V*** Monologues and Catholic Universities

[gmarie21]

A woman who talks about womens issues with dignity (a great talk to listen to): lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/products/feminism_misunderstood

 

[Phemie]

Um, what is so wrong about the Vagina Monologues? No, really, because a lot of it is bringing awareness of severe human rights violations suffered by women around the globe. I’ve seen it, and they’re bringing awareness to how rape and domestic abuse is rampant in other countries. Have any of you read it or looked into it? It’s about sexual abuse, at least a good majority of it is. I’m looking at this site, and I almost never see anyone decrying rape. I’m a sexual assault survivor, and everyone pretty much ignores it. Sorry if I call it like I see it, but I think there is a lot more to worry about than how dirty it is, and look at how powerful it is.

Sorry, but it’s a stupid play, written by a woman who didn’t even know the meaning of the word vagina – Eve, come back to me when you know the names for your own body parts.

She glorified the lesbian rape of a 12 year old (although this girl has aged since the original script, I believe she’s now portrayed as 16).

The idea that young women have bought into this piece of garbage saddens me.

 

[aicirt]

Then they should do that. But they haven’t. It bothers me because so many people are raped and they don’t talk about it at all. Rape is naturally going to be a slightly vulgur topic anyway because of the nature of it. They’ve never talked about it at all, and especially as a teenager, when you are far more likely to be raped, no one is doing anything.

Really? Thirty years ago, a nun in our county started a homeless and battered women’s shelter. I think society is much more aware of assaults on women, girls, and boys then ever before. Rape of one’s wife is now considered a crime when once it wasn’t. Ditto for beating one’s wife.

A hundred years ago, a nurse working in Hell’s Kitchen spotted a girl tied to the front porch who was physically and sexually abused by her father. Children, at that time, were considered the property of their parents. The nurse persisted stressing the point that children should have the same rights as animals. She used the arguments for animal protection under the ASPCA to remove the girl from the authority of her father.

Read the paper or watch O’Reilly and there’s usually a campaign against some sort of abuse. One is the passage of Megan’s Law and the demand for pedophiles to register in a town. We’ve become aware that the elderly have been raped by careproviders as well as babies as young as six months old or younger. We know about the sex trade involving both women, girls and boys. We know that people actually fly to Southeast Asia to have sex with children. We know men get raped in prison. We know Tina Turner, and other celebs, was a victim of wife sexual abuse. We have been made aware of the date-rape drugs that are out there. I think many have talked and many have and are getting things done.

 

[TheWatcher]

Why the asterisks? I must have missed the announcement when ‘vagina’ became a dirty word.

You know, I thought the very same thing.

By this reluctance to use the word “vagina,” it seems like they should be something that women are ashamed of.

 

[Rascalking]

You know, I thought the very same thing.

By this reluctance to use the word “vagina,” it seems like they should be something that women are ashamed of.

It’s nothing someone should be ashamed of, but it’s generally not a word used openly at a restaurant or something.

Sure, it depends on the context-and in this context, I wouldn’t personally find it offensive-but someone else might.

I think we should err on the side of manners.

 

[Rach620]

Then they should do that. But they haven’t. It bothers me because so many people are raped and they don’t talk about it at all. Rape is naturally going to be a slightly vulgur topic anyway because of the nature of it. They’ve never talked about it at all, and especially as a teenager, when you are far more likely to be raped, no one is doing anything.

Both at my Catholic high school and Catholic university, we were able to openly discuss sexual assault in appropriate and constructive ways without the ‘assistance’ of The Vagina Monologues. The theology of the body and Catholic sexual morality in general takes a very, very strong stance opposed to the use and abuse of women, whether that be by rape, incest, pornography, abortion, or other forms of abuse. There is nothing magically helpful about using frank, disgusting words to talk about disgusting, violent acts. There ARE ways of talking about the same topics that the Vagina Monologues talks about without using crude terms and disgusting, unhelpful stories.

I went to Notre Dame, where the Monologues were touted as a necessary, awareness-raising performance that brought to light issues that were not openly discussed on campus. Thankfully, they are no longer performed there; after years of debating the issue, the play’s supporters finally realized that it was not accomplishing what they hoped it would. Especially as we had many authentically Catholic efforts at addressing violence against women and unhealthy views of human sexuality (the Edith Stein Project, for one example), the *Monologues *appear to be a gross afterthought.

