The Book Club

Ladies’ Rooms With Urinals

Dear brothers and sisters,

Couldn’t resist chiming in, even if I will render complete the impression that it’s a Woman Thing. I loved your dispatch, Katha, and I was also very grateful for Jodi’s shrewd observation that women don’t get to see many funny (as distinct from demeaning) representations of their sexuality. Most bulletins about women’s sexuality that reach the mainstream have a dread pall of earnestness or else a dainty, reassuring garnish of hearts and lace and flowers. I think Erik may have said it all in remarking, in passing, that he hadn’t heard the word “vagina” said aloud more than 10 times in his adult life. (You don’t seem to find this odd, Erik. Why do I have the impression that I haven’t gone 10 days of my adult life without hearing the word “penis”?)

I’m willing to believe that The Vagina Monologues doesn’t work very well as a reading experience. But I can tell you that it wasn’t the carnival atmosphere of Madison Square Garden that gave the play its pleasures. I saw The Vagina Monologues in a small theater in Washington, performed solo by Ensler, who was terrific–sly, funny, insinuating. Washington audiences are polite and deferential–the farthest thing possible from a delirious crowd–and it was not the least of the evening’s joys to feel the audience struggling to suspend its natural squareness. (A good measure of how much of an afterthought women’s private parts are in Washington can be found on the seventh floor of the State Department, where the secretary and other big cheeses have their offices: The ladies’ room has urinals in it.)

I thought it was uneven, but I still really liked it. I’m glad to hear that the male members of our little club are such hearty, highly evolved vagina fans (Erik is awed, and Chris yields to no one in his enthusiasm for the vagina. …), that they can see beyond the petit bourgeois shock value of hearing (or reading) riffs on vaginal whimsy and politics and insecurity. But I came away from their postings wondering how the word “vagina” is supposed to have gone from being unmentioned to being yesterday’s news–a cliché, a slick marketing ploy–without ever alighting in common discourse. I shared with the other female clubbers who have chimed in so far a sense that the play, as a joyful wallow in that middle ground, does actually take us somewhere we haven’t been before.

Best,
Marjorie