Looking Good, The Adonis Complex, and The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues' Unusual Perspective on Rape
By Katha Pollitt
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2001, at 4:54 PM ETDear Chris,
I don't believe a 7-year-old boy or 70-year-old man, or many people in between either, could have written something about rape as convincing or insightful as "My Vagina Was My Village." The point of that monologue is not some blow-by-blow action with a broomstick. It's that the military gang rape destroys the young Bosnian girl's budding sense of sexual and romantic delight. It destroys her true self, and she knows this and has to live with it the way it's just a fact that the war has destroyed her village and her society. Furthermore, the destruction of her sexual pride and self-hood was the point of the rape. It was only yesterday that military rape was understood in this way, as an act of war--as opposed to (if one's own army) soldiers acting up, obtaining biologically necessary sexual relief, or being a few bad apples on the patriotic tree, or (if the enemy's army) being subhuman beasts.
The usual view of rape victims is that it's their fault, and even if it wasn't their fault, they are now permanently tainted, sexualized, damaged goods. That is why rape is seen as shameful in a way that other violent crimes are not. (Bosnian and Albanian rape victims were often rejected by their husbands or boyfriends and ostracized by their families--a phenomenon not unknown here in the United States.) "My Vagina Was My Village" breaks with that whole way of thinking about rape: What is destroyed in the speaker is not innocence or virginity or modesty or reputation--i.e., sexual reserve, which constitutes her sexual value to others--but sexual feeling and expression, her sexual value to herself. That is her tragedy. This is not the usual perspective on rape at all!
You mention Larkin's "Deceptions," Chris, a poem I also admire. But that poem, interestingly enough, does not depict a rape. The poem shows us an impoverished young girl who has been drugged and deflowered and is being kept prisoner by her attacker. She doesn't remember the actual experience. Her anguish is brilliantly described--"your mind lay open like a drawer of knives"--but without the epigraph (the girl's own words, as quoted in Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor") it would be hard to figure out what had actually happened. The poem's real point is about the rapist, who, says Larkin, is ultimately more "deceived" than the girl he lured to her ruin because his "desire" has only led him to "burst into fulfillment's desolate attic." The girl cannot be expected to care that she is "less deceived" than her tormentor, Larkin writes, but it is so. The poet supplies to the rapist the human understanding the victim cannot be expected to. You could even say that the real, if buried, subject of the poem is the poet himself, one of whose persistent themes is the futility of attempts, especially sexual attempts, at human connection and self-transcendence.
As I said, I admire this poem (although less than before I started analyzing it!) and all of Larkin's work, but I don't think it's the last, or only, or even truest word on the subject.
I have to write my column, so I'll leave you to your labors, but I can't sign off without saying that the scene that so thrills Erik and Chris--Glenn Close leading 18,000 women in a war chant of "cunt! cunt! cunt!"--did not actually occur. Some women, laughing and grinning, called out the c-word in unison, but it never took off. Most audience members just giggled. I just sat there, feeling rather out of it, as I so often do. Next year, maybe Jodi and Marjorie and I will go together and throw those free Tampax samples at the stage in Maenad-like abandon.
Katha
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The Vagina Monologues' Unusual Perspective on Rape
By Katha Pollitt
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2001, at 4:54 PM ETReader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: All right, calm down everyone. Let's just say, the Fray reflected the Book Club. Strong words, strong feelings, and a lot of comment on sex, relationships and vaginas. And on childbirth, some of it from those who are never going to experience it. Yes, that Natalie Angier post (below) did provoke comment. Yes, the views held were somewhat, but not wholly, gender-predictable. Yes, having an opinion on what women think during childbirth is apparently a valuable debating skill. Yes, we at the Fray keep remembering how much we enjoyed those tips on making grilled cheese sandwiches that came with the John Le Carre Book Club a few weeks back.
Some nice posts below. A good discussion on phallocentric writing started here. And it was a relief that all Goatgut wanted to tell us tell us was that it's Visa which is 'everywhere you want to be'; whereas Mastercard is 'priceless'.]
Chris Caldwell says:
"Or that poem about being in a room when a baby was born--which has nothing about a baby being born. The poem is all about the vagina--a really demented perspective, for anyone who has ever watched a delivery."