Written from the radical feminist perspective that it is,the play offers nothing constructive to the CATHOLIC dialogue on violence against women besides stories of pain. Any concept of ‘redemption’ or ‘love’ found in the play is foreign to the Christian concept of love as total self-gift. Men are generally abusers or sex-obsessed, depending on what version of the play you’re seeing. And all forms of sexual gratification are acceptable for Ensler, as long as they are desired by a woman. Marriage is not seen as a good; children are not a blessing; sex is not a gift of self. There is really not much there which is constructive.

For all its imperfections, Notre Dame today is a good example of a place where students are really trying to address the issue of violence against women from the Catholic perspective. A few years back, some of the same students involved with the Vagina Monologues did interviews and put together their own monologues in a performance they called Loyal Daughters and Sons. Far from perfect (and even problematic at some points, IMO, but that just reflects our generation’s struggle with sexual sin), it is still a good deal better than Ensler’s play. The annual Edith Stein Project conference involves many speakers and panels of women from all walks of life who talk about vocation and sexuality with regard to the Catholic Tradition, theology of the body,etc.

A few years back, in the midst of the whole scandal of having the Monologues on campus, Eve Ensler actually came and spoke as part of a panel. Another speaker presented JP2’s theology of the body, and a student questioned her about it afterwards. She actually seemed surprised by what she heard, paused for awhile to think, and seemed struck by the beauty and truth of it and at a loss for words…before she fell back into the knee-jerk feminist position she’s held her whole life. We shouldn’t doubt the power and beauty of the truth, even in the face of horrific violence.

 

[Lethe]

I think VM is just plain uncomfortable and a bit pornographic to see/read, however, I’m going to stick up for it on one count:

She glorified the lesbian rape of a 12 year old (although this girl has aged since the original script, I believe she’s now portrayed as 16).

My goodness… The amount of people who have misread/heard that part of Vagina (why arent people on here using the word - its a medical term!) Monologues, it’s absurd! The girl isn’t being raped, she comments on how people probably view it as rape because she was underage, but that she consented to and enjoyed it (yes, she was drunk and underage, but the point is whether the victim sees it as rape, or whether she was actually forced which she doesnt seem to be…)

The line is: “… if it was rape, it was a good rape” note the IF. She’s contemplating other people’s views of rape, not saying she thinks it is rape.I’m not saying underage sex is right, but that this ‘rape’ is only rape due to the laws of the age of consent, which are very very rarely brought into action unless the underage victim does not consent.

And, I hate to say it, but lesbian rape is not even defined as rape in most places, unless there is penetration of some kind - a man doing what the lesbian does in that story would be classed as sexually assaulting the girl, not raping her.

 

[Rach620]

My goodness… The amount of people who have misread/heard that part of Vagina (why arent people on here using the word - its a medical term!) Monologues, it’s absurd! The girl isn’t being raped, she comments on how people probably view it as rape because she was underage, but that she consented to and enjoyed it (yes, she was drunk and underage, but the point is whether the victim sees it as rape, or whether she was actually forced which she doesnt seem to be…)

The line is: “… if it was rape, it was a good rape” note the IF.

Last time I checked, that’s called statutory rape.

And yet this formative sexual experience for an adolescent was portrayed as a healing experience for her. Disgusting. In any other circumstances (such as if the rapist were an older, creepy man), feminists would be outraged by the teenaged girl’s confusion/brainwashing/Stockholm syndrome. But no, her lesbian enlightenment is “good rape”! @@

 

[Phemie]

My goodness… The amount of people who have misread/heard that part of Vagina (why arent people on here using the word - its a medical term! One that ENSLER doesn’t know the meaning of as was painfully obvious in that explanation of what had propelled her to write this play.) Monologues, it’s absurd! The girl isn’t being raped, she comments on how people probably view it as rape because she was underage, but that she consented to and enjoyed it (yes, she was drunk and underage, but the point is whether the victim sees it as rape, or whether she was actually forced which she doesnt seem to be…)

This is preposterous. We teach women that their husband is abusing them if he says she’s stupid but a twelve year given alcohol and being sexually abused is OK as long as she doesn’t think she’s been abused. Would you feel the same way if it was a 40 year old man who’d done the same thing?

The line is: “… if it was rape, it was a good rape” note the IF. She’s contemplating other people’s views of rape, not saying she thinks it is rape.I’m not saying underage sex is right, but that this ‘rape’ is only rape due to the laws of the age of consent, which are very very rarely brought into action unless the underage victim does not consent.

And that makes it right?

And, I hate to say it, but lesbian rape is not even defined as rape in most places, unless there is penetration of some kind - a man doing what the lesbian does in that story would be classed as sexually assaulting the girl, not raping her.

