it’s wholly inaccurate to say that Ensler would therefore not include an “unhappy” personified vagina. As I said before, there are other undeniably unhappy monologues — which, by the way, come from the women, NOT from their vaginas. There is the Bosnian rape victim, the woman forced to wear a burqa, the woman whose husband finds her unattractive because she won’t shave her pubic hair, the elderly woman so mortified by her vagina’s natural function that she shuts down the entire sexual aspect of herself for her entire life. Are you going to allege that, because these pieces are included in the work, Ensler thinks they’re positive?
Please, can anyone tell me why “reclaiming ourselves as women” has anything to do with a vagina? Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I AM a vagina. That is just plain insulting and demeaning to women everywhere. It has nothing to do with empowerment of women at all- quite the opposite!
None of the monologues say that a woman is her vagina, though one does poetically say that the vagina is “me” — and this piece is about how a woman’s discomfort with her vagina reflects a discomfort with herself. Rather, the monologues examine a specific rejection many women feel of their vaginas, a rejection women often internalize and turn into a rejection of themselves. Some of the women, who believe their vaginas are ugly, shy away from sexual pleasure; others view men’s rejection of pubic hair or commercial products like deodorizing sprays as an offensive attempt to change or alter the vagina and, symbolically, change or alter a very natural and feminine thing.
Men are mentioned in positive aspects in the play, by the way. My favorite of the monologues is actually all about a wonderful, loving man.
The “empowerment” of women should come from their strong faith in God. That is the one, true key to fufillment of their minds, bodies, and souls.
This play does nothing more than look to the empowerment of women through “worldy” ways. It looks for solutions to bad situations in a “worldy” way. Not once is God mentioned. If these women would look at themselves as a beautiful creation and child of God, they would see their importance and hold themselves up in a higher regard.
Anon, how can you really say anything of authority about it, if, by your own admission, you know practically nothing about it?
Doug that movie (‘The Aristocrats’) was awful! Any movie that dissects what makes a joke funny is SO not funny!
PIP, I really like it, though there were a couple moments that made even me cringe.
PIP,
Tell me where I was wrong.
It’s not just this play, it’s a scene that’s been played out over & over again throughout history. Take God out, and what are you left with?
PIP, does this play mention God or that women can find strength in the Lord and overcome at any point in the play?
I commented at the beginning of this post. Couldn’t stomach much of the rest. Felt like I needed a shower!! Bethany, Anon- I am with you. They will call what is good, evil and what is evil, good.
Amen to that, Carla!
It’s all been prophesized yet they will remain ignorant and blind.
Sad.
We can only pray for them.
PIP,
Tell me where I was wrong.
It’s not just this play, it’s a scene that’s been played out over & over again throughout history. Take God out, and what are you left with?
PIP, does this play mention God or that women can find strength in the Lord and overcome at any point in the play?
Posted by: Anonymous at February 17, 2008 2:48 PM
……………………………………………………..
Relying on outside sources for strength is not empowerment.
You’re right, Sally. That’s why when the Holy Spirit dwells WITHIN us, we are empowered and find our strength and courage.
You are so catching on! I’m proud of you!
Yay anonymous!! :)
Carla, 3:31 amen!
How does talking or thinking about anything help people who are actually in that situation? How does Jill writing about women who are told that their babies are deformed and who go on to find out that that information was incorrect — and you reading Jill’s writings — help women in that situation? It forces the conversation, it brings information like this into the public sphere of discussion, it emphasizes how much pain carelessness and frivolity can cause and have caused.
And when Jill posts, you can be certain you’re going to know how Jill herself feels about each issue. You’re not going to be wondering, wow, does she support this or not? Do you have any question to whether Jill is happy or not with the false diagnosis’s which lead babies to the death chamber?
