Exploring Women's Perspectives on Vaginas

I bet you're worried. We were worried. We were worried about vaginas. We were worried what we think about vaginas and even more worried that we don't think about them. We were worried about our own vaginas. They needed a context of other vaginas. A community, a culture of vaginas. There's so much darkness and secrecy surrounding it. Like the Bermuda Triangle, nobody ever reports back from there. In the first place, it's not so easy to even find your... your vagina. Women go weeks, months, sometimes years without looking at it. A high-powered businesswoman was interviewed and she said she didn't have the time. She was too busy. Looking at your vagina, she said, is a full day's work. You've got to get down there on your back and try to have a mirror that's standing on its own for food. You've got to be in the perfect position with the perfect lighting, which is then shadowed somehow by the mirror of the angle you're at. You get all twisted up, you're arching your head up, killing your back, you're exhausted by then. She said she didn't have time for that. She was busy. So there were Vagina Interviews, which became Vagina Monologues, and over 200 women were interviewed. Older women, younger women, married women, lesbians, single women, corporate professionals, actors, college professors, sex workers, African American women, Asian American women, Native American women, Hispanic women, Caucasian women, Jewish women. Okay, at first they were reluctant to talk, they were a little bit shy, but once you got them going you could get them to talk. couldn't stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas, mainly because no one's ever asked him before. Let's just start with the word vagina. It sounds like an infection at best. Maybe a medical instrument. Hurry, nurse, bring me the vagina. Vagina. Vagina. Doesn't matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It's totally ridiculous, completely unsexy. word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct, darling, could you stroke my vagina? You kill the act right there. Google, what about vaginas? What we call them and what we don't call them? Great dick? They call it a pussycat. A woman they said her mother used to tell her, don't wear panties underneath your pajamas, dear. You need to air out your pussycat. Where's Chester? They call it a pookie. New Jersey? A twat? Parabox. A poochie, a poopie, a peepee, a poopaloo, a punani, a pal, a pishay. Didi, Nishi, Dignity, Monkey Box, Saucher, Cooter, Levy, Gladys, Sigelman, Va, Wee-Wee, Pospot, Neville, Dugout, Mongo, Mookie, A Pajama, Lanny Booth, Marshmallow, Aguli, Possible, Tamale, Totita, Connie, Amini in Miami, Miss Claytonish in Philadelphia, Shmende in the Bronx, Aparah in Paris, Afrani in Fresnes, Emily, We're worried about vaginas! Some of the monologues are based on one woman's story. story and some of the monologues are based on several women's stories and sometimes a good idea became an outrageous one. This monologue is based on one woman's story although the subject came up in every interview and was often fraught. The subject being hair. You cannot love a vagina unless you love hair. Many people do not love hair. My first and only husband hated hair. He said it was cluttered and dirty and he made me shave my vagina. It looked puffy and exposed and like a little girl. But this excited him. When he made love to me, my vagina felt the way a beard must feel. It felt good to rub it and painful, like scratching a mosquito bite. It had screaming red bumps. It felt like it was on fire. And I refused to shake my vagina again. Then, my husband had an affair. When we went to marital therapy, he said he screwed around because I wouldn't please him sexually. Now the therapist had a German accent and gasped between sentences to show her empathy. She asked me why I wouldn't please my husband sexually. I said I thought it was weird. I felt little down there when the hair was gone. I couldn't help but talk in a baby voice. The skin got irritated and not even calamine lotion would help. She said marriage is a big deal. is a compromise. I asked her if she had many cases like this before. I also asked her if shaving my vagina would stop my husband from screwing around. She said, question. Deluded the process. I needed to jump in. She was sure it was a good beginning. So this time, when we got home, he got to shave my vagina. It was like a therapy bonus prize. He clipped it a few times, there was a little blood, but he didn't notice because he was so excited to shave me. And then later, when my husband was pressing against me, I could feel his spiky sharpness sticking into me. My naked, puffy vagina. There was no... protection. There was a fluff. And then I realized that hair is there for a reason. You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. It is the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house. You don't get to pick the parts you want. And besides, my husband never stops screwing around. I think the women will ask the following questions. If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear? Glasses, a beret, a leather jacket? Silk stockings? Mink? A pink boa? A male tuxedo? Jeans? Some forfeiting? Emeralds, an evening gown? Sea twins? Or money only? A two-tier? See-through black underwear? A taffeta ball gown? Something machine washable? Costume eye mask, purple velvet pajamas? Angora? A red bow? A red bow? Hermione and pearls, a leather hat, a silk kimono, sweat hats, a tattoo, an electric shock device to keep unwanted strangers away. High heels, lace, and combat boots, purple feathers, twigs and shells, cotton, a pinafore, a key, a slicker. If your vagina could talk, what would it say? Two words. Slow down! Is that you? Feed me, I want. Yum yum, oh yeah. Start again, over there, lick me. Stay home, brave choice. Think again, more please, embrace me. Let's play. Don't stop, more, more. Remember me. Come inside, not yet, whoa mama. Yes, yes, rock me! Oh, thank God I'm here, let's go! Let's go find me. Thank you. Bonjour. Too hot! Don't give up! Where's Ryan? Yes, there, there, that's better. A group of women between the ages of 65 and 75 was interviewed. These interviews were the most poignant, possibly because many of these women had never had a vagina interview before. One woman, who was 72, had never even seen her vagina. She washed herself in the shower and bath, but never with conscious intention. She had never had an orgasm. At 72, she went into therapy, as they do in New York, and with the help of her therapist... She went home one afternoon by herself, lit some candles, took a bath, played some music, and she got down with herself. She said it took her over an hour because she was arthritic. But when she finally found her clitoris, she said she cried. This monologue is for her, The Flood. Down there? I haven't been down there since... 1950! No, it had nothing to do with Eisenhower. No, no, it's a cellar down there. You don't want to go down there, trust me. You get sick, suffocating, very nauseating. The smell of clamminess and mildew and everything. Smells unbearable. Gets in your clothes. No, there was no accident down there. and blow up or catch on fire or anything. It wasn't so dramatic. I mean... Well... No, never mind. Never mind. I can't tell you this. What's a smart girl like you going around talking old ladies about their down there's for? We didn't do this thing when I was a girl. What? Jesus, okay. There was this boy, Andy Lefkoff. He was cute. Well, I thought so. And tall like me. And I really... I really liked him. He asked me out for a date in his car. I can't tell you this. I can't do this. Talk about down there. You just know it's there. Like the cellars. There's rumbles down there sometimes. And you can hear the pipes. And things get caught in there, little animals and things. And sometimes people need a plug up for leaks. Otherwise, the door stays closed. You forget about it. I mean, you know it's there. But you just don't think about it or see it. But it has to be there, though. Otherwise, the bedroom would be in the basement. Andy, Andy! He left Quoth right. And he was very good looking. He was a catch. Well, that's what we called it in my day. We were in his Quoth. A new white Chevy Bel Air. I remember thinking that my legs were too long for the seat. I have long legs. They were smushed up against the dashboard. I was staring at my big kneecaps when he just kissed me. And this surprisingly take me by control like they do in the movies kind of way. And I got excited. So excited and well, there was a flood down there. I couldn't control it. It was like this force of passion, this river of light just came flooding out of me. Right through my panties. Right onto the cross seat of this new white Chevy Valet. It wasn't pee and it was smelly. Well, frankly, I didn't smell anything. But he said, Andy said, it smelled like sour milk. his car seat. He said, I was the stinky weird girl. And I wanted to explain to him that his kiss had caught me off guard and it wasn't normally like that. I tried to wipe the flood down with my dress. It was a new yellow primrose dress and it looked so ugly with the flood on it. And he drove me home without saying another word. And when I got out and closed his door, I closed