The Vagina Monologues" is meant to inspire discussion and evoke strong feelings and opinions. As the cast of this year's Princeton production, we are glad to see that members of the University community are responding to the difficult and complex issues "The Vagina Monologues" raises. In the service of a full dialogue, we would like to clarify both how we understood the production's message and our intention in performing it.
The main idea behind "The Vagina Monologues" is that women should be free. Women should be free from fear when they walk down the street, any street, in a short skirt. Women should be free to explore their sexuality and their bodies. Women should be free from all kinds of violence, including ignorance. Women should be free, but they aren't. Even here, even now, there are hardships we must overcome.
"The Vagina Monologues" is performed to encourage communities to talk openly about things that are hidden, like sexual abuse, domestic violence and the suppression and perversion of female sexuality. In performing "The Vagina Monologues" at Princeton, we hoped to break some of the silence that surrounds female sexuality on campus. Too often in the United States, women are conditioned to ignore their sexual inclinations or orientation. Too often, a girl who engages in sex is deemed a "slut" while her male partner is congratulated on his "conquest." Women come to see themselves as vehicles for male pleasure, as passive sexual objects instead of powerful sexual actors. There exists a myth in many cultures that women should not be sexual beings. They should not enjoy sex, especially with each other and, furthermore, should not expect to enjoy sex at all (for more on this, talk to Dr. Ruth Westheimer). "The Vagina Monologues" attempts to dispel these myths. Any sort of sex in which one partner remains unfulfilled is not a beautiful union of minds or of anything else. All women have a responsibility both to themselves and to their partners to make sure they enjoy sex if they decide to engage in it. No more faking orgasms, no more dishonesty, no more self-denial and no more pretending to be some place or someone else. Relationships and families would be the better for it.
"The Vagina Monologues" has many flaws, far too many to enumerate here. It does not, however, reduce women to sexual objects or organs, as Nene Kalu, a member of the Anscombe Society, suggested in her guest column of Feb. 23. During the show, many of the vaginas depicted speak, feel and show other signs of sentience: "[My vagina] wants to travel, doesn't want a lot of company. It wants to read and know things and get out more. It wants sex. It loves sex."
The vaginas depicted are feeling and conscious beings that represent female sexuality. They are not passive things that wait, resplendent in their physical ripeness, to be plucked from a tree. They are sexual actors, not sexual objects.
"The Vagina Monologues" does focus on women's sexuality, which is admittedly only one component of the extraordinarily complex creatures we call women. Kalu expresses dissatisfaction with the failure of "The Vagina Monologues" to explore femininity in all of its manifestations. However, this was never the goal of the production. "The Vagina Monologues" is about empowering and inspiring women to explore their bodies. It's about shining light on a subject surrounded by darkness, fear and isolation. It's about breaking our collective silence. We must talk about our vaginas and ourselves, because if we don't, we risk living in captivity. If we continue to laugh, to cry, to talk, to scream and to love, maybe someday we will satisfy all the vaginas out there yearning to be free. Lindsey Hornbuckle '08 is a cast member from the 2006 Princeton production of "The Vagina Monologues" and writes on behalf of the entire cast. She is a sophomore from Wilsonville, Alabama. She can be reached at lhornbuc@princeton.edu.