The Vagina Monologues Read Free Page B

vagina monologues. I talked with over two hundred women. I talked to older women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college
    professors, actors, corporate professionals, sex workers, African American women, Hispanic women, Asian American women, Native American women, Caucasian women, Jewish women. At first women
    were reluctant to talk. They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn’t stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one’s ever asked them before. Let’s just start with the word “vagina.” It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: “Hurry, Nurse, bring me the vagina.”
    “Vagina.”
    “Vagina.” Doesn’t matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It’s a totally ridiculous, completely unsexy word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct— “Darling, could you stroke my vagina?”—you kill the act right there. I’m worried about vaginas, what we call them and don’t call them. In Great Neck, they call it a pussycat. A woman there told me that her mother used to tell her, “Don’t wear panties underneath your pajamas, dear; you need to air out your pussycat.” InWestchesterthey called it a pooki, inNew Jerseya twat. There’s “powderbox,”
    “derrière,” a “poochi,” a “poopi,” a “peepe,” a “poopelu,” a “poonani,” a “pal” and a “piche,”
    “toadie,”
    “dee dee,”
    “nishi,”
    “dignity,”
    “monkey box,”
    “coochi snorcher,”
    “cooter,”
    “labbe,”
    “Gladys Siegelman,”
    “VA,”
    “wee wee,”
    “horsespot,”
    “nappy dugout,”
    “mongo,” a “pajama,”
    “fannyboo,”
    “mushmellow,” a “ghoulie,”
    “possible,”
    “tamale,”
    “tottita,”
    “Connie,” a “Mimi” inMiami, “split knish” inPhiladelphia, and “schmende” in theBronx.
    I am worried
    about vaginas.
    Some of the monologues are close to verbatim interviews, some are composite interviews, and with
    some I just began with the seed of an interview and had a good time. This monologue is pretty much the way I heard it. Its subject, however, came up in every interview, and often it was fraught.
    The subject
    being
HAIR
    You cannot love a vagina unless you love hair. Many people do not love hair. My first and only husband hated hair. He said it was cluttered and dirty. He made me shave my vagina. It looked puffy and exposed and like a little girl. This excited him. When he made love to me, my vagina felt the way a beard must feel. It felt good to rub it, and painful. Like scratching a mosquito bite. It felt like it was on fire.
    There were screaming red bumps. I refused to shave it again. Then my husband had an affair. When we went to marital therapy, he said he screwed around because I wouldn’t please him sexually. I wouldn’t shave my vagina. The therapist had a thick German accent and gasped between sentences to show her empathy. She asked me why I didn’t want to please my husband. I told her I thought it was weird. I felt little when my hair was gone down there, and I couldn’t help talking in a baby voice, and the skin got irritated and even calamine lotion wouldn’t help it. She told me marriage was a compromise. I asked her if shaving my vagina would stop him from screwing around. I asked her if she’d had many cases like this before. She said that questions diluted the process. I needed to jump in. She was sure it was a good beginning. This time, when we got home, he got to shave my vagina. It was like a therapy bonus prize.
    He clipped it a few times, and there was a little blood in the bathtub. He didn’t even notice it, ’cause he was so happy shaving me. Then, later, when my husband was pressing against me, I could feel his spiky sharpness sticking into me, my naked puffy vagina. There was no protection. There was no fluff. I realized then that hair is there for a