The Vagina Monologues: 20th Anniversary Edition

by Eve Ensler, Jacqueline Woodson (Foreword by)

Overview

A landmark in women’s empowerment—as relevant as ever in the age of #MeToo—that honors female sexuality in all its complexity
 
It’s been more than twenty years since Eve Ensler’s international sensation The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-Day, the radical, global grassroots movement to end violence against women and girls. This special edition features six never-before-published monologues, a new foreword by National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson, a new introduction by the author, and a new afterword by One Billion Rising director Monique Wilson on the stage phenomenon’s global impact. Witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise, this award-winning masterpiece gives voice to real women’s deepest fantasies, fears, anger, and pleasure, and calls for a world where all women are safe, equal, free, and alive in their bodies.

Praise for The Vagina Monologues
 
“Probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade.”—The New York Times

“This play changed the world. Seeing it changed my soul. Performing in it changed my life. I am forever indebted to Eve Ensler and the transformative legacy of this play.”—Kerry Washington 

“Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving . . . both a work of art and an incisive piece of cultural history, a poem and a polemic, a performance and a balm and a benediction.”—Variety
 
“Often wrenching, frequently riotous. . . . Ensler is an impassioned wit.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Extraordinary . . . a compelling rhapsody of the female essence.”—Chicago Tribune

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399180095
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/09/2018
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	201,546
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Eve Ensler is an internationally bestselling author and Tony Award–winning playwright whose theatrical works include the Obie Award–winning The Vagina Monologues, as well as Necessary Targets, The Good Body, and Emotional Creature. She is the author of the political memoir Insecure at Last, the New York Times bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature, and a critically acclaimed memoir, In the Body of the World, which she has adapted for the stage and will premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in January 2018. Ensler is the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls that has raised more than $100 million for local groups and activists. She is also the founder of One Billion Rising, the biggest global mass action campaign to end violence against women in human history, which is active in more than two hundred countries, and the co-founder of the City of Joy, the revolutionary leadership center for survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

I bet you're worried. I was worried. That's why I began this piece. I was worried about vaginas. I was worried about what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don't think about them. I was worried about my own vagina. It needed a context of other vaginas-a community, a culture of vaginas. There's so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them-like the Bermuda Triangle. Nobody ever reports back from there.

In the first place, it's not so easy even to find your vagina. Women go weeks, months, sometimes years without looking at it. I interviewed a high-powered businesswoman who told me she was too busy; she didn't have the time. Looking at your vagina, she said, is a full day's work. You have to get down there on your back in front of a mirror that's standing on its own, full-length preferred. You've got to get in the perfect position, with the perfect light, which then is shadowed somehow by the mirror and the angle you're at. You get all twisted up. You're arching your head up, killing your back. You're exhausted by then. She said she didn't have the time for that. She was busy.

So I decided to talk to women about their vaginas, to do vagina interviews, which became vagina monologues. I talked with over two hundred women. I talked to older women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college professors, actors, corporate professionals, sex workers, African American women, Hispanic women, Asian American women, Native American women, Caucasian women, Jewish women. At first women were reluctant to talk. They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one's ever asked them before.

Let's just start with the word "vagina." It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: "Hurry, Nurse, bring me the vagina." "Vagina." "Vagina." Doesn't matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It's a totally ridiculous, completely unsexy word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct-"Darling, could you stroke my vagina?"-you kill the act right there.

I'm worried about vaginas, what we call them and don't call them.

In Great Neck, they call it a pussycat. A woman there told me that her mother used to tell her, "Don't wear panties underneath your pajamas, dear; you need to air out your pussycat." In Westchester they called it a pooki, in New Jersey a twat. There's "powderbox," "derrière," a "poochi," a
"poopi," a "peepe," a "poopelu," a "poonani," a "pal" and a "piche," "toadie," "dee dee," "nishi," "dignity," "monkey box," "coochi snorcher," "cooter," "labbe," "Gladys Siegelman," "VA," "wee wee," "horsespot," "nappy dugout," "mongo," a "pajama," "fannyboo," "mushmellow," a "ghoulie,"
"possible," "tamale," "tottita," "Connie," a "Mimi" in Miami, "split knish" in Philadelphia, and "schmende" in the Bronx. I am worried about vaginas.

Some of the monologues are close to verbatim interviews, some are composite interviews, and with some I just began with the seed of an interview and had a good time. This monologue is pretty much the way I heard it. Its subject, however, came up in every interview, and often it was fraught. The subject being

Hair

You cannot love a vagina unless you love hair. Many people do not love hair. My first and only husband hated hair. He said it was cluttered and dirty. He made me shave my vagina. It looked puffy and exposed and like a little girl. This excited him. When he made love to me, my vagina felt the way a beard must feel. It felt good to rub it, and painful. Like scratching a mosquito bite. It felt like it was on fire. There were screaming red bumps. I refused to shave it again. Then my husband had an affair. When we went to marital therapy, he said he screwed around because I wouldn't please him sexually. I wouldn't shave my vagina. The therapist had a thick German accent and gasped between sentences to show her empathy. She asked me why I didn't want to please my husband. I told her I thought it was weird. I felt little when my hair was gone down there, and I couldn't help talking in a baby voice, and the skin got irritated and even calamine lotion wouldn't help it. She told me marriage was a compromise. I asked her if shaving my vagina would stop him from screwing around. I asked her if she'd had many cases like this before. She said that questions diluted the process. I needed to jump in. She was sure it was a good beginning.