 

[Havard]

I like Colleen Carroll Campbell’s article on this in the National Review:

“There is an antidote to the dehumanizing vision of The Vagina Monologues, and it is found in the very intellectual tradition that so many Catholic universities have abandoned. Based on Scripture, the thought of Jewish feminist and martyred Catholic saint Edith Stein, and the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II, the “new feminism” promoted by the late pope recognizes the beauty of sexuality, the goodness of the body, and the distinctiveness of women. It also celebrates the complementarity of the sexes and insists that true sexual fulfillment is found only in the context of committed, selfless, life-giving love — the kind of love God has for each human person created in His image.”

 

[Lethe]

Phemie, I don’t know if it’s ‘right’ as such. I know girls who had sex at 14, with males (not lesbians), out of their own free will and choice, and some may have regretted it, yes, but they weren’t coerced into it in any way, they just made a bad decision.

I do think it would be different to be statutorially (?) raped by a man than a woman, as an older man will almost certainly be stronger than the girl he is having sex with, so the imbalance in power is greater, and also the girl has a likelihood of getting pregnant and more of a likelihood of getting STDs, than if she was having sex with a woman. Also, it is different if there is penetration involved, in my opinion. Letting someone into your body is different from just letting them touch you on the outside, it is more vulnerable (not to mention the fact I’m assuming the girl was a virgin and so sex with a man would have probably hurt a lot more physically)

I’m not saying the scene is RIGHT, I don’t think it is, but I do think people just a couple of years under the age of consent (which differs in different countries anyway - in many places it is 14 or even under) are able to make decisions for themselves about sex.

None of the opinions I’ve stated above apply if there was physical force involved, emotional blackmail etc. The fact the girl was drunk probably does make it rape, but it’s not as black and white as that, as it depends how drunk, how it affects the girl etc - if she thinks she was able to make the decision, how can other people decide to call it rape (except, obviously, in circumstances when the person in question has not gone through puberty, or is much younger than the age of consent)

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Sorry, but it’s a stupid play, written by a woman who didn’t even know the meaning of the word vagina – Eve, come back to me when you know the names for your own body parts.

She glorified the lesbian rape of a 12 year old (although this girl has aged since the original script, I believe she’s now portrayed as 16).

The idea that young women have bought into this piece of garbage saddens me.

Agree,

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Lethe, a 12 year old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult. A drunk person cannot legally consent to sex.

Imagine it were a 40 year old man and a girl.

Or a 40 year old man with a boy.

The line, “If it was rape, it was a good rape.” is insulting.

Rape is not “good” it is evil, and molesting 12 year olds is evil.

 

[Rach620]

Phemie, I don’t know if it’s ‘right’ as such. I know girls who had sex at 14, with males (not lesbians), out of their own free will and choice, and some may have regretted it, yes, but they weren’t coerced into it in any way, they just made a bad decision.

I do think it would be different to be statutorially (?) raped by a man than a woman, as an older man will almost certainly be stronger than the girl he is having sex with, so the imbalance in power is greater,

Statutory rape has nothing to do with the man being “stronger” than the girl, a difference in strength to the point that consent is compromised. It has to do with a difference in age alone. From the perspective of the law, a minor CANNOT consent to sex with someone over the age of 18. Even if the adolescent/child says that they consent, it is the responsibility of the adult party to realize that they do not have the legal ability to make that decision.

Especially with the involvement of alcohol, it becomes even clearer that the minor could not have consented to any sexual involvement with this older woman. Depending on the state’s laws regarding rape (some exclude the possibility of female rapists), sexual assault charges are NOT outside the realm of possibilities, and I’d think that if any police officer or therapist with a clear head on their shoulders read this young woman’s story, they would seek to help her realize that this was NOT a healthy experience for her and that she really was victimized.

and also the girl has a likelihood of getting pregnant and more of a likelihood of getting STDs, than if she was having sex with a woman.

Rape laws have nothing to do with the “likelihood of getting pregnant,” and a lesbian is just as capable of transmitting an STD as a heterosexual male.

Also, it is different if there is penetration involved, in my opinion. Letting someone into your body is different from just letting them touch you on the outside, it is more vulnerable (not to mention the fact I’m assuming the girl was a virgin and so sex with a man would have probably hurt a lot more physically)

There might be a difference in the class of sexual assault if it does not involve penetration, but that doesn’t make it any less sexual, nor does it remove the consent problems that already exist. Penetration or not, it’s still sexual assault. And while I’m not incredibly well versed in lesbian sexual practices, but as a woman I would be mighty surprised if they did not involve penetration of some kind.

