February 14, 2014

V-Day

From the University of North Carolina Daily Tarheel:
Vagina Monologues will be performed this weekend in Spanish and English 
By Breanna Kerr | The Daily Tar Heel 
Two women who have never met are performing in this year’s bilingual production of “The Vagina Monologues” for the same reason: to encourage women to embrace their bodies. 
“Don’t be afraid to say the word ‘vagina’ anymore!” said junior Ashleigh Curry, the narrator in the English production of Eve Ensler’s famous play. ... 
“We forget about the vagina — all of us — but ‘The Vagina Monologues’ has a way of putting it up in your face,” she said.
       

68 comments:

fish said...

“We forget about the vagina — all of us — but ‘The Vagina Monologues’ has a way of putting it up in your face,” she said.

The punchlines really write themselves.....

DCThrowback said...

"We forget about the vagina — all of us"

Funny, from age 13 until death, the vagina consumes most of my waking thoughts.

Eric Jacobus said...

I totally forgot about vaginas. Glad I remembered.

Kibernetika said...

Damn, I thought that I'd completely destroyed my uni-year diaries!

Nathan Wright said...

lol … What in the hell is she talking about? "We forget about the vagina -- all of us". What does that even mean?

Anonymous said...

this year’s... production

So it's an annual event now?

I wonder whether they would cancel it on account of the snow, like they did for the UNC-Duke basketball game the other night?

Or whether it's even more important now than UNC-Duke?

Anonymous said...

Back in the day in Catholic communities, meatless Fridays were known as "V-Day" because people would eat fish on those days.

Anonymous said...

I'd love to see a male parody of this crap, say "The Penis Monologue", with faux dim-witted guys droning on about how "the penis is forgotten" and "we need to get the penis back in peoples faces".

Anonymous said...

How about Steve or the good writers among his readership respond with "A Conversation among Penises"?

Now, I'd pay good money to read it and pay to watch/read responses to it.

Anonymous said...

"We forget about the vagina — all of us"

Funny, from age 13 until death, the vagina consumes most of my waking thoughts.


Funny, but the author of the play seems to as well. Her "
The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could"
scene in the play had a 13 year old getting sexually "healed" by an adult woman.

Anonymous said...

Eve Ensler is just another white woman.

Big Bill said...

Well, there is one saving grace for the poor child: another "Ashleigh Curry" is an MMA star. Her little blooper will get lost in the Internet noise.

Big Bill said...

Someone should do a Google map of all the "Vagina Monologues" in the world. That way all us creepy old farts could get to see a bunch of cute coeds talking dirty.

It's got to be a lot cheaper than a lap dance at Chippendale's or Hooters.

ben tillman said...

I wonder whether they would cancel it on account of the snow, like they did for the UNC-Duke basketball game the other night?

Or whether it's even more important now than UNC-Duke?


That it wasn't cancelled (if that be a fact) is an indicator of its insignificance. No one was going to travel more than 8 miles for it.

DJF said...

So feminists who keep on saying that people should look at woman as a whole person once again reduce themselves to being a sex organ.

2Degrees said...

Off topic, but don't these guys know sodomy is illegal in the Cook Islands? Air New Zealand should be ashamed, but you'll love their safety video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQDip9V49U0

Anonymous said...

Random thought
Should men's rights activists demand equal funding for a penis dialogues play?


twitter twatter said...

At first glance I thought you were talking about someone named Virginia.
I have a friend who is into amateur acting. She auditioned for a part in that and was gung ho. Narcissistic streak, my diagnosis. The sheer variety of human traits is a wonder to behold. I could not even begin to imagine doing such a part in public or private without dying of blush.

Next up. Penis monologues.

Anonymous said...

They are trying to find the limits, when the "thought leaders" in society are telling them that the limits no longer exist.

This kind of stuff is going to get worse and worse.

Anon.

Harry Baldwin said...

“Don’t be afraid to say the word ‘vagina’ anymore!”

Rush Limbaugh says "vagina" all the time, as in today's "Democrats see women as nothing but walking vaginas. . ."

I guess it's hard to pretend people are afraid of the word vagina anymore if Limbaugh's saying it.

Then there's Maude:

Maude Lebowski: My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.

Dude: Oh yeah?

Maude Lebowski: Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.

Dude: Johnson?

Shouting Thomas said...

So funny that it reads as if it were an Onion satire.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Mandela-s-secret-South-Africa-7810

"Many years ago, while I was living in Beacon Hill Friends House, a Quaker community in Boston, a young member tentatively proposed that we host a Model Mugging self-defense course for women. Her hesitation could well have come from religious principles; traditionally, Quakers eschew physical violence even to save their own lives."

How come Quakers faded unlike Mormons?

Black Sea said...

"Couldn't we just put a fence around Chapel Hill?"
-- Jessie Helms, when exploring options to the creation of a North Carolina zoo.