This time, when we got home, he got to shave my vagina. It was like a therapy bonus prize. He clipped it a few times, and there was a little blood in the bathtub. He didn't even notice it, 'cause he was so happy shaving me. Then, later, when my husband was pressing against me, I could feel his spiky sharpness sticking into me, my naked puffy vagina. There was no protection. There was no fluff.

I realized then that hair is there for a reason-it's the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house. You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. You can't pick the parts you want. And besides, my husband never stopped screwing around.

I asked all the women I interviewed the same questions and then I picked my favorite answers. Although I must tell you, I've never heard an answer I didn't love. I asked women:

"If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?"

A beret.

A leather jacket.

Silk stockings.

Mink.

A pink boa.

A male tuxedo.

Jeans.

Something formfitting.

Emeralds.

An evening gown.

Sequins.

Armani only.

A tutu.

See-through black underwear.

A taffeta ball gown.

Something machine washable.

Costume eye mask.

Purple velvet pajamas.

Angora.

A red bow.

Ermine and pearls.

A large hat full of flowers.

A leopard hat.

A silk kimono.

Sweatpants.

A tattoo.

An electrical shock device to keep unwanted strangers away.

High heels.

Lace and combat boots.

Purple feathers and twigs and shells.

Cotton.

A pinafore.

A bikini.

A slicker.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Introduction	xxiii
	The Vagina Monologues	1
	V-Day	127
	Join the V-Day Movement	173
	Acknowledgments	179

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guide
For "The Vagina Monologues" and issues of violence against women

1. The Vagina Monologues is based on interviews that Eve Ensler did with hundreds of real women. Is there a particular monologue or part of a monologue that you feel is relevant to your OWN life or experience?

2. Despite the fact that The Vagina Monologues is rooted in real people's experiences, are there any aspects of the "characters'" stories that don't ring true to you? Do you think the play reads more like fiction or non-fiction?

3. Which is your favorite monologue and why?

4. In her introduction to The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler writes "Vagina. There, I've said it. Vagina — said it again." The word "vagina" is used more than 100 times in The Vagina Monologues. How comfortable do you feel saying the word? Would you be willing to have "a vagina interview?" Do you think most women are comfortable talking about their vaginas?

5. The Vagina Monologues has been presented as a commercial production in many cities in the United States and abroad, sometimes with Eve Ensler as the performer, sometimes with trios of well-known actresses and personalities as the performers, and sometimes with more than a dozen female performers. Which manifestation of the play as a performance do you think would serve it best? And are there places in the world where you think the play would NOT be well-received? If so, why?

6. The Vagina Monologues has also been the centerpiece of hundreds of non-commercial events worldwide through its use in V-Day, a movement to stop violenceagainst women. For example, for three years, the V-Day College Initiative has been inviting colleges and universities to mount productions of The Vagina Monologues on their campuses on V-Day (Valentine's Day). Almost 500 schools around the world have participated in this project to date. ALL V-Day events use The Vagina Monologues as a tool to raise money and awareness to stop sexual violence. Proceeds from the events go to local, national and international organizations already working to stop violence against women. Do you think this is an effective use of the play? Where in the world do you believe such a production would be welcomed? Needed? Criticized?

7. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' 1996 National Crime Victimization Survey, somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes. Campus Outreach Services reports that every 21 hours on each college campus in the United States there is a rape. Morocco's Penal Code states that murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife (as well as the accomplice at the moment) if he catches them in the act of adultery. The Feminist Majority describes the inhumane situation for women in Afghanistan: Upon seizing power in Afghanistan in 1996, the Taliban, an extremist militia, instituted a system of "gender apartheid" that stripped women and girls of their basic human rights and effectively thrust them into a state of virtual house arrest. Women are prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative. And they are forced to wear burqas, garments that cover their bodies from head to toe with only a small opening through which to see. These are just two of many such humiliations and horrors that women suffer in Afghanistan. Women are beaten and often killed for failing to adhere to the rules that govern them. How aware are you of the problem of violence against women in your community? In your state? In your country? In the world? How aware do think others are?

8. Numerous organizations offer information and support to educate people about and to fight violence against women, including V-Day, the Feminist Majority, Equality Now and Planned Parenthood, among many others. Do you think people are aware that such resources exist and do you think they are utilized?

9. How do you think both men and women would benefit from reading or seeing the play? What reactions do you think people of each sex have to it?