How do you know for sure that Eve Ensler does not support the rape of this 13 year old girl? Prove it somehow. Find her written word somewhere on the internet (just do a google search, anything) wher she says that what the woman did was absolutely wrong. I seriously doubt you’ll find it because I know she supports it.
ithout even touching the selling of personified vaginas, it’s wholly inaccurate to say that Ensler would therefore not include an “unhappy” personified vagina. As I said before, there are other undeniably unhappy monologues — which, by the way, come from the women, NOT from their vaginas. There is the Bosnian rape victim, the woman forced to wear a burqa,
Does she say how pleased she was to wear the burqa?
the woman whose husband finds her unattractive because she won’t shave her pubic hair,
Does the woman testify that this was the happiest point of her life?
the elderly woman so mortified by her vagina’s natural function that she shuts down the entire sexual aspect of herself for her entire life.
And this is portrayed as great by the woman in the monologue? Yes or no?
Are you going to allege that, because these pieces are included in the work, Ensler thinks they’re positive?
Not unless they were portrayed as such, Alexandria.
Men are mentioned in positive aspects in the play, by the way. My favorite of the monologues is actually all about a wonderful, loving man.
Oh really? I’m sure it was all about her loving and sweet spirit, and not at all about her body. Can you elaborate on this man and what it was that made him loving and wonderful?
You’re right, Sally. That’s why when the Holy Spirit dwells WITHIN us, we are empowered and find our strength and courage.
You are so catching on! I’m proud of you!
Posted by: Anonymous at February 17, 2008 4:18 PM
…………………………………
Actually, you are a little behind. The belief that you must be possessed by/internally controlled by another is still a crutch. You are still using to feel empowered. And that is fine with me. Whatever you need to feel good about yourself cannot be a bad thing unless you use your crutch as a weapon against others.
Proud of me? LOL! I had the ministers in my family pulling their hair out by the time I was 16.
If you were to say that there is a higher being and we are all pieces of that being, I might entertain the concept. But that isn’t what organized religion, for the most part, is about.
How do you know for sure that Eve Ensler does not support the rape of this 13 year old girl? Prove it somehow.
Oh, this is getting absurd.
I seriously doubt you’ll find it because I know she supports it.
You prove that, then, okay?
Not unless they were portrayed as such, Alexandria.
I will then have to say that the people with vastly more experience with the actual work have a better idea of how the piece is portrayed, because portrayal and perceived intent are kind of subjective things. If many, many people who have seen the play feel one way about the effect of a given work, and many people who refuse to see the play feel another, then I think that the people who have firsthand experience with the effect are slightly more informed. Being forced to wear a burqa is horrible, being unloved for your natural body is horrible, being so abused that you view gentle abuse as “nice” is horrible. Part of works meant to be performed is that they need to be seen to be fully understood as they were intended to be.
Oh really? I’m sure it was all about her loving and sweet spirit, and not at all about her body. Can you elaborate on this man and what it was that made him loving and wonderful?
She was fine with her loving and sweet spirit. She was hideously uncomfortable with her body. Her discomfort prevented her from having loving, meaningful, complete relationships. He was the kind of man many people would consider “boring” — he did not take risks, he wore khakis, he was polite and gentle and did not drink to excess (I’m sure you’ll rip this apart, but the piece is comedic and all this is said with tongue firmly in cheek regarding what makes a man attractive) — and because he loved her, he loved her body. He fully included her in the sex they shared by making his love of her body clear to her and by making his love of her body something they shared as a natural course of sex — rather than just taking pleasure in her body for its ability to please his body. WHAT AN AWFUL MESSAGE!!
I had the ministers in my family pulling their hair out by the time I was 16.
Didn’t Jesus have the ministers pulling their hair out? or ripping their shirts?
I had the ministers in my family pulling their hair out by the time I was 16.
Didn’t Jesus have the ministers pulling their hair out? or ripping their shirts?
Posted by: Anonymous at February 17, 2008 6:25 PM
…………………………
Naw. They’re all Protestants. Self flagellation went out with the 1600s.