the whole store down, locked it, and never opened it again. I've been on other dates, but the idea of the flood made me too nervous. I never even tried again. I used to have these dreams. Crazy dreams. Oh, they were dopey. Why? Bud Reynolds. I don't know why he never did much for me in life, but in my dreams It was work and I work and I work and I It was always the same general dream. We were out, Bert and I. It was some restaurant like the kind you see in Atlantic City. All big with chandeliers, waiters with thousands of vests. Bert would hand me this orchid corsage and I would pin it to my blazer. Then we would laugh. We were always laughing! Laughing, laughing! Then we have shrimp cocktail. Ultra fabulous shrimp. And we laugh again. We were really happy together. Then he would look deep into my eyes and pull me to him in the middle of the restaurant. And just as he was about to kiss me, the whole restaurant would start to shake. Pigeons would come flying out from tables. I don't know what those pigeons were doing there. And the flight would just come from there. It would pour out of me. It would pour out of me. Poor and poor, there would be things in it, little fish and boats, and the whole restaurant would fill up with my flood, and Bert would be standing in it, wasting. Looking horribly disappointed that I'd done it again. Horrified as he watched his friends Dean Martin and the Lock Swim past us in their tuxedos and evening gowns. I don't have those dreams anymore. Not since they took away just about everything connected with down there. Moved out the uterus, the tubes, the whole works. Dr. Thorne, he was being funny, said, If you don't use it, you'll lose it. But really, I found out it was cancer. Oh, who needs it anyway? Highly overrated. I've done other things. I like board shows. I sell antiques. You asked me what it would wear? What kind of question is that? What would it wear? It will wear a big sign saying, CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING! What would it say? I told you, it's not like that. It's not like a person who talks. It's not being something that talked a long time ago. It's closed up, it's downed, it's under the house. You happy? You got it out of me. You got an old lady to talk about her down there. You feel better now? You know? Actually, you were the first person I ever said that to. And I feel a little better. Vagina Happy Fact. Here is a Vagina Happy Fact. This is from Woman, An Intimate Geography by Natalie Lange. The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure. Now the clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves, 8000 nerve fibres to be precise, that is a higher concentration of nerve fibres than is found anywhere else in the male or female body, including the fingertips, lips, and the heart. and tongue. And it is twice. Twice. Twice the number in the penis. Who needs a handgun when you have a semi-automatic? Part of Eve's work to include the voices of all women who face violence, she interviewed a diverse group of transgender women in preparation for creativism. Her idea to transform this wide range of experiences into a great chorus was an elegant way of giving many... voices, a feeling of one voice united. Punishing the feminine was one overarching theme of the interviews and this can take many forms. Some women in the transgender community face violence from a very early age because they are so feminine. or because they show inappropriate interest in things considered feminine. For others, the violence comes later because they are not feminine enough. Those who do not pass gender muster often get pushed to the fringes of society, especially their youngest and most vulnerable. Yet, they stay true to their hearts despite every attempt to break their spirits. This monologue moves from childhood through adversity and into the maturity, wisdom and joy of being able to affirm beautifully reigning. Women who face... a difficult road ahead just to claim that name. And in the end, they endure, they survive, and they share in the pride of being able to express their femininity with all women, one voice, united. They beat the girl out of my boy. Or so they tried. At five years old, I was changing my baby sister's diapers. I saw her vagina. I wanted one. I wanted one. I thought it would grow. I thought it would open. I ached to belong. I ached to smell like my mother. The aroma lived in my hair, on my hands, in my skin. I ate to be pretty. Pretty. I wondered why I was missing my bathing suit top at the beach. Why I wasn't dressed like the other girls. I ached to be completed, I ached to belong, to twirl the baton. They assigned me a sex the day I was born. It's as random as being adopted or being assigned a hotel room at the 30th floor. It has nothing to do with who you are or your future. year of height. And in spite of the apparatus I was forced to carry around, I always knew I was a girl. They beat me for it. They beat me for crying. They pummeled me for wanting to touch. To pet. To hug. To help. To hold their hands. For trying to fly in church like Sister Patrell. For doing cartwheels. Crocheting socks. Carrying purses to kindergarten. They beat the shit out of me every day on the way to school. In the park, they smashed my magic marker painted nails. They punched my lipstick mouth. They beat the girl out of me. of my boy. Or so they tried. So I went underground. I stopped playing the flute. Be a man. Stand up for yourself. Go punch him back. I grew a full beard. It was good I was big. I joined the Marines. Suck it up and drive on. I became duller. Jaded. Sometimes cruel. Butch it. Butch it. Butch it up. Butch it up! Always clenched, inaccurate, and complete. I ran away from home. From school. From boot camp. Ran to Miami. Greenwich Village. Omushan Islands. New Orleans. I found gay people. Wilderness lesbians. Got my first hormone shot. Got the mission to be myself. To transition, to travel, to immigrate. 350 hours of hot needles. I could feel the male particles as they died. 16 man hairs. Gone. The feminine is in your face. I lift my eyebrows more. I'm curious. I ask questions. And my voice. Practice, practice. It's all about resonance. Sing songs, sing songs. Men are monotone and flat. Southern accents are really excellent. Jewish accents really help. Hello, my friend. My vagina's so much friendlier now. I cherish it. It brings me joy. The orgasms come in waves. Before, they were jerky. I'm your girl next door. My lieutenant colonel's father ending up paying for it. My vagina. My mother was worried what people would think of her. That she made this happen. Until I came to church. Everyone said, you have a beautiful daughter. I got to be soft. I am allowed to listen. I am allowed to touch. I am able to receive. To be in the present tense. People are so much nicer to me now. I can wake up in the morning and put my hair in a ponytail. A wrong was righted. I'm right with God. It's like when you're trying to sleep and there's this loud car alarm. When I got my vagina, it's like someone finally turned it off. I live now in the female zone, but you know how people feel about immigrants. They don't like them. when you come from someplace else they don't like it when you mix. They killed my boyfriend. They beat him insanely as he slept with a baseball bat. They beat this girl out of his head. They didn't want him dating a foreigner even though she was pretty and listened and was kind. They didn't want him falling in love with ambiguity. They were scared he'd get lost. They were that terrified of love. I hated my thighs, and I hated my vagina even more. I thought it was incredibly ugly. I was one of those women who had looked at it, and from that moment on, wished I hadn't. It made me sick. In fact, I pitied anyone who had to go down there. In order to survive, I began to imagine furniture in between my legs. I imagined cosy futons, light cotton comforters, leopard rugs, velvet satins, pretty things, silk hanky-cheeks, potted place settings. I became so accustomed to this that I lost all memory of even having a vagina. Whenever a man was inside of me, I pictured him inside of a mink muffler or a Chinese bowl. Then I met Bob. Bob was the most ordinary man I'd ever met. He was tall and thin and non-restricted, wore khaki tan clothes. He did not like spicy food or literature prints. He had no interest in sexy lingerie. In the summer he spent his time in the library. time with a shade. He did not share his inner feelings. He had no issues or problems. He wasn't even an alcoholic. He wasn't funny or articulate. He wasn't mysterious or mean. He wasn't self-involved or charismatic. He did not try a very fast. I know he didn't particularly like Bob. In fact, I would have missed him altogether if he hadn't picked up my change that I'd got from the deli floor. But when he handed me back my pennies and his hand accidentally touched mine... Something, something happened. I went to bed with Bob. And that's when the miracle occurred. Turns out, Bob loves 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. I'm right here, I said. No, he said, I have to see you. Oh, turn on the light, I said, thinking he was a weirdo freaking out in the dark. Bob turned on the light. And then he said, OK, I'm ready. I'm ready to see you. I'm right here, I waved. Right here. And then Bob... Bob began to undress me. Uh, what are you doing, Bob? I said. I need to see you, he said. No need, I said. Just do it. No, he said. I need to see what you look like. 