V-Day

Yet another life lesson in how it's so not all about me. Not even remotely.

A few days before I was set to perform in the Vagina Monologues here in sunny Tampa Bay, Jane Fonda went on the Today Show to chat about this being the 10th anniversary of the VM and her role in the big-ass V-Day event in New Orleans next month. And then Jane said "cunt" on live, national television. And Meredith Viera looked exquisitely uncomfortable and blinked really hard a time or two. Then in the segment immediately following Jane's c-bomb, Meredith bowed and scraped and apologized for Jane's "inadvertent slip." What. Bullshit. Jane didn't slip. She said "cunt" and she meant to say "cunt." Cunt, cunt, cunt. That was it for me. If I had a shred of hesitancy left, Meredith's groveling apology eradicated it. Here's the thing: Meredith apologized for potentially offending anyone. No apology for the fact that this pejorative has been used as a weapon against women and girls for way too long.

Enywho...so the morning of the event John calls me to say that one of the cast members has fallen ill and could I read an additional monologue for him that night.

I asked which one it was, and he said “It’s the one that is based on the wide-spread and organized rape of young girls in Bosnia during the war over there.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he stopped.

There was a pause and he said, “Do you think your daughter would do it?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask her,” I said.

I gave the script to Schmoopie and she took it into her room, sat on her bed and read. She came out a few minutes later and said she would do it.

That night, when she rose and walked to center stage, I held my breath.

“My vagina was my village,” she read, her voice soft and sweet and soaked in the
innocence that she is at this stage of her life.

She continued. “My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing, sun resting, sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw.”

The auditorium was silent as she read. I heard a few gasps as the monologue grew darker and painted scenes of brutal soldiers and the rifles they used as tools for sexual assault, the horror of rape, the death of childhood and home and possibility, the violation of the vagina and all it signifies.

It was stunning.

There is still a lot to say about vaginas. I think that my daughter has a lot to say. And she and her vagina really haven’t even started getting to know one another yet. But they will.

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