Why are vaginas talking?

What, you may ask, are "The Vagina Monologues"? They seem to turn up on this campus every February like clockwork, but if you haven't seen the show, the sudden proliferation of this often shushed word may be quite perplexing.

"The Vagina Monologues" was written based on hundreds of interviews compiled by Eve Ensler and is now is now performed annually by women around the world as a part of the global V-Day campaign to end violence against women and girls (V for Valentine or Vagina ... ). Violence in this context means a lot of different things: rape, rape as a war crime, assault/battery, sexual harassment, stalking, female genital mutilation, female infanticide, honor killing, acid attacks, dowry deaths and bride burnings, incest and sexual slavery. V-Day has spread worldwide and catalyzes efforts to end the violence suffered predominantly by women because of their sex or gender. More information on the campaign can be found at www.vday.org.

I think "The Vagina Monologues" also delves into another kind of violence: the relationship that many women have with their own vaginas. Take a deep breath — I know that's kind of an odd thought, but ruminate on it a bit. Guys get to talk about their penises a lot and publicly take plenty of pride in them if they want. Generally, the world pays attention to penises. The vagina, on the other hand, has not always been as lucky. This has always grabbed me as a unifying theme of the interviews: society does not celebrate the vagina — in fact, many vaginas are ignored, mutilated or violated. "The Vagina Monologues" brings vaginas front and center to celebrate them and mourn the way they have been and are often still treated. Truly ending violence against women and girls means changing our ongoing social rejection of the vagina as well as the violent practices already mentioned.

Some criticize the monologues because of its focus on the vagina, claiming that the show defines femininity and womanhood as something purely sexual. This is not the case. Rather, the monologues illuminate the fact that many women are cut off or cut themselves off from their vaginas emotionally. As a result, they aren't able to positively incorporate sexuality as a part of their own femininity. Women who have been taught not to think of their vaginas as a part of themselves, to be ashamed of their vaginas, or to associate them with abuse or pain have unequivocally been robbed of one aspect of their womanhood. Isn't it sad that so many women go through their lives hating their own vaginas? So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the message: love the vagina — it is fairly amazing. As declared in the final monologue, the vagina can make sacrifices for us, forgive us and repair us, change its shape to let us in and expand to let us out. It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bring us into this difficult, wondrous world. Vaginas are magnificent.

"The Vagina Monologues" promises a night of fun, touching, goofy, sad and humorous theater. If you've seen it before, come again. And if the title freaks you out, I encourage you to come anyway, even if you feel slightly uncomfortable — then ask yourself why it should be that the word vagina can be so uncomfortable. It used to freak me out, but I've changed my mind. After all, the vagina played a pretty important role in my life: I came out of one 22 years ago.

"The Vagina Monologues": Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Frist Film Performance Theatre at 8 p.m. Katy Lankester is a cast member from the 2007 Princeton production of "The Vagina Monologues" and writes on behalf of the entire cast. She is a junior from Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. She can be reached at klankest@princeton.edu.