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. head. Can't you just do it? No, he said. I need to look. It's who you are. I need to look. I held my breath. Barb continued. He looked and looked. And then his face changed and he got breathy and he no longer looked ordinary anymore. He looked like a hungry beast. You are so beautiful, he said. You're elegant and deep and innocent and wild. Uh, you saw all of that there, I said. It was like he was reading my palm. I saw all that, he said, and more. Much, much more. Bob stayed looking for almost an hour, as if he was studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes. But it was my vagina. In the light, I watched him looking at me. And he was so genuinely excited and peaceful and euphoric. I began to get wet and turned on. I began to see myself the way he saw me. I began to feel beautiful and delicious like a great painting in the water. Bob wasn't afraid. He wasn't grossed out. I began to swell, began to feel proud. And I, I began to love my vagina. This is a not-so-happy fact found in UNICEF's 2005 report, Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting, a Statistical Exploration. Female genital mutilation and cutting has been inflicted on approximately 130 million girls and young women. In the 28 countries where it is practiced, mostly in Africa, about 3 million girls a year expect the knife or razor. or glass shard to cut their clitoris or remove it altogether. In a man, it would range from amputation of most of the penis to removal of all. Short-term results include hemorrhages, tetanus, cuts in the urethra, bladder, and vaginal wall. Long-term results? Chronic uterine infection, increased danger and agony in childbirth, and early deaths. My vagina's angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all of this shit. It needs to talk to you. What's the deal? An army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle-loving vagina? Spending their days constructing psycho products and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy? Vagina motherfuckers. All this shit they're constantly trying to shove up us, stuff us up, clean us up, make it go away. Well, my vagina's not going away. It's pissed off and it's staying right here. Like tampons. What the hell is that? A dry water fucking cotton stuffed up there? Why can't they find a way to subtly lubricate the tampon? As soon as my vagina sees it, it goes into shock and says, forget it. You need to work with the vagina. Introduce it to things. That's what foreplay is all about. You've got to convince my vagina, seduce my vagina, engage my vagina's trust. You can't do that with a dry water fucking cotton. Stop shoving things. is up me. Stop shoving and stop trying to clean it up. My vagina doesn't need to be cleaned up. It smells good already. Don't try to decorate. Don't believe them when he tells you it smells like rose petals when it's supposed to smell like pussy. That's what they're doing. Trying to clean it up. Make it smell like a bathroom spray or a garden. All those douche sprays. Floral. Berry. Rain. I don't want my pussy to smell like rain. All cleaned up like washing it. a fish after you cooked it? I want to taste the fish. That's why I ordered it. Then, those exams. There's got to be a better way to do those exams. Why the scary paper dress that scratches your tits and crunches when you lie down so you feel like a wad of paper someone threw away? Why the rubber gloves? Why the flashlight all up there like Nancy Drew working against gravity? Why the Nazi steel stirrups, the meat called duck lips they shove inside you? What is that? My vagina's angry about those visits. It gets defended weeks in advance. It won't leave the house. Then you get there. Don't you hate that? Scoot down. Relax your vagina. Why? So you can shove mean cult duck lips inside it? I don't think so. Why can't they find some nice, delicious purple velvet and then wrap it around me? Lay me down on some feathery cotton spread. Put on some friendly pink orange. or blue gloves and rest my feet in some fur-covered stirrups. Warm up the duck lips. Work with my vagina. But no, more tortures. Dry water fucking cotton, mean cold duck lips, and thong underwear. Oh, that's the worst. Thong underwear. Moves around all the time, gets stuck in the back of your crusty butt. Vagina's supposed to be loose and wide, but it's not. held together. That's why girdles are so bad. We need to move and spread and talk and talk. Vaginas need comfort. Make something like that. Something to give them pleasure. No, of course they won't do that. I hate to see a woman having pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure. I mean, make a nice pair of soft cotton underwear with a French sticker built in. Women would be coming all day long. Women coming in the supermarket, coming on the subway, coming at the vaginas. I wouldn't be able to stand it seeing all those hot, energizing, not taking shit vaginas. If my vagina could talk, it would talk about itself, like me. It would talk about other vaginas. It would do vagina impressions. It would wear Harry Winston diamonds. No clothing, just there, all draped in diamonds. My vagina helped release a giant baby. It thought it would be doing more of that. It's not. Now it wants to travel. It doesn't want a lot of company. It wants to read and know things and get out more. It wants sex. It loves sex. It wants to go deeper. It's hungry for depth. It wants kindness. It wants change. It wants silence. and freedom and gentle kisses and warm liquids and deep tights. It wants chocolate. It wants to scream. It wants to stop being angry. It wants to want. It wants. My vagina. My vagina. Well, it wants everything. Bosnian women refugees were interviewed in Yugoslavia in refugee camps and centres. 20,000 to 70,000 women were raped in the middle of Europe as a systematic tactic against war. It was shocking to see how little people did to stop it. But then again, in South Africa, 52,420 women are sexually assaulted each year, which is another kind of war. This monologue is based on one woman struggling. We do it tonight for her. the extraordinary women of Bosnia and Kozlovo. My vagina was my village. My vagina was green. Water-soft pink fields, cow-wooing sun-dressing, sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw. There is something between my legs. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do not touch. Not now. Not anymore. Not since. My vagina was chatty. Can't wait. So much, so much saying words. Talking. Can't quit trying. Can't quit saying. Oh yes. Oh yes. Not since I dream there is a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing wine. And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit. And it bleeds through all my summer dresses. My vagina. Singing all-girls songs, or goat bell ringing songs, or wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs. Not since the soldiers put a long, thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod cancelling my heart. Don't know whether they're going to fire it or shove it through my spinning... Six of them, monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles at me too. There were sticks in the end of a broom. My vagina, a lie of wet water, really. My vagina. Not since I heard the skin tear and made lemon screeching sounds. Not since a piece of my vagina came off in my hand, a part of the lip. Now one side of the lip is completely gone. My vagina, a live, wet, water-rich. My vagina, my hometown. Not since they took turns for seven days smelling of feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me. I became a river of poison and pus, and all the crops died and the fish. My vagina, a live, wet water village. They invaded it, butchered it and burned it down. I do not touch now. Do not visit. I live someplace else now. I don't know where that is. Created a map of vagina-friendly cities. Welcome Cape Town! They are wild for vaginas in South Africa. In fact, a woman from Cape Town was so obsessed with the word, a pejorative word used to describe the vagina. Her mission? To reconceive the word. I call it CUT. I reclaimed it. Cut. I really like it. Cut. Listen to it. Cut. Cap, cap, cap, cap, cap, cute. Come close, c-c-close inside. Inside cup, then up, then curvy inviting sharkskin, up, uniform, up, under, urge, up, up. Cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, c Then soft and warm and cun Then tea, then certain sharp tang-tea Te-texture, tang-tang Tensing, tangles, tang Tantalizing, tang-tang Tell me, tell me Cut. Cut. Say it. In hundreds of interviews with homeless women over the course of 13 years, only one woman was not sexually abused as a little girl or raped as a young woman. For many of these women, home is a scary place, a place they have fled. Shelters are ironically the first places many of them ever find safety, protection or comfort. This is one woman's story as she told it. But what isn't in the story is the fact that this woman met another woman in a shelter and they fell in love. And through their love, they both got out of the shelter system. The little coochie