'V-Day' goes down

Saturday night, I found myself listening to thousands of women moaning in simultaneous feigned orgasm in Madison Square Garden.

The occasion was "V-Day," a celebrity-packed production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." Since 1998, V-Day has become an international movement, with the monologues being performed at over 400 colleges (including Princeton) around Valentine's Day. The proceeds usually go to women's shelters.

The Garden event was the mother of all V-Day performances. There, on one stage, stood Oprah Winfrey, Queen Latifah, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and a host of other celebrities. Glenn Close screamed the word "cunt" repeatedly. Brooke Shields '87 held aloft a vibrator. Rosie Perez complained about the "cold duck lips" of a gynecological speculum.

Oh, parts were fun.

But while the "Monologues" inspired a few laughs, I left the Garden disturbed by the philosophy behind V-Day. And while shelters could certainly use the money, I question if this is the way to raise it.

I realized fairly early in the performance that the "Monologues" couldn't survive without a movement. Sure, some parts were funny, but as a dramatic work, it's seriously lacking. Chunks are hopelessly juvenile. "If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" rivals a Barbara Walters interview for inanity. Moving subjects — like the Bosnian rape camps — were rendered clunky by Ensler's awkward prose (I swear I heard "My vagina is a waterfall..."). Ensler's opening, in which she says "vagina" as many times as possible, reminded me of a girl I knew in elementary school who used to yell "penis" a lot. It made her feel shocking without much effort. The "Monologues" allegedly "break barriers," but given the content of most women's magazines, I don't think talking about orgasms is particularly novel.

But saying "vagina" is harmless. It's the movement's philosophy that is problematic. Valentine's Day celebrates heterosexual love. V-Day, about heterosexual violence, says such love is not to be trusted. Man-woman sex does not come across well in the "Monologues." Women have bad experiences with men, then learn to have orgasms only through masturbation. The monologue featuring the all-Garden moan was about a lesbian sex worker. One disturbing tale recounted an alcohol-induced tryst between a 13-year-old girl and a 24-year-old woman. The experience was praised and the audience roared in appreciation. It was the loudest cheer I ever heard for child sexual abuse.

The most bizarre aspect was the strange juxtaposition of "Monologues." Stories of the victims of genital mutilation and of women suffering in Afghanistan and Bosnia were followed by Calista Flockhart in an extremely short skirt. What did her annoyance at unwanted attention have to do with these legitimate victims?

Over the course of the show, though, the whole philosophy came out. We all had red "rape free zone" ribbons on our chairs. The organizers claimed one-third of all women were victims of rape or domestic abuse. Why the inflated numbers? Why the attempts to expand the "victim" list?

Because the philosophy behind V-Day, and much radical feminist thought in general, is that male oppression is universal, and rape and domestic abuse are the tools used to keep women down. Hence, the man who punches his wife isn't an isolated brute who needs to spend time in the slammer to cool his heels. He's actually an agent of global oppression, in cahoots with the Taliban.

This was the thinking behind part of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (which V-Day encouraged us to support). While the funding for shelters was a noble goal, the bill also made rape and domestic abuse into federal civil rights violations. That is, rape and domestic violence are acts of discrimination on the basis of gender. Why? It's systematic, the activists said. The bill was law — until these provisions were declared unconstitutional (rape being a state crime). When the decision came down, Patricia Ireland of NOW said the civil rights penalties were the heart of the law. Why? While most of us see rape as a crime committed by horrible individuals, radical feminists see all men as potential or actual rapists. Catharine MacKinnon, for example, noted, "The major distinction between intercourse and rape is that the normal happens so often that one cannot see anything wrong with it." There's a broad movement to paint rape and domestic abuse as equivalent to lynching — acts to keep a whole people down. If one woman is abused, supposedly, others will feel less safe in their own marriages.

This seems strange. Men aren't organized. Rape and domestic abuse aren't political acts. They're criminal acts. Saying all men are potential rapists is like saying all women are potential prostitutes. Sure, we have the equipment, but few would put the equipment to criminal use. Can't we condemn the crimes without seeing them, as V-Day does, as part of some global conspiracy? No red ribbon will stop a real rapist.

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But so the thinking goes. If it's systematic, then we need as many victims as possible. Consequently, Flockhart in her skirt is added to the list, along with the most privileged women in America complaining that "My vagina is angry" because tampons aren't lubricated. So what if this trivializes real suffering, like that of the young African girl who ran away from home rather than submit to genital mutilation? I'm glad women who have suffered can speak about it, but painting rape and abuse as tools of systematic oppression doesn't help anyone.

It's an unfortunate philosophy, particularly for relations between the sexes. But this was the "Monologues" — alternating tirades against abuse with titillating stories about vaginas. As I said, the show's good for a few laughs, but I'm wary of the agenda being advanced under the guise of a good cause. Laura Vanderkam is a Wilson School major from Granger, Ind. She can be reached at laurav@princeton.edu.