The Vulva Monologues

The Southern Oregon University Women's Resource Center proudly presents a staged reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

Wow! I'd heard a bit about The Vagina Monologues and thought this would make for a great Saturday evening's entertainment for my 17-year-old daughter and me. We'd have a few laughs and maybe learn something about ourselves.

The theater was packed full, mostly with women of varied ages, teens to senior citizens. There were old and young hippies, gays, feminists, new-agers and open-minded mothers, all gathered together in the pursuit of genital anecdotes.

In the introduction we were told that Eve Ensler asked women 2 questions: "What would your vagina wear?" and "What would your vagina say?"

What? OK, so these questions were icebreakers to get women to talk about their vaginas.

The stories started. In "Hair," a woman talks about her husband insisting she shave her vagina. I was horrified. Shave a vagina? What are you shaving off a vagina? Wouldn't you need some kind of specialty razor, maybe a larger version of those mail-order nose hair trimmers? My god!

Then I realized she's talking about shaving the pubic hair from her vulva. I was catching on; these liberal women bravely standing up and talking about their vaginas in public to dispel the cloud of ignorance surrounding the female reproductive organs don't know that they're actually talking about their vulvas.

Just in case you don't know the difference: the vagina is the passage from the external genital orifice to the uterus. The vulva is the external female genitalia including the labia majora, labia minora, clitoris and vestibule of the vagina. They talk of reclaiming "cunt" but they can't seem to say vulva.

I started substituting vulva for vagina and the stories made sense. My favorite monologue, "My Angry Vagina," was funny and actually about the vagina.

At one point I wanted to stand on my chair and announce, "Listen to me, it's vulva, not vagina. You're talking about vulvas!" I wanted to lead a chant of "Vul-va, vul-va!" But I figured my 17-year-old would slink out and never speak to me again. I kept thinking I must be mishearing these people. When the performance was over my daughter turned to me and said, "Vulva."

Damn! Now I really wished I'd made my announcement to the masses. We were asked to purchase t-shirts, buttons and/or chocolate vaginas on our way out. We stopped to check out the chocolate and I wasn't disappointed. They were chocolate vulvas, not chocolate vaginas. I bought one for my husband, who had elected to stay home and miss the performance.

When I brought it back home, he immediately identified it as a vulva, not a vagina, with no prompting. A dark day for female twat scholarship - he doesn't even have one!

Sadly, he only got a few nibbles of it. He left the chocolate vulva on the kitchen counter when he went to work. It was dark, gourmet Belgian chocolate, and it called to me. I kept cutting off chunks until it was gone.

When he got home I had to tell him, "I ate your vulva."

He was taken somewhat aback.