10. Do you think the play is relevant to people of all ages and ethnicities?

Editorial Reviews

Probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade.”—The New York Times

“This play changed the world. Seeing it changed my soul. Performing in it changed my life. I am forever indebted to Eve Ensler and the transformative legacy of this play.”—Kerry Washington

“Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving. . . . Written with a bluntness that is nevertheless intensely lyrical, it is both a work of art and an incisive piece of cultural history, a poem and a polemic, a performance and a balm and a benediction.”—Variety

“Frank, humorous and moving . . . a compelling rhapsody of the female essence. Ultimately, Ensler achieves something extraordinary.”—Chicago Tribune

“Often wrenching, frequently riotous. . . . Ensler is an impassioned wit.”—Los Angeles Times

“Women have entrusted Eve with their most intimate experiences, from sex to birthing. . . . I think readers, men as well as women, will emerge from these pages feeling more free within themselves—and about each other.”—Gloria Steinem
 
“Eve Ensler is the Pied Piper. She is leading women and the world to a different consciousness of the essence of women.”—Gillian Anderson
 
“I feel my life has changed. You don’t just hook up with Eve, you become part of her crusade. There’s a corps of us who are Eve’s army.”—Glenn Close

From the Publisher

For some of us, a little vagina goes a long way. Most of us, however, are not Eve Ensler, the woman behind The Vagina Monologues. For Ensler, not even the limits of the human constitution can keep a determined vagina down. And that, in essence, is the point of this literary adaptation of her Obie-winning one-woman show. Assembled in seemingly random fashion from interviews with "a diverse group of over two hundred women about their vaginas," the monologues, their author contends, are for our own good. The intent is purely missionary -- to reclaim the much-maligned "vagina" for women the same way the gay community has reclaimed the term "queer."

It is with great pride and purpose that Ensler invokes the "V" word. Like a precocious child, she repeats those telltale three syllables guaranteed to get a rise out of the grown-ups. "I say 'vagina,'" she explains, "because I want people to respond." And they respond, she says, because they know they shouldn't. Since learning the word's liberating power for herself as an adult, Ensler has hardly tired of its cryptic joys. "I say it in my sleep," she boasts. "I say it because I'm not supposed to say it. I say it because it's an invisible word -- a word that stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt and disgust."

The Vagina Monologues is comprised of roughly 15 thematically linked pieces (the number varies depending on whether you count the "vagina facts," dedications, explanations and musings that punctuate the interviews). A foreword by Gloria Steinem attempts to connect the vagina with the core beliefs of world religions (i.e., Tantra's central tenet is man's inability to reach spiritual fulfillment except through sexual and emotional union with woman's superior sexual energy). Doubtless, Monologues suffers in translation from performance piece to text. But to help ease the transition, Ensler has appended a few paragraphs of context to most selections.

Two, "Jewish Queens accent" and "English accent," are introduced with a semblance of stage directions. Others launch directly into diary entries or unbroken lists of interviewees' responses to Ensler's questions. "If your vagina could talk, what would it say?" asks the author. "If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" "What does a vagina smell like?" The responses range from pithy to banal. "Yum, yum," "Oh, yeah" and "Is that you?" say interviewees who mentally dress their "sexy"- and "wet garbage"-smelling vaginas in everything from "a pinafore" to "a slicker."

The Vagina Monologues is by turns confessional and voyeuristic. It's hard to know, for instance, just how to respond to the tragic tale of a Bosnian rape camp survivor ("... they took turns for seven days ... smelling like feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me ...") when juxtaposed with a vignette about a woman who experienced her first orgasm in a hands-on tutorial called "The Vagina Workshop" ("I felt connection, calling connection as I lay there thrashing about on my little blue mat ..."). Ensler is, at the very least, egalitarian in achieving her mission. She treats such subjects as lesbian sex, birth, rape and child abuse with equal candor and respect. Whether her evenhanded treatment of such conflicting subjects shortchanges both is a matter best left to sex researchers and therapists. -- Salon

Sara Kelly

Ensler breaks taboos by talking, talking and talking some more—stripping fear and shame from what she celebrates here. It makes for quite a party. Funny, outrageous, emotionally affecting, and occasionally angry...THE VAGINA MONOLGOUES confront words to demystify and disarm them. In so doing, Ensler disarms the audience too.

A.P.

The most exhilarating part is, no kidding, her extremely virtuosic way with a series of orgasmic moans...Ensler, a writer-performer with a good-natured but seriously evangelical mission about this body part, must be enjoying her success in getting the word out on such a legendarily unmentionable, mythologized and misunderstood fact of life...

NY Newsday

If Ms. Ensler is the messiah heralding the second wave of feminism, and a lot of people think she is, it is partly because she's a brilliant comedian...The audience...was overwhelmingly adoring.

NY Times

Having been performed in 20 cities and on 200 campuses, the Obie Award-winning Vagina Monologues is here updated with testimonials and three new monoogs. Necessary Targets, which concerns violence against women during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has already played with all-star casts on Broadway and in Sarajevo. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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