It was unlike any other Thursday eve, I will admit. On Thursday, October 23, 2014, I joined several friends from our women’s group—we call ourselves Lion-Hearted Women—for a fundraiser of the dramatic reading of “The Vagina Monologues” written by Eve Ensler.
Nothing I thought I knew about this production could have prepared me for how shocking the evening would be. My heart physically hurt as we heard about unforgivable acts of female genital mutilation (classified by the World Health Organization into four major types):
- Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals) and, in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris).
- Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are “the lips” that surround the vagina).
- Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.
- Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.
How can human beings do such horrible acts to innocent young women?
The whole thing was not so dark. I also laughed so hard my sides ached as one of our own Lion-Hearted Women was performing. My broken heart literally swelled back to life with pride to witness a woman with over nine decades of life experience as a woman proudly belting out a cacophony of moans. Most memorable for me are the African-American Moan, the Machine Gun Moan, and the Triple Orgasm Moan.
It would be an accurate confession to mention that I think every emotion I could have had was activated big time during those two hours. As someone who has been late coming to love my own body, I will always treasure the monologue about the woman who came to love her vagina as it was seen through the eyes of an ordinary man named Bob:
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”
“You saw that there?” I said.
It was like he read my palm.
“I saw that,” he said, “and more, much much more.”
He stayed looking for almost an hour as if he were studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes, but it was my vagina. In the light I watched him looking at me and he was so genuinely excited, so peaceful and euphoric, I began to get wet and turned on. I began to see myself the way he saw me. I began to feel beautiful and delicious—like a great painting, or a waterfall. Bob wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t grossed out. (Excerpt from “The Vagina Monologues,” written by Eve Ensler.)
I do not share this detail of the presentation to be lewd or profane. I share it to encourage every woman (and every man) to view ourselves as sacred expressions of the divine. How much more respectful and joyful and kind and compassionate we can all be as we are able to do that. We can all learn that from Bob.
Genuine appreciation for the created can expand from one man seeing one body part of one woman to all humans seeing beauty in divinity everywhere we look.
Let’s start a new greeting that begins by looking (really, deeply, looking) and saying to one another: “You’re so beautiful. You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”
Maybe this will help stop the violence against women (and men and wolves and trees)….