snorcher that could. Man. December 1965 My mama tells me in a scary loud, lie-threatening voice to stop scratching my coochie snorcher. I'm terrified that I scratched it off. I did not touch myself again, even in the back. I put band-aids over my coochie snorcher to cover the hole. But they fall in the water. I imagine a stopper, a bathtub plug, up there preventing things from getting in. I sleep with three pairs of happy, hard-packing underpants underneath my snapper pajamas. I sometimes want to touch myself, but I don't. Mary. Seven years old. Edgar Montaigne, who is ten, punches me with all of his might between my legs. It feels like he bites my entire self. I lay home. I can't pee. When my mama asks me what's wrong and I tell her what Edgar did, she tells me to never let anybody touch me down there ever again. I tried to tell her. He didn't touch it, Mama. He punched it. Mary, nine years old. I'm laying on my bed, bouncing and falling. When I impale my coochie snorcher on the bedpost, I make hot-pitched screaming noises. I come straight for my coochie snorcher's mouth. When they take me to the hospital, they sew it up from where it's been torn apart. Man, I'm not a fizzler. I'm at my father's house. He's having a party, everybody's drinking. And I'm in the basement. And I'm trying on my new pair of white underpants and cotton bra that my father's new girlfriend gave me. Suddenly my father's best friend, this big old man, Alfred, comes up from behind me, pulls my underpants down. And Stix is big! Heartbeat. And I scream. I kick. I try to fight him off, but he already gets it in. And then my father's there with a gun. And there's a loud, horrible noise. And there's blood all over Alfred and I. Lots of blood. I think my coochie smut has finally fallen out. Alfred is paralyzed for life and my mama doesn't let me see my father for seven years. Mary, 13 years old. My coochie smoocher is a very bad place. It's a place of hate, plunging, invasion, nastiness, and lots of blood. It's a side of mixed hopes, a bad luck zone. I'm imagining a freeway between my legs, and I am traveling far, far away from here. Mary, 16 years old. There's this gorgeous woman in the neighborhood and I stare at her all the time. One day she invites me in her car and she asks me if I like to kiss boys. And I say, I do not. Then she says she wants to show me something. So, uh, she leans over and puts her lips on mine. And sits with her mom in my lap. Wow. Then she asks me if I want to spend the night. And then she tells me to relax, to feel it, to let our tongues feel it. Then she asks my mama if I could spend the night. And my mama is delighted that such a beautiful woman like her has taken an interest. in me. And I'm afraid and I can't wait. Oh, and her apartment is fantastic. She's got it all hooked up, you know. It's the 70s. The pillows, the moonlights, the reeds. And I decided right there and then that I want to be of this secretary, just like her when I grow up. Then she makes herself a vodka, and she asks me what I would like to drink. And I say, the same. And then she says, she doesn't think my mama would like me drinking vodka. And I say, well, I don't think my mama would like me kissing girls either. And the pretty lady makes me a drink. And then she changes it slowly into this chocolate satin tally. Oh, and she's so beautiful. And I say to her, you look great. And she says, well so do you. And then I say, but I only have this white top and brown underpants. And then she changes me. Slowly. Into another satin tape. And the alcohol has gone to my head and I'm loose and I'm ready. And there's a picture of a naked black woman above her bed. Then she lays me on the bed, and as our bodies are running, she makes me cum. Then she does everything to my coochie snorcher that I thought was nasty before. And then the phone rings, and of course, it's my mama. And I'm pretty sure she knows. You know, she catches me at everything. And I'm breathing. when I get to the fold and my mama says, child, have you been running? And I say, um, I have no problem, you know, just exercising. Then she does everything to my coochie smoochie. She makes me pleasure myself in front of her. She teaches me all the different ways to touch myself. She says that I always need to make sure I know how to pleasure myself, so that I never need to rely on the man. I later realized that she was my surprising, unexpected, and politically incorrect salvation. She transformed my sorry ass coochie snorcher and raised it into a kind of heaven. Our author, Eve Ensler, was present for the birth of her granddaughter. She was in awe of vaginas before that moment. She's in deep worship now. I was there in the room. I was there when her vagina opened. We were all there, her mother, her husband, and I, and the nurse from the Ukraine with her whole hand up there in her vagina. feeling and turning with her rubber glove as she talked casually to us like she was turning on a loaded faucet. I was there in the room when the contractions made her crawl on all fours, made unfamiliar moans leak out of her pores, and still there after hours when she just screamed suddenly wild, her arms striking at the electric air. I was there. I was there when her vagina changed from a shy sexual hole to an archaeological tunnel, a sacred vessel, a Venetian canal, a deep well with a tiny stuck child inside waiting to be rescued. I saw the colors of her vagina. They changed. Saw the bruised broken blue, the blistering tomato red, the gray pink, the dark. Saw the blood like perspiration along the edges. Saw the yellow white liquid, the shit, the clots, pushing out all the holes, pushing harder and harder. Saw through the hole the baby's head. Scratches of black hair. Saw it just there behind the bone. A hard, round memory, as the nurse from the Ukraine kept turning and turning her slippery hand. I was there with each of us, her mother and I, held a leg and spread her wide, pushing against her with all our strength, pushing, and her husband sternly counting, one, two, three, telling her to focus harder. We looked into her then. We couldn't get our eyes out of that place. We didn't forget the vagina. All of us. What else would explain our lack of awe? Our lack of reverence? I was there when the doctor reached in with Alice in Wonderland screams. And there, as her vagina became a wide operatic mouth, singing with all its strength, first the little hair, then the great flopping arm, then the fast swimming body, swimming quickly into our weakening arms. I was there later when I just turned and faced her vagina. I stood and let myself see her all spread, completely exposed, mutilated, swollen and torn, bleeding all over the doctor's hands, who was calmly sewing her there. I stood in her vagina, suddenly torn, a wide, red, pulsing heart. The heart is capable of sacrifice. So is the vagina. The heart is able to forgive and repair. It can change its shape to let us in. It can expand to let us out. So can the vagina. It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world. I was there in the blue. I remember. My short skirt is not an invitation, a provocation, or an indication that I want it, or that I give it, or that I hook. My short skirt is not begging for it, it does not want you to rip it off me or pull it down. My short skirt is not a legal reason for raping me. Although it has been before, it will not hold up in the new court. My short skirt, believe it or not, has nothing to do with you. My short skirt is about discovering the power of my lower parts. About who will want to marry, traveling out of my own life. About everything that I see, the past, the future, the living inside. My short skirt is not proof that I'm stupid. One decided on another little girl. My short fur is my defiance. I will not let you make me afraid. My short fur is not for me showing off. This is who I am. Before you made me cover it or tone it down. So get used to it. My short fur is my defiance. My short skirt is happiness. I can feel myself on the ground. I am here. I am hot. My short skirt is a liberation flag in the woman's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country! My short skirt is turquoise water. the swimming club of fish, summer festival in the starry dark, bird calling, train arriving in a foreign town. My short skirt is a full breadth of vital spin and tanner of depth. My short skirt is initiation, appreciation, excitation. But mainly, my short skirt, and everything under it, is mine. I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who supported us today. This show is dedicated to rape crisis and we are raising funds for rape crisis. Tickets, we set at only 60 rand in order to have them be affordable to students. and accessible to everybody. All of the work is done from our hearts. So please if you haven't paid yet, please do find Irina, the tall beautiful girl in the polka dot dress. and find the donation box and make your 60 Rand to that or even more if possible would be great. Raid prices are here tonight. Please stand up. Hi! Hi! Round of applause! I want to acknowledge you and your representatives for all the amazing work you do in Cape Town. We really, really appreciate it. This is what we can give as artists, but what you do is immeasurable. And we thank you and acknowledge you. Thank you.