Anonymous said...

http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/roddreher/2010/02/the-iconoclastic-sarah-ruden.html

Anonymous said...

As a Canadian I find the point of bilingualism interesting. I fear America is on a slippery slope to the kind of linguistic hell Canada knows. I visited my sister in Denver, Colorado last year and was surprised how much stuff was in Spanish and how many signs too. Mnay stores had Spanish signs. Sears seemed to be the biggest offender, alongside Wal-Mart. Bilingualism is a Trojan horse.

ysv_rao said...

From Enslers Wikipedia page:

As described in a profile in The Nation, "In her 2007 book, Insecure at Last (a meditation on deadly American illusions about safety in the wake of the attacks of 9/11), she describes being raped and brutally beaten by her father, a food company CEO, from age 5 to 10."

Would anyone else be shocked SHOCKED!I TELL YOU if the narrative about being brutalized by her father proved to be totally made up?

Also

Ensler wrote an article in The Guardian (June 12, 2010) in which she mentioned that she is receiving treatment for uterine cancer."

After all that dedication to abstract vaginas, her own betrayed her so...
Perhaps she should've still been married and could've taken Homer Simpson's advice "Marge we're a team, its uter-"us" not uter-u"

Anonymous said...

http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2014/02/facebook-redefines-gender.html

Race is a social construct but...

http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2014/02/facebook-redefines-gender.html

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Canada and now live in California. The problems with 2 languages in Canada doesn't compared with what is happening in the US.

In Canada,IIRC,only 3% outside of Quebec speaks French. Yeah,they print French on cereal boxes,and it helps to get a job with the federal government. By and large, outside of Quebec no one speaks French exclusively.

In contrast,in many areas of the US, esp. CA, TX, AZ, Spanish is the dominant language for service workers. A large proportion of them speak little or no English. When they come for social services (I work in a hospital)they expect to be catered to in Spanish.

Anonymous said...

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/21/264524233/phoenix-to-self-why-am-i-talking-about-this-joaquin-shut-up

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/14/262386113/chang-rae-lee-stretches-for-dystopic-drama-but-doesnt-quite-reach

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/14/276479817/at-77-robert-redford-goes-back-to-his-roots

Uncle Peregrine said...

""Couldn't we just put a fence around Chapel Hill?"
-- Jessie Helms, when exploring options to the creation of a North Carolina zoo."

The late senator ended up a prisoner of war in World War T.

Anonymous said...

I'm looking for funding for my new play: Musings of The Anus - Life as a Brown Hole in a Pink World.

Semi-employed White Guy said...

This is an outrage! All the talking about vaginas is offensive to the LGBT community. What about post-operative transexuals? Not all of them have vaginas. To be all-inclusive we should have The Anus Monologues. The Republican Party is already leading the way every time John Boehner and Lindsey Graham speak.

Anonymous said...

The play stinks of orificism.

Harry Baldwin said...

Quakers eschew physical violence even to save their own lives.

Yes, but there are ways around it, as in the case of the Quaker who woke up when he heard someone breaking into his house. Confronting the burglar at gunpoint, he said, "Friend, I mean thee no harm, but thou art standing where I am about to shoot."

Anonymous said...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/15/baby-boys-and-girls-should-get-different-formula-milk-say-scientists/

Social construct milk no more.

Anonymous said...

Why do commenters here keep associating the vagina with feminism and women? I have no idea what they could possibly have to do with each other. Unless maybe you are transphobic.

Anonymous said...

Eve Ensler is just another white woman

Not unless all white women are Jewish.

Anonymous said...

Ensler wrote an article in The Guardian (June 12, 2010) in which she mentioned that she is receiving treatment for uterine cancer."

After all that dedication to abstract vaginas, her own betrayed her so...


Sigh, so many know so little about anatomy.

A uterus is not the same as a vagina, and indeed, what they seem to be referring to in the Vagina Monologues is the vulva. The vagina is, i believe, that tube/passage that stretches from the vaginal meatus to the cervix.

Mr. Anon said...

"DJF said...

So feminists who keep on saying that people should look at woman as a whole person once again reduce themselves to being a sex organ."

Quite so. I remember when feminists were enjoining men to NOT objectify women and view them in purely physical terms. Now they deal in semi-pornographic performance art like "The Vagina Monologues" and slut-walks. If ever I get a chance to talk to a feminist outside of work (where it could get me fired), I'm just going to tell her: Hey, your feminist campaigns have worked - now, you're all just c**ts to me.

J said...

Could it be that those machistas that considered women as vaginas on legs, were right all the time? They are walking vaginas and they are asking to be seen as walking vaginas.

Mr. Anon said...