She was fine with her loving and sweet spirit. She was hideously uncomfortable with her body. Her discomfort prevented her from having loving, meaningful, complete relationships. He was the kind of man many people would consider “boring” — he did not take risks, he wore khakis, he was polite and gentle and did not drink to excess (I’m sure you’ll rip this apart, but the piece is comedic and all this is said with tongue firmly in cheek regarding what makes a man attractive) — and because he loved her, he loved her body. He fully included her in the sex they shared by making his love of her body clear to her and by making his love of her body something they shared as a natural course of sex — rather than just taking pleasure in her body for its ability to please his body. WHAT AN AWFUL MESSAGE!!
Which monologue is this? Is it the one who liked to look at “it” for hours?
Not unless they were portrayed as such, Alexandria.
I will then have to say that the people with vastly more experience with the actual work have a better idea of how the piece is portrayed, because portrayal and perceived intent are kind of subjective things. If many, many people who have seen the play feel one way about the effect of a given work, and many people who refuse to see the play feel another, then I think that the people who have firsthand experience with the effect are slightly more informed. Being forced to wear a burqa is horrible, being unloved for your natural body is horrible, being so abused that you view gentle abuse as “nice” is horrible. Part of works meant to be performed is that they need to be seen to be fully understood as they were intended to be.
Are you intentionally missing my point? My question to you was whether the women in the monologue expressed those things (the forced burqa wearing, the forced shaving of pubic hair, etc) as negative or positive. What was the implication from these women about THEIR feelings about how THEY felt about those things. Was it portrayed by the women themselves, a GOOD thing, or a BAD thing?
Which was it?
And then, if you say, it was expressed as a bad thing by them, then there you go. That is why it is portrayed as bad in the play. The reason the Coochie Snorcher rape is portrayed as Good is because the woman expressed it as good. And Eve Ensler did not disagree.
Men are mentioned in positive aspects in the play, by the way. My favorite of the monologues is actually all about a wonderful, loving man.
The most positive thing the VM’s could come up with to say about a man is that a man was a pervert who was so focused on a vagina that he could “look at it for hours”. Sounds like this guy saw her as an object and not a person.
How is anyone helping women by turning them into merely sexual objects and nothing more?
She was fine with her loving and sweet spirit. She was hideously uncomfortable with her body. Her discomfort prevented her from having loving, meaningful, complete relationships. He was the kind of man many people would consider “boring” — he did not take risks, he wore khakis, he was polite and gentle and did not drink to excess (I’m sure you’ll rip this apart, but the piece is comedic and all this is said with tongue firmly in cheek regarding what makes a man attractive) — and because he loved her, he loved her body. He fully included her in the sex they shared by making his love of her body clear to her and by making his love of her body something they shared as a natural course of sex — rather than just taking pleasure in her body for its ability to please his body. WHAT AN AWFUL MESSAGE!!
Absolutely it is! She found him boring in every way except when he was fixated on her vagina. She had been taught when she was molested that she was a sex object, and she believed it. Therefore, it makes absolute sense that when a man treated her like a sex object again, she accepted it with no problem. She believed it- she was nothing more than her sexual organs. I feel bad for her.
@Bethany: Are you able to chat on MSN tonight?
I am so very sorry for how graphic this is going to be, but I have to post it to make my point about “Bob”:
Then I met Bob. Bob was the most ordinary man I ever met. He was thin and tall and nondescript and wore khaki tan clothes. Bob did not like spicy foods or listen to Prince. He had no interest in sexy lingerie. In the summer he spent time in the shade. He did not share his inner feelings. He did not have any problems or issues and was not even an alcoholic. He wasn’t very funny or articulate or mysterious. He wasn’t mean or unavailable. He wasn’t self-involved or charismatic. He didn’t drive fast. I didn’t particularly like Bob. I would have missed him altogether if he hadn’t picked up my change that I dropped on the deli floor. When he handed me back my quarters and pennies and his hand accidentally touched mine, something happened. I went to bed with him. That’s when the miracle occurred.
