The Vagina Monologues Revisited

Remembering V-Day

A young nun defends The Vagina Monologues

By Sr. Mary Eve

[Sr. Mary Eve, 36, writes under a pseudonym.  She is a member of a community of Catholic sisters who are known for their more traditional living of religious life. She has served in various forms of ministry in several cities in the United States and has carried out extensive research in the area of the history of women religious, the history of the concept of women in western thought, and other issues regarding women’s contribution in the Catholic Church and in society in general.]

It was Christmas 2004 and I was opening a gift from a friend of mine. We had met in an undergraduate psychology class a few years earlier—she, the professor, I, the student. Our lives are as different as night from day. She is an un-churched, thirty-something, feminist college professor. I am a “professional” Catholic who “wears my religion on my sleeve”—that is, for almost twenty years I have been a happily professed member of a traditional community of women religious whose members still wear habits, live in community and carry out the same mission. My friend’s gift? The Vagina Monologues.

Through the years, we had discussed lots of things—sexual issues among them. I had never dreamed of owning a copy of the Monologues but I accepted the gift as her way of sharing with me something that she was obviously able to identify with. I have to admit that Eve Ensler’s provocative play was not on the top of my reading list but with the controversy that continues to accompany performances of it on Catholic campuses I decided to finally read it for myself.

What I discovered was how much I too was able to relate to it as a woman. Unfortunately, rather than valuing the Monologues as a presentation of women’s understanding of their bodies, some members of the Church have taken a morally defensive stance. I am afraid that this narrow understanding is also the way many members of my own community would approach the play. Any public discourse on the matter would be highly unapproved of. That anyone in our order would own a copy of it, relate to it or even welcome the experiences and insight of the women contained in The Vagina Monologues would be deemed improper for someone who has taken a vow of chastity. Therefore because of my community affiliation I need to remain anonymous.

The First V-Day

In a sense, the vagina made its pop culture debut through The Vagina Monologues on February 14, 1998—the first V-Day—with a performance in New York City. The show—it’s actually a collection of vignettes contributed by various women and organized by Ensler—includes comic topics such as “What your vagina would wear if it could get dressed,” “What your vagina would say if it could talk”; biological topics such as menstruation, childbirth and orgasm; horrific topics such as rape; and topics that the institutional Church has a problem with such as masturbation, and lesbian sex.

[To read the rest of this very interesting and thoughtful essay, click here.]

[HT:  dotCommonweal.]