They needed a context of other vaginas. A community, a culture of vaginas. There's so much darkness and secrecy surrounding it.

Like the Bermuda Triangle, nobody ever reports back from there. In the first place, it's not so easy to even find your... your vagina. Women go weeks, months, sometimes years without looking at it.

A high-powered businesswoman was interviewed and she said she didn't have the time. She was too busy. Looking at your vagina, she said, is a full day's work.

You've got to get down there on your back and try to have a mirror that's standing on its own for food. You've got to be in the perfect position with the perfect lighting, which is then shadowed somehow by the mirror of the angle you're at. You get all twisted up, you're arching your head up, killing your back, you're exhausted by then.

She said she didn't have time for that. She was busy. So there were Vagina Interviews, which became Vagina Monologues, and over 200 women were interviewed. Older women, younger women, married women, lesbians, single women, corporate professionals, actors, college professors, sex workers, African American women, Asian American women, Native American women, Hispanic women, Caucasian women, Jewish women.

Okay, at first they were reluctant to talk, they were a little bit shy, but once you got them going you could get them to talk. couldn't stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas, mainly because no one's ever asked him before. Let's just start with the word vagina. It sounds like an infection at best.

Maybe a medical instrument. Hurry, nurse, bring me the vagina. Vagina.

Vagina. Doesn't matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It's totally ridiculous, completely unsexy. word.

If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct, darling, could you stroke my vagina? You kill the act right there. Google, what about vaginas? What we call them and what we don't call them? Great dick?

They call it a pussycat. A woman they said her mother used to tell her, don't wear panties underneath your pajamas, dear. You need to air out your pussycat. Where's Chester?

They call it a pookie. New Jersey? A twat?

Parabox. A poochie, a poopie, a peepee, a poopaloo, a punani, a pal, a pishay. Didi, Nishi, Dignity, Monkey Box, Saucher, Cooter, Levy, Gladys, Sigelman, Va, Wee-Wee, Pospot, Neville, Dugout, Mongo, Mookie, A Pajama, Lanny Booth, Marshmallow, Aguli, Possible, Tamale, Totita, Connie, Amini in Miami, Miss Claytonish in Philadelphia, Shmende in the Bronx, Aparah in Paris, Afrani in Fresnes, Emily, We're worried about vaginas!

Some of the monologues are based on one woman's story. story and some of the monologues are based on several women's stories and sometimes a good idea became an outrageous one. This monologue is based on one woman's story although the subject came up in every interview and was often fraught. The subject being hair. You cannot love a vagina unless you love hair.

Many people do not love hair. My first and only husband hated hair. He said it was cluttered and dirty and he made me shave my vagina. It looked puffy and exposed and like a little girl. But this excited him.

When he made love to me, my vagina felt the way a beard must feel. It felt good to rub it and painful, like scratching a mosquito bite. It had screaming red bumps.

It felt like it was on fire. And I refused to shake my vagina again. Then, my husband had an affair.

When we went to marital therapy, he said he screwed around because I wouldn't please him sexually. Now the therapist had a German accent and gasped between sentences to show her empathy. She asked me why I wouldn't please my husband sexually. I said I thought it was weird. I felt little down there when the hair was gone.

I couldn't help but talk in a baby voice. The skin got irritated and not even calamine lotion would help. She said marriage is a big deal. is a compromise.

I asked her if she had many cases like this before. I also asked her if shaving my vagina would stop my husband from screwing around. She said, question. Deluded the process. I needed to jump in.

She was sure it was a good beginning. So this time, when we got home, he got to shave my vagina. It was like a therapy bonus prize. He clipped it a few times, there was a little blood, but he didn't notice because he was so excited to shave me. And then later, when my husband was pressing against me, I could feel his spiky sharpness sticking into me.

My naked, puffy vagina. There was no... protection. There was a fluff. And then I realized that hair is there for a reason.

You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. It is the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house. You don't get to pick the parts you want.

And besides, my husband never stops screwing around. I think the women will ask the following questions. If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear? Glasses, a beret, a leather jacket?

Silk stockings? Mink? A pink boa?

A male tuxedo? Jeans? Some forfeiting? Emeralds, an evening gown? Sea twins?

Or money only? A two-tier? See-through black underwear?

A taffeta ball gown? Something machine washable? Costume eye mask, purple velvet pajamas?

Angora? A red bow? A red bow?

Hermione and pearls, a leather hat, a silk kimono, sweat hats, a tattoo, an electric shock device to keep unwanted strangers away. High heels, lace, and combat boots, purple feathers, twigs and shells, cotton, a pinafore, a key, a slicker. If your vagina could talk, what would it say? Two words.

Slow down! Is that you? Feed me, I want.

Yum yum, oh yeah. Start again, over there, lick me. Stay home, brave choice. Think again, more please, embrace me. Let's play.

Don't stop, more, more. Remember me. Come inside, not yet, whoa mama.

Yes, yes, rock me! Oh, thank God I'm here, let's go! Let's go find me. Thank you.

Bonjour. Too hot! Don't give up! Where's Ryan? Yes, there, there, that's better.

A group of women between the ages of 65 and 75 was interviewed. These interviews were the most poignant, possibly because many of these women had never had a vagina interview before. One woman, who was 72, had never even seen her vagina. She washed herself in the shower and bath, but never with conscious intention. She had never had an orgasm.

At 72, she went into therapy, as they do in New York, and with the help of her therapist... She went home one afternoon by herself, lit some candles, took a bath, played some music, and she got down with herself. She said it took her over an hour because she was arthritic. But when she finally found her clitoris, she said she cried. This monologue is for her, The Flood.

Down there? I haven't been down there since... 1950!

No, it had nothing to do with Eisenhower. No, no, it's a cellar down there. You don't want to go down there, trust me.

You get sick, suffocating, very nauseating. The smell of clamminess and mildew and everything. Smells unbearable. Gets in your clothes.

No, there was no accident down there. and blow up or catch on fire or anything. It wasn't so dramatic.

I mean... Well... No, never mind. Never mind.

I can't tell you this. What's a smart girl like you going around talking old ladies about their down there's for? We didn't do this thing when I was a girl. What? Jesus, okay.

There was this boy, Andy Lefkoff. He was cute. Well, I thought so. And tall like me. And I really...

I really liked him. He asked me out for a date in his car. I can't tell you this.

I can't do this. Talk about down there. You just know it's there. Like the cellars. There's rumbles down there sometimes.

And you can hear the pipes. And things get caught in there, little animals and things. And sometimes people need a plug up for leaks. Otherwise, the door stays closed. You forget about it.

I mean, you know it's there. But you just don't think about it or see it. But it has to be there, though. Otherwise, the bedroom would be in the basement.

Andy, Andy! He left Quoth right. And he was very good looking.

He was a catch. Well, that's what we called it in my day. We were in his Quoth. A new white Chevy Bel Air. I remember thinking that my legs were too long for the seat.

I have long legs. They were smushed up against the dashboard. I was staring at my big kneecaps when he just kissed me. And this surprisingly take me by control like they do in the movies kind of way.

And I got excited. So excited and well, there was a flood down there. I couldn't control it.

It was like this force of passion, this river of light just came flooding out of me. Right through my panties. Right onto the cross seat of this new white Chevy Valet. It wasn't pee and it was smelly. Well, frankly, I didn't smell anything.

But he said, Andy said, it smelled like sour milk. his car seat. He said, I was the stinky weird girl.

And I wanted to explain to him that his kiss had caught me off guard and it wasn't normally like that. I tried to wipe the flood down with my dress. It was a new yellow primrose dress and it looked so ugly with the flood on it.

And he drove me home without saying another word. And when I got out and closed his door, I closed the whole store down, locked it, and never opened it again. I've been on other dates, but the idea of the flood made me too nervous. I never even tried again. I used to have these dreams.

Crazy dreams. Oh, they were dopey. Why?

Bud Reynolds. I don't know why he never did much for me in life, but in my dreams It was work and I work and I work and I It was always the same general dream. We were out, Bert and I.