Soooo… here we see this girl who wasn’t even interested in this guy at all. She found him boring. But the instant that he shows interest in her body (not her spirit, not her soul) she sleeps with him.
Turned out that Bob loved vaginas. He was a connoisseur. He loved the way they felt, the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most importantly he loved the way they looked. He had to look at them. The first time we had sex, he told me he had to see me.
Sounds like a real swell guy…oops, I mean pervert.
“I’m right here,” I said.
“No, you,” he said. “I have to see you.”
“Turn on the light,” I said, thinking he was a weirdo and freaking out in the dark.
He turned on the light.
Then he said, “O.K., I ‘m ready, ready to see you.”
“Right here,” I waved, “I’m right here.”
Then he began to undress me.
“What are you doing Bob?” I said.
“I need to see you,” he replied.
“No need,” I said, “Just do it.”
“I need to see what you look like,” he said.
“But you’ve seen a red leather couch before,” I said.
Bob continued. He would not stop. I wanted to throw up and die.
“This is awfully intimate,” I said. “Can’t you just do it.”
“No,” he said, “It’s who you are. I need to look.”
It’s “who she is”? See, like I said. He treats her as a sexual object. Then it just goes on to explain how he stares at it for hours, like a regular pervert would do. Where is the “wonderful” in this guy? All guys like “that”.
Where is the “loving” in this guy? Unless you mean the metaphorical type of “loving”.
This guy didn’t care about her, her interests, or her feelings. He only cared about his obsession with you-know-what. It was a selfish “loving”, it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his own selfish desires.
The whole play demonizes men and makes them out to all be evil, and women are the beacons of perfection and their “power” is in their sexual organs. And let’s not forget no woman should ever need a man to be happy but they do need women! Give me a break.
Sure, I’ll get on right now, Ari Chan :)
This play is PERVERTED and PORNOGRAPHIC. It’s a celebration of lesbianism. I have no problem with people with same sex orientation but these sexual activities are WRONG. We’ve heard about perverted old men, now we have perverted old women too. Isn’t it amazing – all the problems that arise when we go against God’s will? You’d think, with a little common sense, one of play’s characters might think “hey, maybe we should NOT be doing these things.” If these suffering women were told that they were created in the image and likeness of God, they could be free of this self-hatred. They could have a new life. Instead they continue to wallow in their unhappiness and sin. Lord have mercy on us all.
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen.
This play is PERVERTED and PORNOGRAPHIC. It’s a celebration of lesbianism. I have no problem with people with same sex orientation but these sexual activities are WRONG. We’ve heard about perverted old men, now we have perverted old women too. Isn’t it amazing – all the problems that arise when we go against God’s will? You’d think, with a little common sense, one of play’s characters might think “hey, maybe we should NOT be doing these things.” If these suffering women were told that they were created in the image and likeness of God, they could be free of this self-hatred. They could have a new life. Instead they continue to wallow in their unhappiness and sin. Lord have mercy on us all.
Janet..HUGE round of applause! Amen, Amen & AMEN!
Anon 9:04,
Thank you.
In the “Hail Mary” prayer, we say “blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus”. This is a beautiful reminder of how blessed we are as women to be able to nurture a new life in our womb, as our Mother Mary did with Jesus.
Yeah, I skipped over that part.
Bethany,
I saw that monologue from VM on HBO..it’s one of the few parts I’ve actually seen..and when I saw it, I just thought…this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. And women somehow feel empowered through this? Whoever does, I sure feel sorry for them.
Your analysis is right on the money. I used to be in theatre very heavily and this play is just dumb to me. I am capable of separating my personal feelings/attitudes from the actual piece of theatre when I am viewing it, but VM…I just don’t see the intrigue honestly.
