The Vagina Monologues The V-Day Edition | Page 2

more than the asymmetry of the organ that shares
its name—is probably a residual female genital symbol. It was reduced from power to romance by
centuries of male dominance.) Or sitting in aNew Yorkcoffee shop with Betty Dodson (you will meet her
in these pages), trying to act cool while she electrified eavesdroppers with her cheerful explanation of
masturbation as a liberating force. Or coming back to Ms. magazine to find, among the always humorous
signs on its bulletin board: IT'S10 O'CLOCKAT NIGHT—DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR
CLITORIS IS? By the time feminists were putting CUNT POWER! on buttons and T-shirts as a way of
reclaiming that devalued word, I could recognize the restoration of an ancient power. After all, the
Indo-European word cunt was derived from the goddess Kali's title of Kunda or Cunti, and shares the
same root as kin and country. These last three decades of feminism were also marked by a deep anger
as the truth of violence against the female body was revealed, whether it took the form of rape, childhood
sexual abuse, anti-lesbian violence, physical abuse of women, sexual harassment, terrorism against
reproductive freedom, or the international crime of female genital mutilation. Women's sanity was saved
by bringing these hidden experiences into the open, naming them, and turning our rage into positive action
to reduce and heal violence. Part of the tidal wave of creativity that has resulted from this energy of truth
telling is this play and book. When I first went to see Eve Ensler perform the intimate narratives in these
pages—gathered from more than two hundred interviews and then turned into poetry for the theater—I
thought: I already know this: it's the journey of truth telling we've been on for the past three decades. And
it is. Women have entrusted her with their most intimate experiences, from sex to birthing, from the
undeclared war against women to the new freedom of love between women. On every page, there is the
power of saying the unsayable—as there is in the behind-the-scenes story of the book itself. One
publisher paid an advance for it, then, on sober second thought, allowed Eve Ensler to keep the money if
she would take the book and its v-word elsewhere. (Thank Villard for publishing all of women's words
—even in the title.) But the value of The Vagina Monologues goes beyond purging a past full of negative
attitudes. It offers a personal, grounded-in-the-body way of moving toward the future. I think readers,
men as well as women, may emerge from these pages not only feeling more free within themselves—and
about each other—but with alternatives to the old patriarchal dualism of feminine/masculine, body/mind,
and sexual/spiritual that is rooted in the division of our physical selves into “the part we talk about” and
“the part we don't.”
 If a book with vagina in the title still seems a long way from such questions of philosophy and politics,
I offer one more of my belated discoveries. In the 1970s, while researching in the Library of Congress, I
found an obscure history of religious architecture that assumed a fact as if it were common knowledge:
the traditional design of most patriarchal buildings of worship imitates the female body. Thus, there is an
outer and inner entrance, labia majora and labia minora; a central vaginal aisle toward the altar; two
curved ovarian structures on either side; and then in the sacred center, the altar or womb, where the
miracle takes place—where males give birth. Though this comparison was new to me, it struck home like
a rock down a well. Of course, I thought. The central ceremony of patriarchal religions is one in which
men take over the yoni-power of creation by giving birth symbolically. No wonder male religious leaders
so often say that humans were born in sin—because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying
the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts
sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life.
No wonder the male priesthood tries to keep women away from the altar, just as women are kept away
from control of our own powers of reproduction. Symbolic or real, it's all devoted to controlling the
power that resides in the female body. Since then, I've never felt the same estrangement when entering a

patriarchal religious structure. Instead, I walk down the vaginal aisle, plotting to take back the altar with
priests—female as well as male—who would not disparage female sexuality, to universalize the male-only
myths of Creation, to multiply spiritual words and symbols, and to restore the spirit of God in all living
things. If overthrowing some five thousand years of patriarchy seems like a big order, just focus on
celebrating each self-respecting step along the way. I thought of this while watching little girls drawing
hearts in their notebooks, even dotting their i's with hearts, and I wondered: Were they magnetized by
this primordial shape because it was so like their own bodies? I thought of it