The Monologues: Response to Michael

In response to Michael's question about the debate at Notre Dame about sponsoring a production of the "Vagina Monologues", here is a link to the address that Fr. Jenkins delivered to faculty a few days ago, outlining some of his concerns and questions.  Here is an excerpt, which might be relevant:

The Vagina Monologues has been performed on campus for four consecutive years. The work is presented as interviews with, which become monologues by, women about their vaginas. As the work presents them, such monologues take place in a context in which women have not spoken about their sexual organs at all, or have spoken only in euphemisms. Their thoughts about and emotions concerning them are generally negative, and often associated with traumatic, and sometimes violent memories. These monologues are explicit and graphic. Through such frank talk about their sexual organs, experiences, and desires, these women are portrayed as coming to a more positive, more accepting, and indeed a celebratory attitude toward their sexual organs, their own sexuality, and their identity as women. Through the performance of the play, the narrator hopes, a community and even a culture might be created in which such positive attitudes are fostered. Central to the goal of fostering such a culture is the organized resistance to all forms of violence against women. The V-Day efforts each year - the day on which the Vagina Monologues is performed on campus - is a movement for the elimination of violence against women.

There are many laudable goals associated with the performance of this work. Among them are that women have a positive, accepting attitude of their own bodies, that they see their sexuality as a gift that is to be cherished, that they take pride in their identity as women, and that they form communities which will support such attitudes. The most urgent and laudable goal of all is the elimination of violence against women, which I personally and this university as a whole unequivocally support.

The concern that I and many others have is that in the Vagina Monologues discussion of female sexuality, and in the community and culture it strives to create, there is no hint of central elements of Catholic sexual morality. The work contains graphic descriptions of homosexual, extra-marital heterosexual, and auto-erotic experiences. There is even a depiction of the seduction of a sixteen year-old girl by an adult woman. The experiences are often portrayed as leading the characters to the sort of positive embrace of the woman's body, sexuality, and self that the narrator wants to encourage. Yet these portrayals stand apart from, and indeed in opposition to, the view that human sexuality finds its proper expression in the committed relationship of marriage between a man and a woman that is open to the gift of procreation. Moreover, the repeated performance of the play and the publicity surrounding it suggest that the university endorses certain themes in the play, or at least finds them compatible with its values. Despite the many laudable goals of those who support this performance, I find problematic that the university continues to sponsor annual performances of this play.