I’m not saying the scene is RIGHT, I don’t think it is, but I do think people just a couple of years under the age of consent (which differs in different countries anyway - in many places it is 14 or even under) are able to make decisions for themselves about sex.

And you disagree with the law on that point.

None of the opinions I’ve stated above apply if there was physical force involved, emotional blackmail etc. The fact the girl was drunk probably does make it rape, but it’s not as black and white as that, as it depends how drunk, how it affects the girl etc - if she thinks she was able to make the decision, how can other people decide to call it rape (except, obviously, in circumstances when the person in question has not gone through puberty, or is much younger than the age of consent)

It has happened plenty of times in the past where a man has been prosecuted for rape for having what both thought was a consensual sexual relationship with a teenager. Legally, a teenager is just not able to consent to sex with an adult. They can say they consent, but they do not have the legal grounds to consent.

All of this aside, the real outrageous part of this particular sketch in Ensler’s play is not the legal question. It’s the fact that a confused young woman was taken advantage of, involved in a disordered sexual practice, and that all of this was reflected on positively in the play. It is incredibly sad.

 

[RACJ]

Can anybody explain how a Catholic University can have the V*** Monologues play at the University or have advertisements for it on campus? I thought the bishops were strongly against this play.

Best,
fish90

Fish, some universities still call themselves Catholic to dupe and confuse the donors. Anyone who reads the script and sees something of value in it should be ashamed of how far they have strayed from Truth. VM is an abysmal disgrace, and women in attendance should be embarrassed. Women are made in the image of God, and their sexuality is a GIFT to be cherished, according to our Creator. :o Rob

 

[Eris_Discordia]

Fish, some universities still call themselves Catholic to dupe and confuse the donors. Anyone who reads the script and sees something of value in it should be ashamed of how far they have strayed from Truth. VM is an abysmal disgrace, and women in attendance should be embarrassed. Women are made in the image of God, and their sexuality is a GIFT to be cherished, according to our Creator. Rob

I found it powerful. I’d like to see Catholic Universities, and universities in general, decry rape that strongly. I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, I’m being serious.

 

[Eris_Discordia]

Lethe, a 12 year old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult. A drunk person cannot legally consent to sex.

Imagine it were a 40 year old man and a girl.

Or a 40 year old man with a boy.

The line, “If it was rape, it was a good rape.” is insulting.

Rape is not “good” it is evil, and molesting 12 year olds is evil.

A lot of people have a problem with that one, not just Catholics. I had an issue with it, too.

 

[fish90]

I found it powerful. I’d like to see Catholic Universities, and universities in general, decry rape that strongly. I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, I’m being serious.

The thing is a Catholic University can decry rape in a better manner. Arguably, the Catholic approach would be stronger than a play such as VM.

Best,
fish90

 

[Havard]

I found it powerful. I’d like to see Catholic Universities, and universities in general, decry rape that strongly. I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, I’m being serious.

You mean like the Edith Stein Project at ND? (Hi Rach!:shamrock2

Theology of the Body contains far more profound and beautiful messages about female sexuality than does the Vagina Monologues (I’ve seen them).

By the way, one of the sleaziest, most chronically unfaithful men I know - a professional acquaintance, call him Carl - loves the Vagina Monologues. Why? Well, according to him, liberal and feminist gatherings are where he’s able to meet the most willing sexual partners. Carl admits to avoiding conservative, church-going women like the plague, because gasp they respect themselves too much to get involved with him.

 

[Rach620]

You mean like the Edith Stein Project at ND? (Hi Rach!:shamrock2

Theology of the Body contains far more profound and beautiful messages about female sexuality than does the Vagina Monologues (I’ve seen them).

By the way, one of the sleaziest, most chronically unfaithful men I know - a professional acquaintance, call him Carl - loves the Vagina Monologues. Why? Well, according to him, liberal and feminist gatherings are where he’s able to meet the most willing sexual partners. Carl admits to avoiding conservative, church-going women like the plague, because gasp they respect themselves too much to get involved with him.

Amen to that, Havard!

Also, re: men who love the Vagina Monologues…A couple of years back a group of us walked out of the play, after the first monologue was completed. Sitting in the auditorium (we got there early in order to have seats close to the front) before the beginning of the play, it was clear that most of the college guys who were there were there to be entertained. They weren’t there to learn about the pain caused by sexual assault or to have their “awareness raised”. They giggled throughout the skits and talked crudely before the play even began. So much for respecting human sexuality–much less respecting women!

The atmosphere at the Edith Stein Project, or even at the Loyal Daughters play, where the issue is addressed from a Catholic perspective, respectful of human sexuality as a gift, is entirely different.