Demented perspective?!? Demented perspective??!! For the nearly two hours of delivering my kid, the only goddamn thing I thought about was my vagina, and my anus, too, because they felt like one and the same conduit throughout the ordeal. As Shulamith Firestone put it, childbirth is "like shitting a pumpkin," and for the average heaving vagina in labor, the baby counts for nothing until it has been expelled, ejected, dumped! Which takes forever! And then you still have to push out the placenta! Eve Ensler has it exactly right:
Childbirth is really about vaginas. Except when it's about assholes.
Chris Caldwell must have been watching a C-section
--Natalie Angier
(To reply, click
here.)
I think the Adonis complex is lodged firmly (excuse the pun) in the upper-middle class. The upper class can woo and succeed on money and collections alone. The upwardly mobile, however, need an extra edge. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong, but has anyone ever studied whether non-college college-aged women are as susceptible to eating disorders as those in college?
Btw: what's the problem with the Vagina Monologues? They may not work as literature, but I don't know of anyone who's ever seen them (I haven't) and not enjoyed it. I also understand that a couple of rapists and Bob the Curious are the only males that show up, but isn't the whole point that it is not about men? I mean, who but the most cynical of Hollywood producers would insist that some vagina-loving men be inserted to counterbalance the vagina-hating ones?
--Fletch
(To reply, click
here.)
Christopher Caldwell asks, "And what kind of sad person prefers power to romance?" Well, any person who has no power, or any person who has only a very indirect kind of power. Frankly, the power versus romance thing sort of smacks of the ethics versus a full stomach. Only the people who have the basics (and power is a basic for a human being, regardless of gender) have the time to focus on the nice things like romance. Is it sad that people lack these basics? You bet.
--Dea
(To reply, click
here.)
Jodi Kantor and Katha Pollitt seem to see The Vagina Monologues as simply a female counterpart to something that men have always done--publicly exploring their sexuality and taking pride in their bodies. But where exactly do they see all this male celebration of male anatomy and male physiological functions? (That's why I've always thought Steinem's "If Men Could Menstruate" essay was the height of silliness. After all, men can masturbate, but it's hardly something that has been traditionally celebrated in our culture.)
Yes, one can find some passages in D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer exalting the generative and creative powers of male genitalia. (In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett cites a hilarious Lawrence passage on the mystical powers of balls.) Still, this is fairly marginal stuff. Kantor cites Portnoy's Complaint and There's Something About Mary as male parallels of sorts to Monologues. But these works, in facts, are expressions of sexual shame, not of "penis pride."
Since I haven't seen or even read The Vagina Monologues, I don't know whether or not it has a lot of male-bashing...I have to wonder, however: doesn't it bother Kantor and Pollitt that the play celebrates an adult woman's seduction of a 13-year-old girl? The girl is even shown saying, "if it was rape, it was a good rape." No need, I think, to ask anyone to imagine what the reaction would be if this was an adult male seducing a 13-year-old girl...
--Cathy Young
(To reply, click
here.)
I take issue with the writers' assertion that women do not like the bodybuilder's body. The pictures to which the women so negatively reacted probably were of professional bodybuilders in full contest mode. Most men would never think that this level of size would attract many women. But show those same women pictures of professional fitness models, or Chippendale dancers, and the reaction would be quite different. These are men who are in reality very large and very defined, just not as much as the guys who do anabolic steroids for the whole off-season. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club and you know what most men in the gym are trying to achieve. Please do not tell me that women do not find it attractive. Since I have been working out significantly, my dating prospects zoomed through the roof.
Oh, by the way, the female orgasm plays can play a role in impregnation: the woman is more likely to be inseminated after an orgasm, so don't say that it has no reproductive function
--Bruce Garrison
(To reply, click
here.)
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This week, Chris Caldwell, Jodi Kantor, and Erik Tarloff examine three books about body image: Looking Good, The Adonis Complex, and The Vagina Monologues. Click here for a word on our format. To read this discussion from the beginning, click here. 
