Copyright 2002, 2009 Carolyn Gage

Originally published in Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of

Discussion and Activism, Summer, Northampton, MA, 2002.

A Lesbian Looks at The Vagina Monologues

Many lesbians have been deeply offended by The Vagina Monologues’

representation of lesbians, and I am one of them . . .

There is a vignette about an adult lesbian perpetrator who “initiates” a child

into lesbian sex. Even more confusing, the monologue is delivered by the
victim, who tells us she is a survivor of incest by male perpetrators, but that
her experience of this seductive lesbian perpetration was empowering. This
is really offensive to those of us who are students of lesbian history, and
who remember that it was lesbian energy, lesbian initiative that fueled the
movement against violence against women. We remember the lesbians
who founded the rape crisis lines, who set up the first battered women’s
shelters, who broke and continue to break the silence about incest and
child sexual abuse. We remember the lesbians in more recent decades
who stood up courageously to our “liberal” gay brothers, demanding that
they take a position on pedophilia and insisting our queer coalitions had no
place for the notorious North American Man-Boy Love [sic] Association. We
remember how often it was us who were excluded. That Ensler felt it was
appropriate to select a story that is so atypical of lesbian behavior, so
potentially damaging to survivors and our credibility, and so insensitive to
the stereotypes that fuel homophobia is inexcusable.

I understand that Ensler changed the age of the child from the original
fourteen to sixteen, but that’s still statutory rape. Also, the term used for the
vulva indicates that the child and perpetrator are African American. I
wonder if she would be so enthusiastic about a white middle-class incest
survivor being perpetrated on by a white middle-class adult?

Playwright Eve Ensler also has a vignette that valorizes lesbian prostitution
and sado-masochism. This is especially offensive, because she is not
lesbian and does not know first-hand how much the issue of sado-
masochism/bondage-and-discipline have torn apart our community. This is
a complicated conversation that requires deep and respectful listening on
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both sides, as well as trauma literacy. Ensler’s monologue offers a one-
sided presentation, humorously focused on the delights of making women
“moan.” The playwright does not make any mention at all of the actual
“services” the dominitrix renders: the violent and misogynist epithets, the
slapping, biting, whipping, hitting, burning, cutting, the scenarios involving
racism, anti-Semitism, violence against women, incest . . . the fisting, the
bondage, etc. etc. That would be to introduce the complexity at the
expense of audience titillation.

Ensler used to have one lesbian vignette in which the character actually
talked about a woman just loving another woman’s genitals. This was
tacked on at the end, and Ensler added a preface in her own voice as
playwright, stating that a lesbian friend had insisted she add it and
apologizing if it offended anyone! No such preface was needed for her
characterizing of lesbian perpetration, prostitution, and sado-masochism. I
understand that this vignette about healthy lesbian love has now been
removed entirely from recent productions.

Many of us were offended by Ensler’s constant inaccurate use of the word

“vagina” when she meant “vulva,” an ignorant and misleading misnomer
that smacks of heterosexism. The vagina is of primary importance to
heterosexual men in their sex act, which involves penetration. Hard to
believe that a woman in the 1990’s could still have been confusing vulvas
with vaginas. The focus on the vagina, with its relative lack of nerve
endings, as a passage for penises and babies, erases the clitoris as the
primary sex organ for women. The myth of the vaginal orgasm has been a
result of defining women’s genitalia based on what pleases men, and this
myth, which has caused so many women to deny our own needs and view
ourselves as sexually inadequate, has been tough enough to counter, even
with three decades of feminist research. The last thing women need is a
so-called feminist play reinstating the vagina as the primary organ defining
our sexuality.

Lesbians note that the title of the play, The Vagina Monologues, is
emblematic of the kind of mind-body split that has caused Ensler to
confuse the vulva with the vagina. The title suggests a disembodied vagina
talking, and the publicity campaigns make the most of this, depicting a
microphone on an empty stage underneath the words “vagina” and
“monologue”—as if a giant vagina is going to step out on the stage and
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start talking. Some producers have made a pornographic play on the word
“vagina,” by using the slogan “Spread the word” under the title.

Finally, many lesbians were offended by the vignette where a man who
coerces a woman sexually is depicted as healing her. He pressures the
woman to allow him to stare at her vulva for ten minutes with the lights on,
even though she is very articulate about her discomfort with this request.
He persists in pressuring her, and she gives in. The playwright would have
us believe the man loves her body more than she does, and this is what
heals her. What a frightening role model for women—suggesting that we
should not trust our own boundaries or honor our comfort levels in sex! If
we do, we might be missing an opportunity for healing ourselves of our
uptightness (frigidity?). In fact, many women in situations where sexual
pressure is involved, have learned to dissociate from their own discomfort,
pain, or humiliation and identify with pleasing their partners. This is not
healing, but syndrome. Ensler’s monologue sends a very wrong message:
“No shouldn’t mean no.”

This vignette not only disrespects a woman’s knowledge of her needs and
her right to her process, but it also valorizes a male behavior that objectifies
and fetishizes the vulva. As one lesbian audience member noted, “I’ll bet
he does love vulvas… probably keeps jars of them at home.”

The intersex monologue, which I understand has been removed from

recent versions of the play, raised international protests in its defense of
female genital mutilation, which, in the monologue is unapologetically,
explicitly for the purpose of making the girl acceptable to a male partner at
some future time.

The heterosexism, the male protectionism, the pervasive euphemizing of

pornographic and perpetrating acts, and the attack on intersex people—all
of these are present in The Vagina Monologues. Lesbians have been
celebrating the vulva, and especially the clit, for three decades. Lesbian
homes are filled with Tee Corinne’s photos, with Georgia O’Keefe’s flowers,
with Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich’s poems about vulvas, celebrating and
reclaiming our bodies and our sexuality. The Vagina Monologues is a poor
imitation, a heterosexist appropriation, of lesbian culture as it relates to
women’s genitals. Ensler’s intentional distortion and misrepresentation of
lesbian relationships is inexcusably commercial, pandering to a
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heterosexist culture’s salacious fantasies about women who love each
other.

I understand that The Vagina Monologues is raising all kinds of money all
over the world for wonderful feminist projects. I understand that it is
drawing in mainstream audiences who would never set foot in feminist or
lesbian theatres. I understand that for many women it represents a
tremendous breaking of taboos and shattering of silence about their bodies.
And I also understand that many lesbians have supported and also even
performed in it.

My own understanding of lesbian history—and my own experience—tell me

that lesbian erasure and marginalization are often presented by
mainstream, heterosexist feminists as expedient for the greater good. We
are told to table our agendas, to ride in on the coattails of more socially
acceptable, less controversial movements. My understanding of lesbian
history and my own experience also tell me that this does not serve
lesbians well at all. I believe that we should continue to challenge work like
The Vagina Monologues and also continue to seek out and nurture our own
artists, our own plays, and our own cultures.

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Carolyn Gage is a lesbian playwright and performer. The author of more
than fifty-five plays, she has also authored eight books on lesbian theatre.
In 2009, she won the top LGBT book award in theatre, the Lambda Literary
Award. She tours internationally in her work, lecturing and offering
workshops on lesbian culture and history.