It was some restaurant like the kind you see in Atlantic City. All big with chandeliers, waiters with thousands of vests. Bert would hand me this orchid corsage and I would pin it to my blazer. Then we would laugh. We were always laughing!

Laughing, laughing! Then we have shrimp cocktail. Ultra fabulous shrimp.

And we laugh again. We were really happy together. Then he would look deep into my eyes and pull me to him in the middle of the restaurant. And just as he was about to kiss me, the whole restaurant would start to shake.

Pigeons would come flying out from tables. I don't know what those pigeons were doing there. And the flight would just come from there.

It would pour out of me. It would pour out of me. Poor and poor, there would be things in it, little fish and boats, and the whole restaurant would fill up with my flood, and Bert would be standing in it, wasting.

Looking horribly disappointed that I'd done it again. Horrified as he watched his friends Dean Martin and the Lock Swim past us in their tuxedos and evening gowns. I don't have those dreams anymore.

Not since they took away just about everything connected with down there. Moved out the uterus, the tubes, the whole works. Dr. Thorne, he was being funny, said, If you don't use it, you'll lose it.

But really, I found out it was cancer. Oh, who needs it anyway? Highly overrated.

I've done other things. I like board shows. I sell antiques.

You asked me what it would wear? What kind of question is that? What would it wear? It will wear a big sign saying, CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING! What would it say?

I told you, it's not like that. It's not like a person who talks. It's not being something that talked a long time ago. It's closed up, it's downed, it's under the house. You happy?

You got it out of me. You got an old lady to talk about her down there. You feel better now?

You know? Actually, you were the first person I ever said that to. And I feel a little better.

Vagina Happy Fact. Here is a Vagina Happy Fact. This is from Woman, An Intimate Geography by Natalie Lange.

The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure. Now the clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves, 8000 nerve fibres to be precise, that is a higher concentration of nerve fibres than is found anywhere else in the male or female body, including the fingertips, lips, and the heart.

and tongue. And it is twice. Twice. Twice the number in the penis.

Who needs a handgun when you have a semi-automatic? Part of Eve's work to include the voices of all women who face violence, she interviewed a diverse group of transgender women in preparation for creativism. Her idea to transform this wide range of experiences into a great chorus was an elegant way of giving many...

voices, a feeling of one voice united. Punishing the feminine was one overarching theme of the interviews and this can take many forms. Some women in the transgender community face violence from a very early age because they are so feminine.

or because they show inappropriate interest in things considered feminine. For others, the violence comes later because they are not feminine enough. Those who do not pass gender muster often get pushed to the fringes of society, especially their youngest and most vulnerable. Yet, they stay true to their hearts despite every attempt to break their spirits.

This monologue moves from childhood through adversity and into the maturity, wisdom and joy of being able to affirm beautifully reigning. Women who face... a difficult road ahead just to claim that name.

And in the end, they endure, they survive, and they share in the pride of being able to express their femininity with all women, one voice, united. They beat the girl out of my boy. Or so they tried. At five years old, I was changing my baby sister's diapers. I saw her vagina.

I wanted one. I wanted one. I thought it would grow. I thought it would open. I ached to belong.

I ached to smell like my mother. The aroma lived in my hair, on my hands, in my skin. I ate to be pretty. Pretty.

I wondered why I was missing my bathing suit top at the beach. Why I wasn't dressed like the other girls. I ached to be completed, I ached to belong, to twirl the baton.

They assigned me a sex the day I was born. It's as random as being adopted or being assigned a hotel room at the 30th floor. It has nothing to do with who you are or your future. year of height. And in spite of the apparatus I was forced to carry around, I always knew I was a girl.

They beat me for it. They beat me for crying. They pummeled me for wanting to touch.

To pet. To hug. To help. To hold their hands.

For trying to fly in church like Sister Patrell. For doing cartwheels. Crocheting socks.

Carrying purses to kindergarten. They beat the shit out of me every day on the way to school. In the park, they smashed my magic marker painted nails.

They punched my lipstick mouth. They beat the girl out of me. of my boy. Or so they tried.

So I went underground. I stopped playing the flute. Be a man. Stand up for yourself.

Go punch him back. I grew a full beard. It was good I was big. I joined the Marines. Suck it up and drive on.

I became duller. Jaded. Sometimes cruel.

Butch it. Butch it. Butch it up.

Butch it up! Always clenched, inaccurate, and complete. I ran away from home.

From school. From boot camp. Ran to Miami. Greenwich Village. Omushan Islands.

New Orleans. I found gay people. Wilderness lesbians. Got my first hormone shot. Got the mission to be myself.

To transition, to travel, to immigrate. 350 hours of hot needles. I could feel the male particles as they died. 16 man hairs. Gone.

The feminine is in your face. I lift my eyebrows more. I'm curious.

I ask questions. And my voice. Practice, practice.

It's all about resonance. Sing songs, sing songs. Men are monotone and flat.

Southern accents are really excellent. Jewish accents really help. Hello, my friend. My vagina's so much friendlier now.

I cherish it. It brings me joy. The orgasms come in waves.

Before, they were jerky. I'm your girl next door. My lieutenant colonel's father ending up paying for it.

My vagina. My mother was worried what people would think of her. That she made this happen. Until I came to church.

Everyone said, you have a beautiful daughter. I got to be soft. I am allowed to listen. I am allowed to touch. I am able to receive.

To be in the present tense. People are so much nicer to me now. I can wake up in the morning and put my hair in a ponytail.

A wrong was righted. I'm right with God. It's like when you're trying to sleep and there's this loud car alarm.

When I got my vagina, it's like someone finally turned it off. I live now in the female zone, but you know how people feel about immigrants. They don't like them.

when you come from someplace else they don't like it when you mix. They killed my boyfriend. They beat him insanely as he slept with a baseball bat. They beat this girl out of his head. They didn't want him dating a foreigner even though she was pretty and listened and was kind.

They didn't want him falling in love with ambiguity. They were scared he'd get lost. They were that terrified of love. I hated my thighs, and I hated my vagina even more.

I thought it was incredibly ugly. I was one of those women who had looked at it, and from that moment on, wished I hadn't. It made me sick.

In fact, I pitied anyone who had to go down there. In order to survive, I began to imagine furniture in between my legs. I imagined cosy futons, light cotton comforters, leopard rugs, velvet satins, pretty things, silk hanky-cheeks, potted place settings. I became so accustomed to this that I lost all memory of even having a vagina. Whenever a man was inside of me, I pictured him inside of a mink muffler or a Chinese bowl.

Then I met Bob. Bob was the most ordinary man I'd ever met. He was tall and thin and non-restricted, wore khaki tan clothes.

He did not like spicy food or literature prints. He had no interest in sexy lingerie. In the summer he spent his time in the library. time with a shade.

He did not share his inner feelings. He had no issues or problems. He wasn't even an alcoholic. He wasn't funny or articulate.

He wasn't mysterious or mean. He wasn't self-involved or charismatic. He did not try a very fast.

I know he didn't particularly like Bob. In fact, I would have missed him altogether if he hadn't picked up my change that I'd got from the deli floor. But when he handed me back my pennies and his hand accidentally touched mine... Something, something happened. I went to bed with Bob.

And that's when the miracle occurred. Turns out, Bob loves 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.

I'm right here, I said. No, he said, I have to see you. Oh, turn on the light, I said, thinking he was a weirdo freaking out in the dark. Bob turned on the light. And then he said, OK, I'm ready.

I'm ready to see you. I'm right here, I waved. Right here.

And then Bob... Bob began to undress me. Uh, what are you doing, Bob?

I said. I need to see you, he said. No need, I said. Just do it. No, he said.

I need to see what you look like. 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. head.