There are plenty of plays/musicals with suggestive storylines/characters that I find AMAZING because they are about something so much more than the controversy of the storyline. This one, not so much.
And then, if you say, it was expressed as a bad thing by them, then there you go. That is why it is portrayed as bad in the play. The reason the Coochie Snorcher rape is portrayed as Good is because the woman expressed it as good. And Eve Ensler did not disagree.
You said that Ensler would not include an “unhappy” personified vagina because it went against what she was “selling.” I refuted that point. There are a lot of unhappy stories in the play. Am I wrong?
Soooo… here we see this girl who wasn’t even interested in this guy at all. She found him boring. But the instant that he shows interest in her body (not her spirit, not her soul) she sleeps with him.
No. You are 100% incorrect. Bob went against everything she believed she found interesting on a surface level, but there was a “spark” between them that existed on some deeper level. She didn’t see it at first because due to her own biases, she didn’t see HIM at first.
This guy didn’t care about her, her interests, or her feelings. He only cared about his obsession with you-know-what. It was a selfish “loving”, it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his own selfish desires.
Okay, Bethany, it’s pretty clear that you have no interest in a discussion and a consuming interest in coming up with any straw-grasping point oppositional to the monologues, however uninformed it may be. I would bet good money that if you were to ask ANYONE who has ever seen the play they would absolutely say that that monologue is about a sweet, loving, healthy sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Do you really think that a man loving sex with the woman he loves is selfish, that a man who wants to see the woman he is having sex with is a “pervert”? The woman in question is used to having sex where her body does not matter except to gratify the man. She wants it over with; she can’t bear the thought of actually being in her own body and conscious of herself during sex. Bob shows a real interest in her — he takes pleasure in her body, and he takes pleasure in her pleasure. If it were a selfish love, he would probably just get it over with, just like the other guys. Personally, I would much rather my partner enjoy looking at my body during sex, because sex is PHYSICAL as well as emotional. Looking, touching, feeling — those are all physical things, and sex is a physical act.
You’re pretty much letting your own preconceived bias inform your opinions of everything you come across. Then again, if you think that someone liking the way a woman’s vagina looks is sick and perverted and damaged, then you’re pretty much exactly what the play thinks is the problem.
Bethany,
I don’t know about you, but I am proud to be a VM problem!
Then again, if you think that someone liking the way a woman’s vagina looks is sick and perverted and damaged, then you’re pretty much exactly what the play thinks is the problem.
Alexandra,
That isn’t what Bethany said..she said the fact that he’s ONLY concerned with her vagina is what makes him a pervert. Now, unless you think women are merely vessels with holes that are there for men to please themselves with, you would find him a bit pervy too.
You’re pretty much letting your own preconceived bias inform your opinions of everything you come across. Then again, if you think that someone liking the way a woman’s vagina looks is sick and perverted and damaged, then you’re pretty much exactly what the play thinks is the problem.
Posted by: Alexandra at February 17, 2008 9:36 PM
So you want us to WORSHIP OUR VAGINAS LIKE YOU DO?
What, Janet, you mean you DON’T worship your vagina?
Really, WHAT is wrong with you?
Elizabeth,
My doctor says they may find a cure for me… some day…we can only hope…hahaha
Sorry, I don’t see where it said he was only interested in her vagina. I don’t think that just because a man enjoys a woman’s body, he is reducing her to her body and objectifying her, and I will probably never understand the idea that being interested in pleasing a woman is selfish and objectifying. I don’t think that finding a vagina to be worth looking at and touching is worshipping it, but I’m also not up for being laughed at merely because I find vaginas something worth looking at and talking about. I should have known better than to even say anything; there’s a reason I don’t.
Have fun.
Alexandria…maybe I can make this easier for you. Please tell me where he was interested in anything else.