A few years ago, a young woman whom I worked with sent me an E-mail at work, with a flyer advertising a local performance of "The Vagina Monologues". I'm sure she was just doing what she considered to be her duty as a feminist. She was a nice girl who had been brainwashed by our awful public education system, so I didn't hold it against her. I instantly deleted it, as I didn't want "that" sitting in my inbox (...........now that I think of it, maybe I shouldn't use the term "inbox" either). But it kind of pissed me off: that she could send that to a man with absolute impunity, whereas if I had sent it to her, I could have been fired for sexual harrassment.

Anonymous said...

http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2014/02/when-writers-procrastinate.html

Anonymous said...

Stuff bush didn't do

Seems appropriate when vagina is ascendant.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

"I'd love to see a male parody of this crap, say "The Penis Monologue"..."

My crack writing team and I are on it. It's called Cock Talk.

Chicago said...

Doesn't seem there would be much of an audience for it. Spanish speakers in the US are overwhelmingly Mexican, followed by Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and others further south. Those groups are more into car chase movies than weird shows such as this. They also don't read anything; a bookstore in their neighborhood would go broke.

Unknown said...

I think Samuel Beckett wrote a play called "A Conversation of Penises." Five man-sized penises stand on a stage looking out into the audience. Complete silence for five minutes. Then the fifth turns to the fourth and says, "What the hell is this?" Silence. Then the first penis says "A bunch of pretentious crap. I'm leaving." And then he stands there for another five minutes. Curtains.

Anonymous said...

In contrast,in many areas of the US, esp. CA, TX, AZ, Spanish is the dominant language for service workers. A large proportion of them speak little or no English. When they come for social services (I work in a hospital)they expect to be catered to in Spanish.

Most normals don't deal with them in Spanish though. They're in the back flipping burgers, they're led by an English speaking foreman or crew boss, etc.

Anonymous said...

The Vagina Monologues’ has a way of putting it up in your face

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... (snort)... ha ha ... wait... sorry... excuse me... I was trying to say that this shows just how overly political our sexual discourse... excuse me.....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.........

Anonymous said...

"How come Quakers faded unlike Mormons?
2/14/14, 8:59 PM"

I dunno. Did Quakers isolate themselves? Conscript their young men into missionary work? Create a culture where those leaving the church are abandoned by their social network and sometimes family? Instill fear of the outside world? Seek to control access to information available to believers? Spy on members? These are all commonplace in the Mormon Church and apparently these practices work.

peterike said...

Because I love you all, here is actual dialogue from the "Vajay jay Monologues," only flipped to male. Sorry for the all caps, but the source text is all caps and I can't be bothered to change it.


AT FIRST, MEN WERE A LITTLE SHY,
A LITTLE RELUCTANT TO TALK.
BUT ONCE THEY GOT GOING, YOU COULDN'T STOP THEM.
MEN LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THEIR PENISES, THEY DO.
THEY REALLY DO.
MAINLY BECAUSE NO ONE'S EVER ASKED THEM BEFORE.
LET'S JUST START WITH THE WORD PENIS.
PENIS.
IT SOUNDS LIKE AN INFECTION AT BEST.
MAYBE A MEDICAL INSTRUMENT
"HURRY, NURSE, BRING ME THE PENIS."
PENIS.
PENIS.
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU SAY THE WORD,
IT NEVER SOUNDS LIKE A WORD YOU WANT TO SAY.
IT'S A COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS,
TOTALLY UNSEXY WORD.

... skips a bunch...

SEEING ALL THESE ENERGIZED, NOT-TAKING-SHIT,
HOT, HAPPY PENISES COMING DOWN THE STREET.
IF MY PENIS COULD TALK...
IT WOULD TALK ABOUT ITSELF LIKE ME.
IT WOULD TALK ABOUT OTHER FABULOUS PENISES
IT WOULD DO PENIS IMPRESSIONS.
IT WOULD WEAR HARRY WINSTON DIAMONDS,
NO CLOTHING.
JUST THERE, ALL DRAPED IN THE DIAMONDS.

... skip ....

WE FORGET THE PENIS,
ALL OF US.
WHAT ELSE WOULD EXPLAIN OUR LACK OF AWE,
OUR LACK OF REVERENCE?

.... skip ...

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 PENIS.
IT CAN ACHE FOR US AND STRETCH FOR US,
AND DIE FOR US.

... skip ....

WELL, I DIDN'T REALLY WANT TO SHOW PENISES...
IN THIS MOVIE.
I KIND OF RESISTED IT,
BUT HBO, REALLY WOULDN'T BE AN HBO MOVIE,
WITHOUT SHOWING A PENIS.
SO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO.
OKAY, WE'RE DONE.

Hey, it works!

Jonathan Silber said...

Stay after the performance for the All-You-Can-Eat taco shindig.

Anonymous said...

Faux-controversy.