Can't you just do it? No, he said. I need to look.

It's who you are. I need to look. I held my breath. Barb continued.

He looked and looked. And then his face changed and he got breathy and he no longer looked ordinary anymore. He looked like a hungry beast. You are so beautiful, he said.

You're elegant and deep and innocent and wild. Uh, you saw all of that there, I said. It was like he was reading my palm.

I saw all that, he said, and more. Much, much more. Bob stayed looking for almost an hour, as if he was studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes. But it was my vagina.

In the light, I watched him looking at me. And he was so genuinely excited and peaceful and euphoric. I began to get wet and turned on.

I began to see myself the way he saw me. I began to feel beautiful and delicious like a great painting in the water. Bob wasn't afraid. He wasn't grossed out.

I began to swell, began to feel proud. And I, I began to love my vagina. This is a not-so-happy fact found in UNICEF's 2005 report, Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting, a Statistical Exploration. Female genital mutilation and cutting has been inflicted on approximately 130 million girls and young women. In the 28 countries where it is practiced, mostly in Africa, about 3 million girls a year expect the knife or razor.

or glass shard to cut their clitoris or remove it altogether. In a man, it would range from amputation of most of the penis to removal of all. Short-term results include hemorrhages, tetanus, cuts in the urethra, bladder, and vaginal wall. Long-term results?

Chronic uterine infection, increased danger and agony in childbirth, and early deaths. My vagina's angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk.

It needs to talk about all of this shit. It needs to talk to you. What's the deal?

An army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle-loving vagina? Spending their days constructing psycho products and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy? Vagina motherfuckers. All this shit they're constantly trying to shove up us, stuff us up, clean us up, make it go away. Well, my vagina's not going away.

It's pissed off and it's staying right here. Like tampons. What the hell is that? A dry water fucking cotton stuffed up there?

Why can't they find a way to subtly lubricate the tampon? As soon as my vagina sees it, it goes into shock and says, forget it. You need to work with the vagina.

Introduce it to things. That's what foreplay is all about. You've got to convince my vagina, seduce my vagina, engage my vagina's trust.

You can't do that with a dry water fucking cotton. Stop shoving things. is up me.

Stop shoving and stop trying to clean it up. My vagina doesn't need to be cleaned up. It smells good already.

Don't try to decorate. Don't believe them when he tells you it smells like rose petals when it's supposed to smell like pussy. That's what they're doing. Trying to clean it up. Make it smell like a bathroom spray or a garden.

All those douche sprays. Floral. Berry.

Rain. I don't want my pussy to smell like rain. All cleaned up like washing it. a fish after you cooked it?

I want to taste the fish. That's why I ordered it. Then, those exams.

There's got to be a better way to do those exams. Why the scary paper dress that scratches your tits and crunches when you lie down so you feel like a wad of paper someone threw away? Why the rubber gloves?

Why the flashlight all up there like Nancy Drew working against gravity? Why the Nazi steel stirrups, the meat called duck lips they shove inside you? What is that? My vagina's angry about those visits. It gets defended weeks in advance.

It won't leave the house. Then you get there. Don't you hate that? Scoot down. Relax your vagina.

Why? So you can shove mean cult duck lips inside it? I don't think so.

Why can't they find some nice, delicious purple velvet and then wrap it around me? Lay me down on some feathery cotton spread. Put on some friendly pink orange.

or blue gloves and rest my feet in some fur-covered stirrups. Warm up the duck lips. Work with my vagina.

But no, more tortures. Dry water fucking cotton, mean cold duck lips, and thong underwear. Oh, that's the worst.

Thong underwear. Moves around all the time, gets stuck in the back of your crusty butt. Vagina's supposed to be loose and wide, but it's not.

held together. That's why girdles are so bad. We need to move and spread and talk and talk. Vaginas need comfort.

Make something like that. Something to give them pleasure. No, of course they won't do that.

I hate to see a woman having pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure. I mean, make a nice pair of soft cotton underwear with a French sticker built in. Women would be coming all day long.

Women coming in the supermarket, coming on the subway, coming at the vaginas. I wouldn't be able to stand it seeing all those hot, energizing, not taking shit vaginas. If my vagina could talk, it would talk about itself, like me. It would talk about other vaginas.

It would do vagina impressions. It would wear Harry Winston diamonds. No clothing, just there, all draped in diamonds.

My vagina helped release a giant baby. It thought it would be doing more of that. It's not.

Now it wants to travel. It doesn't want a lot of company. It wants to read and know things and get out more.

It wants sex. It loves sex. It wants to go deeper. It's hungry for depth. It wants kindness.

It wants change. It wants silence. and freedom and gentle kisses and warm liquids and deep tights.

It wants chocolate. It wants to scream. It wants to stop being angry. It wants to want. It wants.

My vagina. My vagina. Well, it wants everything. Bosnian women refugees were interviewed in Yugoslavia in refugee camps and centres. 20,000 to 70,000 women were raped in the middle of Europe as a systematic tactic against war.

It was shocking to see how little people did to stop it. But then again, in South Africa, 52,420 women are sexually assaulted each year, which is another kind of war. This monologue is based on one woman struggling.

We do it tonight for her. the extraordinary women of Bosnia and Kozlovo. My vagina was my village.

My vagina was green. Water-soft pink fields, cow-wooing sun-dressing, sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw. There is something between my legs.

I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do not touch.

Not now. Not anymore. Not since. My vagina was chatty.

Can't wait. So much, so much saying words. Talking. Can't quit trying.

Can't quit saying. Oh yes. Oh yes. Not since I dream there is a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing wine.

And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit. And it bleeds through all my summer dresses.

My vagina. Singing all-girls songs, or goat bell ringing songs, or wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs. Not since the soldiers put a long, thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod cancelling my heart.

Don't know whether they're going to fire it or shove it through my spinning... Six of them, monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles at me too. There were sticks in the end of a broom.

My vagina, a lie of wet water, really. My vagina. Not since I heard the skin tear and made lemon screeching sounds.

Not since a piece of my vagina came off in my hand, a part of the lip. Now one side of the lip is completely gone. My vagina, a live, wet, water-rich.

My vagina, my hometown. Not since they took turns for seven days smelling of feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me. I became a river of poison and pus, and all the crops died and the fish.

My vagina, a live, wet water village. They invaded it, butchered it and burned it down. I do not touch now.

Do not visit. I live someplace else now. I don't know where that is.

Created a map of vagina-friendly cities. Welcome Cape Town! They are wild for vaginas in South Africa.

In fact, a woman from Cape Town was so obsessed with the word, a pejorative word used to describe the vagina. Her mission? To reconceive the word. I call it CUT. I reclaimed it.

Cut. I really like it. Cut.

Listen to it. Cut. Cap, cap, cap, cap, cap, cute. Come close, c-c-close inside. Inside cup, then up, then curvy inviting sharkskin, up, uniform, up, under, urge, up, up.

Cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, c Then soft and warm and cun Then tea, then certain sharp tang-tea Te-texture, tang-tang Tensing, tangles, tang Tantalizing, tang-tang Tell me, tell me Cut. Cut. Say it. In hundreds of interviews with homeless women over the course of 13 years, only one woman was not sexually abused as a little girl or raped as a young woman.

For many of these women, home is a scary place, a place they have fled. Shelters are ironically the first places many of them ever find safety, protection or comfort. This is one woman's story as she told it. But what isn't in the story is the fact that this woman met another woman in a shelter and they fell in love. And through their love, they both got out of the shelter system.

The little coochie snorcher that could. Man. December 1965 My mama tells me in a scary loud, lie-threatening voice to stop scratching my coochie snorcher.

I'm terrified that I scratched it off. I did not touch myself again, even in the back. I put band-aids over my coochie snorcher to cover the hole.