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: All right, calm down everyone. Let's just say, the Fray reflected the Book Club. Strong words, strong feelings, and a lot of comment on sex, relationships and vaginas. And on childbirth, some of it from those who are never going to experience it. Yes, that Natalie Angier post (below) did provoke comment. Yes, the views held were somewhat, but not wholly, gender-predictable. Yes, having an opinion on what women think during childbirth is apparently a valuable debating skill. Yes, we at the Fray keep remembering how much we enjoyed those tips on making grilled cheese sandwiches that came with the John Le Carre Book Club a few weeks back.
Some nice posts below. A good discussion on phallocentric writing started here. And it was a relief that all Goatgut wanted to tell us tell us was that it's Visa which is 'everywhere you want to be'; whereas Mastercard is 'priceless'.]
Chris Caldwell says:
Demented perspective?!? Demented perspective??!! For the nearly two hours of delivering my kid, the only goddamn thing I thought about was my vagina, and my anus, too, because they felt like one and the same conduit throughout the ordeal. As Shulamith Firestone put it, childbirth is "like shitting a pumpkin," and for the average heaving vagina in labor, the baby counts for nothing until it has been expelled, ejected, dumped! Which takes forever! And then you still have to push out the placenta! Eve Ensler has it exactly right:
Chris Caldwell must have been watching a C-section
--Natalie Angier
(To reply, click here.)
I think the Adonis complex is lodged firmly (excuse the pun) in the upper-middle class. The upper class can woo and succeed on money and collections alone. The upwardly mobile, however, need an extra edge. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong, but has anyone ever studied whether non-college college-aged women are as susceptible to eating disorders as those in college?
Btw: what's the problem with the Vagina Monologues? They may not work as literature, but I don't know of anyone who's ever seen them (I haven't) and not enjoyed it. I also understand that a couple of rapists and Bob the Curious are the only males that show up, but isn't the whole point that it is not about men? I mean, who but the most cynical of Hollywood producers would insist that some vagina-loving men be inserted to counterbalance the vagina-hating ones?
--Fletch
(To reply, click here.)
Christopher Caldwell asks, "And what kind of sad person prefers power to romance?" Well, any person who has no power, or any person who has only a very indirect kind of power. Frankly, the power versus romance thing sort of smacks of the ethics versus a full stomach. Only the people who have the basics (and power is a basic for a human being, regardless of gender) have the time to focus on the nice things like romance. Is it sad that people lack these basics? You bet.
--Dea
(To reply, click here.)
Jodi Kantor and Katha Pollitt seem to see The Vagina Monologues as simply a female counterpart to something that men have always done--publicly exploring their sexuality and taking pride in their bodies. But where exactly do they see all this male celebration of male anatomy and male physiological functions? (That's why I've always thought Steinem's "If Men Could Menstruate" essay was the height of silliness. After all, men can masturbate, but it's hardly something that has been traditionally celebrated in our culture.)
Yes, one can find some passages in D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer exalting the generative and creative powers of male genitalia. (In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett cites a hilarious Lawrence passage on the mystical powers of balls.) Still, this is fairly marginal stuff. Kantor cites Portnoy's Complaint and There's Something About Mary as male parallels of sorts to Monologues. But these works, in facts, are expressions of sexual shame, not of "penis pride."
Since I haven't seen or even read The Vagina Monologues, I don't know whether or not it has a lot of male-bashing...I have to wonder, however: doesn't it bother Kantor and Pollitt that the play celebrates an adult woman's seduction of a 13-year-old girl? The girl is even shown saying, "if it was rape, it was a good rape." No need, I think, to ask anyone to imagine what the reaction would be if this was an adult male seducing a 13-year-old girl...
--Cathy Young
(To reply, click here.)
I take issue with the writers' assertion that women do not like the bodybuilder's body. The pictures to which the women so negatively reacted probably were of professional bodybuilders in full contest mode. Most men would never think that this level of size would attract many women. But show those same women pictures of professional fitness models, or Chippendale dancers, and the reaction would be quite different. These are men who are in reality very large and very defined, just not as much as the guys who do anabolic steroids for the whole off-season. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club and you know what most men in the gym are trying to achieve. Please do not tell me that women do not find it attractive. Since I have been working out significantly, my dating prospects zoomed through the roof.
Oh, by the way, the female orgasm plays can play a role in impregnation: the woman is more likely to be inseminated after an orgasm, so don't say that it has no reproductive function
--Bruce Garrison
(To reply, click here.)