The idea that saying 'vagina' is subversive is like saying it's 'courageous' to come out as 'gay' in Hollywood.

'Vagina' is radical when teen girls 'twerk' and when the internet is filled with all sorts of porny images?

Their real problem doesn't concern the vagina but the fact they have their heads up their asses. They've been passed by and rendered irrelevant by the culture, but they still wanna maintain the fiction of being at the cutting edge of sexual libertinism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fines_of_The_Howard_Stern_Show#Greater_Media.2C_Americom_and_Infinity_fines_.281991.E2.80.931993.29

" The FCC noted references of bowel movements, anal fissures, masturbation, the "Tribute to Vagina" segment from Stern's Butt Bongo Fiesta videotape, penises and a raunchy conversation with a Woody Allen impersonator."

http://youtu.be/hoS1MCF8AeI

Anonymous said...

We need open dialogue about all bodily orifices. For too long, this vital genre has been dominated by the genitals. There's another body part that is even more important than the vagina. But its story has been too ticklish to tell for too long.

Yes, I'm talking about the anus. I've written a six-act series of monologues in which people of all genders, races and creeds talk about their relationships with their poopchutes. A brief overview:

1. All The President's Piles. Wilford Brimley portrays Jimmy Carter in a reminiscence about his famous hemorrhoid surgery.

2. Who, Whom Farted? A Marxist perspective on those who dealt it and those who smelt it.

3. Transgressive Toots. An unabashedly feminist account of female flatulence

4. Changing Anuses, Changing Lives: A teen of irrelevant gender shares a nightmare of anal confusion followed by a dawn of anal certainty.

5. El Ano Colonial: A transgender Latina/o holds forth on Procter & Gamble and its monopoly on toilet paper in pre-Castro Cuba

6. Other Cheeks: A Palestinian refugee provides an unforgettable perspective on the Orientalist othering of the gluteus maximus.

It's booked at the Ann Arbor Experimental Drama Collective just as soon as Midwest Gear and Axle (defunct) clears out of their performance space.

Aaron said...

Relevant to the vagina monologues:

"My Vag" (Official Music Video)

Anonymous said...

Whorophobia the next big moral crusade.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-america-should-legalize-prostitution-2013-11

Whiskey said...

Somewhat OT or maybe on, Ellen Page has come out as gay (to no one's surprise) and is "challenging" Hollywood's "assumptions" about beauty and ... something.

Really, our elites are completely insane. Not even a bit sane.

Reg Cæsar said...

Vagina Monologues will be performed this weekend in Spanish and English


From Sleeper:

Luna Schlosser: I'm great physically. I got a Ph.D. in oral sex.
Miles Monroe: Yeah, they make you take any Spanish with that?

Anonymous said...

O/T - "New forms of discrimination, known as "neoracism", are taking hold in scientific research, spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture, according to anthropologists who spoke at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Chicago."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/science/experts-concerned-that-advances-in-genetic-sequencing-are-giving-rise-to-neoracism/story-fni0c0qq-1226828291896

Anonymous said...

Some claim that a normal distribution does not apply to performance as well:

http://www.bchrma.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/rb-the-best-and-the-rest.pdf

Harry Baldwin said...

Didn't Phil Robertson recently get into trouble for a Vagina Monologue, specifically a vagina vs anus monologue?

Anonymous said...

One longs for the day of Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir. At least they wrote books and acted normal. Now, trashy freaks have taken over.

Anonymous said...

My crack writing team and I are on it. It's called Cock Talk.

No, it's not. It's called The Micro Monologues.

Anonymous said...

No, it's not. It's called The Micro Monologues.

Hey anon, it's not all about you.

Anonymous said...

some years back the local NPR station in Pasadena heavily promoted a show titled "Puppetry of the Penis". The gay announcer was very enthusiastic.

Anonymous said...

Vagina monologues

then

pussy riot

then

cunt stunt

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2560242/Miley-Cyrus-performs-risque-routine-Bill-Clinton-impersonator.html

Gene Berman said...

Actually, there've been vagina monologists around for damn near forever, as evinced by:

"We set the till over by the shit-house on yonder hill,
Where young'n'old could grab a seat
And watch the half-breed sink his meat.

Now ell tried feints and tricks and stunts
And shunts unknown to common cunts
But as she sprung her every trick
The breed jest reeled out yards of prick.

The earth was scraped for miles around
Where Nell's white ass had
Dragged the ground ......

Gottlieb said...

Monologue of vagina = female masturbation. Vagina and the microphone. He!
I know, it do not have funny.

Anonymous said...

"Personally speaking, my children's births weren't accidents. In general, the higher the proportion of non-accidental births in your community, the better."

I enjoy your writing. Every once in a while you write something like the above. This statement has nothing to do with what he was referring to as accident of birth and you know that. My question is, why did you write this?

David George