But they fall in the water. I imagine a stopper, a bathtub plug, up there preventing things from getting in. I sleep with three pairs of happy, hard-packing underpants underneath my snapper pajamas.

I sometimes want to touch myself, but I don't. Mary. Seven years old. Edgar Montaigne, who is ten, punches me with all of his might between my legs.

It feels like he bites my entire self. I lay home. I can't pee. When my mama asks me what's wrong and I tell her what Edgar did, she tells me to never let anybody touch me down there ever again.

I tried to tell her. He didn't touch it, Mama. He punched it.

Mary, nine years old. I'm laying on my bed, bouncing and falling. When I impale my coochie snorcher on the bedpost, I make hot-pitched screaming noises. I come straight for my coochie snorcher's mouth. When they take me to the hospital, they sew it up from where it's been torn apart.

Man, I'm not a fizzler. I'm at my father's house. He's having a party, everybody's drinking.

And I'm in the basement. And I'm trying on my new pair of white underpants and cotton bra that my father's new girlfriend gave me. Suddenly my father's best friend, this big old man, Alfred, comes up from behind me, pulls my underpants down.

And Stix is big! Heartbeat. And I scream.

I kick. I try to fight him off, but he already gets it in. And then my father's there with a gun.

And there's a loud, horrible noise. And there's blood all over Alfred and I. Lots of blood. I think my coochie smut has finally fallen out.

Alfred is paralyzed for life and my mama doesn't let me see my father for seven years. Mary, 13 years old. My coochie smoocher is a very bad place. It's a place of hate, plunging, invasion, nastiness, and lots of blood.

It's a side of mixed hopes, a bad luck zone. I'm imagining a freeway between my legs, and I am traveling far, far away from here. Mary, 16 years old.

There's this gorgeous woman in the neighborhood and I stare at her all the time. One day she invites me in her car and she asks me if I like to kiss boys. And I say, I do not.

Then she says she wants to show me something. So, uh, she leans over and puts her lips on mine. And sits with her mom in my lap. Wow. Then she asks me if I want to spend the night.

And then she tells me to relax, to feel it, to let our tongues feel it. Then she asks my mama if I could spend the night. And my mama is delighted that such a beautiful woman like her has taken an interest.

in me. And I'm afraid and I can't wait. Oh, and her apartment is fantastic. She's got it all hooked up, you know. It's the 70s.

The pillows, the moonlights, the reeds. And I decided right there and then that I want to be of this secretary, just like her when I grow up. Then she makes herself a vodka, and she asks me what I would like to drink.

And I say, the same. And then she says, she doesn't think my mama would like me drinking vodka. And I say, well, I don't think my mama would like me kissing girls either. And the pretty lady makes me a drink.

And then she changes it slowly into this chocolate satin tally. Oh, and she's so beautiful. And I say to her, you look great. And she says, well so do you.

And then I say, but I only have this white top and brown underpants. And then she changes me. Slowly. Into another satin tape. And the alcohol has gone to my head and I'm loose and I'm ready.

And there's a picture of a naked black woman above her bed. Then she lays me on the bed, and as our bodies are running, she makes me cum. Then she does everything to my coochie snorcher that I thought was nasty before. And then the phone rings, and of course, it's my mama. And I'm pretty sure she knows.

You know, she catches me at everything. And I'm breathing. when I get to the fold and my mama says, child, have you been running?

And I say, um, I have no problem, you know, just exercising. Then she does everything to my coochie smoochie. She makes me pleasure myself in front of her. She teaches me all the different ways to touch myself.

She says that I always need to make sure I know how to pleasure myself, so that I never need to rely on the man. I later realized that she was my surprising, unexpected, and politically incorrect salvation. She transformed my sorry ass coochie snorcher and raised it into a kind of heaven. Our author, Eve Ensler, was present for the birth of her granddaughter. She was in awe of vaginas before that moment.

She's in deep worship now. I was there in the room. I was there when her vagina opened. We were all there, her mother, her husband, and I, and the nurse from the Ukraine with her whole hand up there in her vagina.

feeling and turning with her rubber glove as she talked casually to us like she was turning on a loaded faucet. I was there in the room when the contractions made her crawl on all fours, made unfamiliar moans leak out of her pores, and still there after hours when she just screamed suddenly wild, her arms striking at the electric air. I was there.

I was there when her vagina changed from a shy sexual hole to an archaeological tunnel, a sacred vessel, a Venetian canal, a deep well with a tiny stuck child inside waiting to be rescued. I saw the colors of her vagina. They changed.

Saw the bruised broken blue, the blistering tomato red, the gray pink, the dark. Saw the blood like perspiration along the edges. Saw the yellow white liquid, the shit, the clots, pushing out all the holes, pushing harder and harder.

Saw through the hole the baby's head. Scratches of black hair. Saw it just there behind the bone.

A hard, round memory, as the nurse from the Ukraine kept turning and turning her slippery hand. I was there with each of us, her mother and I, held a leg and spread her wide, pushing against her with all our strength, pushing, and her husband sternly counting, one, two, three, telling her to focus harder. We looked into her then.

We couldn't get our eyes out of that place. We didn't forget the vagina. All of us. What else would explain our lack of awe?

Our lack of reverence? I was there when the doctor reached in with Alice in Wonderland screams. And there, as her vagina became a wide operatic mouth, singing with all its strength, first the little hair, then the great flopping arm, then the fast swimming body, swimming quickly into our weakening arms.

I was there later when I just turned and faced her vagina. I stood and let myself see her all spread, completely exposed, mutilated, swollen and torn, bleeding all over the doctor's hands, who was calmly sewing her there. I stood in her vagina, suddenly torn, a wide, red, pulsing heart.

The heart is capable of sacrifice. So is the vagina. The heart is able to forgive and repair. It can change its shape to let us in.

It can expand to let us out. So can the vagina. It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world. I was there in the blue. I remember.

My short skirt is not an invitation, a provocation, or an indication that I want it, or that I give it, or that I hook. My short skirt is not begging for it, it does not want you to rip it off me or pull it down. My short skirt is not a legal reason for raping me.

Although it has been before, it will not hold up in the new court. My short skirt, believe it or not, has nothing to do with you. My short skirt is about discovering the power of my lower parts. About who will want to marry, traveling out of my own life.

About everything that I see, the past, the future, the living inside. My short skirt is not proof that I'm stupid. One decided on another little girl. My short fur is my defiance. I will not let you make me afraid.

My short fur is not for me showing off. This is who I am. Before you made me cover it or tone it down.

So get used to it. My short fur is my defiance. My short skirt is happiness.

I can feel myself on the ground. I am here. I am hot. My short skirt is a liberation flag in the woman's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country!

My short skirt is turquoise water. the swimming club of fish, summer festival in the starry dark, bird calling, train arriving in a foreign town. My short skirt is a full breadth of vital spin and tanner of depth.

My short skirt is initiation, appreciation, excitation. But mainly, my short skirt, and everything under it, is mine. I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who supported us today. This show is dedicated to rape crisis and we are raising funds for rape crisis.

Tickets, we set at only 60 rand in order to have them be affordable to students. and accessible to everybody. All of the work is done from our hearts.

So please if you haven't paid yet, please do find Irina, the tall beautiful girl in the polka dot dress. and find the donation box and make your 60 Rand to that or even more if possible would be great. Raid prices are here tonight. Please stand up.

Hi! Hi! Round of applause!

I want to acknowledge you and your representatives for all the amazing work you do in Cape Town. We really, really appreciate it. This is what we can give as artists, but what you do is immeasurable. And we thank you and acknowledge you.

Thank you.

Transcript for:Exploring Women's Perspectives on Vaginas

Transcript for:
Exploring Women's Perspectives on Vaginas