Alexandria, the questions below are asked in complete sincerity. I feel that it’s possible that the reason you do not see a problem with the above scenarios, is because of your ability to relate to those types of relationships.
Have you ever been in a relationship that was about more than sex?
Does your boyfriend love you for who you are? If you were in an accident and couldn’t have sex anymore for about a year, would your relationship end or would your boyfriend stick around and take care of you?
You said that Ensler would not include an “unhappy” personified vagina because it went against what she was “selling.” I refuted that point. There are a lot of unhappy stories in the play. Am I wrong?
Yes, you are wrong. That is not what I said. I said that she would not include a testimonial about a woman who was tormented about having been raped, by, get this- a woman. Not of just a man, but of a WOMAN.
Are there any that you know of, within the Vagina monologues, where the woman was raped by the woman, and then goes on to tell how much that particular type of rape hurt her emotionally?
No, in the vagina monologues, any encounter with a woman, no matter how terrible it can be (coochie snorcher), will be considered WONDERFUL.
Elizabeth 9:51 thanks for clarifying. :)
What, Janet, you mean you DON’T worship your vagina?
Really, WHAT is wrong with you?
Posted by: Elizabeth at February 17, 2008 10:57 PM
I really busted out laughing when I saw this.
No. You are 100% incorrect. Bob went against everything she believed she found interesting on a surface level, but there was a “spark” between them that existed on some deeper level. She didn’t see it at first because due to her own biases, she didn’t see HIM at first.
Define: surface level
Define: deeper level
Yes, you are wrong. That is not what I said. I said that she would not include a testimonial about a woman who was tormented about having been raped, by, get this- a woman. Not of just a man, but of a WOMAN.
You said:
If a person has a product that they want to promote, what do they do? They share testimonials of satisfied customers.
You had mentioned that her product was “personified vaginas” — not lesbian relationships — which sounds to me like you believe she would not include testimonials from women whose “personified vaginas” are unhappy.
Have you ever been in a relationship that was about more than sex?
Yes. I have been in one relationship: my current relationship, which I’m three years into. I am 25 years old, if that makes a difference.
Does your boyfriend love you for who you are?
Yes. We live together. We go camping. I take him to see concerts of symphonies I have played or sonatas that are important to me, and he enjoys learning about something that has enriched my life. We read the same books sometimes so that we can engage each other in an active conversation on the plot or subject at hand. He loves my vagina just as he loves the rest of me — my mind, my emotions, my spirit, my soul. My body is something he enjoys, and his enjoyment of it is specifically intertwined with my enjoyment of it: it would be impossible for him to enjoy sex if I were not enjoying it as well.
If you were in an accident and couldn’t have sex anymore for about a year, would your relationship end or would your boyfriend stick around and take care of you?
My boyfriend would absolutely stick around and care for me. We enjoy each other completely, not just sexually. For the better part of a year at one point in our relationship, my boyfriend was very sick due to a tumor on his spine. We weren’t really very sexual at that point, but we love each other and are committed to each other and sex is certainly not the basis of our relationship, but rather one enriching aspect of it.
You had mentioned that her product was “personified vaginas” — not lesbian relationships — which sounds to me like you believe she would not include testimonials from women whose “personified vaginas” are unhappy.
Then you didn’t read the entire post in it’s context. You assumed what I meant and you were incorrect about that.
That said, I’m happy to hear you are in a happy relationship.
I’m sad that you think a sick relationship as the one described above could ever be considered a loving relationship however.
Can you answer my 7:08 question?
Is there a reason you haven’t made the commitment of marriage yet? Just out of curiosity.
Bethany (10:08),
Maybe her vagina isn’t ready yet….
And do you not notice that Bob’s obsession is not with “her”, or “her vagina”…it’s with vagina’s in general. “He loved vaginas”, not “he loved mine because it was a part of ME”. What did he “love” about her that he couldn’t get satisfied elsewhere, since obviously his love for vaginas didn’t stop at her?
Did you notice how he told her that was “who you are”? Why didn’t he instead say, “It’s a part of you”? It’s not “who she is”. And you say that the VM’s don’t say that “we are our vaginas”. That’s the whole theme of the entire play!
Ok now I need to wash my hands..ick!
Bethany,
That’s why I posted the 10:15 post. Vaginas are personified and an integral part of relationships in this play. They shouldn’t be. I love my big toe, it does alot for me with respect to balance, and without it I wouldn’t be who I am. But…
I agree completely!
Let’s see how the story sounds when you replace the V word with “big toe”.
Alexandria, even you should be able to admit it’s pretty darn creepy:
“Then I met Bob. Bob was the most ordinary man I ever met. He was thin and tall and nondescript and wore khaki tan clothes. Bob did not like spicy foods or listen to Prince. He had no interest in shoes.
In the summer he spent time in the shade. He did not share his inner feelings. He did not have any problems or issues and was not even an alcoholic.
He wasn’t very funny or articulate or mysterious. He wasn’t mean or unavailable. He wasn’t self-involved or charismatic. He didn’t drive fast. I didn’t particularly like Bob. I would have missed him altogether if he hadn’t picked up my change that I dropped on the deli floor.
When he handed me back my quarters and pennies and his hand accidentally touched mine, something happened. I let him touch my toe.
That’s when the miracle occurred.
Turned out that Bob loved big toe’s. He was a connoisseur. He loved the way they felt, the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most importantly he loved the way they looked. He had to look at them. The first time he touched my toe, he told me he had to see it up close.
“It’s right there,” I said.
“No, you,” he said. “I have to see you.”
“Turn on the light,” I said, thinking he was a weirdo and freaking out in the dark.
He turned on the light.
Then he said, “O.K., I ‘m ready, ready to see you.”
“Right here,” I waved, “I’m right here.”
Then he began to take off my socks.
“What are you doing Bob?” I said.
“I need to see you,” he replied.
“No need,” I said, “Just do it.”
“I need to see what you look like,” he said.
“But you’ve seen a big toe before,” I said.
Bob continued. He would not stop. I wanted to throw up and die.
“This is awfully intimate,” I said. “Can’t you just do it.”
“No,” he said, “It’s who you are. I need to look.”
I held my breath. He looked and looked. He got breathy and his face changed. He didn’t look ordinary anymore. He looked like a hungry beast.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”
“You saw that there?” I said. “In my big toe?”
It was like he read my palm.
“I saw that, he said, “and more, much much more.”
He stayed looking for almost an hour as if he were studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes, but it was my big toe. In the light I watched him looking at me and he was so genuinely excited, so peaceful and euphoric…. etc
Bethany,
yep…still freakishly wierd. The guy definately has problems!
No. You are 100% incorrect. Bob went against everything she believed she found interesting on a surface level, but there was a “spark” between them that existed on some deeper level. She didn’t see it at first because due to her own biases, she didn’t see HIM at first.
Define: surface level
Define: deeper level
Posted by: Bethany at February 18, 2008 9:24 AM
Good question Bethany. Everything seems backwards to me. Isn’t that “spark” most commonly referrred to as Lust? Lust being about as “shallow” as one can be?
We might want to bookmark this page now since it’s going to be bumped down soon…
Janet, I agree.
Bethany,
I admire your tenacity shown here. It’s a tough subject!
Thank you, Janet…
I wish that somehow I could help these women to understand just how degrading this play is to women everywhere.
Bethany,
Have you ever read the book : “A Return to Modesty”? It was written by Wendy Shalit who was about 24 years old at the time. I think she touches on this…. that the average guy will treat a woman with the level of respect she demands of him. It’s up to the woman to set the tone for the relationship. It’s hard to say what good could come of this play in terms of male-female relationships…Eve Ensler sounds like a real nut.
I haven’t ever read it, but it sounds like a good book!