I guess I’m hyper-sensitive to the V-Logs, being on a Catholic college campus (the target of the V-Day movement) and all, but I was surprised to see that so many people didn’t know what they’re all about!
I have read enough descriptions and excerpts from the play to recognize that they are thoroughly at odd with Catholic teaching on sexuality, though I must confess that I have not seen them performed.
NO, they are most certainly NOT acceptable for any Catholic. The objectification of women is apparent from the title; no aspect of the beautiful theology of the body is accurately represented by the play. Its only worthy ‘goal’ is combating violence against women, but by its very nature it does not accomplish that well at all.
Before recommending that others see it, you should probably see it yourself.
Or…I suggest you actually read excerpts from the play. The title, as brash as it is, is only a small indication of the intensity of the play. If you follow this
link, it will take you to a website of a group combating the showing of the V-Logs at the University of Notre Dame. It contains excerpts from the play to show its harm to people such as yourself, who are convinced that the V-Logs pose no real danger. WARNING: EXTREMELY EXPLICIT.
Just because something has the word vagina in it, doesn’t mean it’s dirty. Hey, here’s an idea let’s make it a normal word, just like, oh, say,* breast*. Everyone say it with me, vagina, vagina, vagina. See that’s not so hard.
I don’t have a problem with the word vagina. In fact, I don’t have a problem with appropriately expressed sexuality at all. I DO have a problem with reducing my personhood as a woman to my genitalia. I am much more than that, and to proclaim that I am only my genitalia, or to find empowerment in my vagina, is not only ridiculous, it is intensely counterproductive and against the Christian ideal of love–especially sexual love–as self-gift. Power has no place in sexuality.
The supporters of the V-Logs at ND last year wore shirts that said “Jesus loves vaginas.” How more crude and objectifying can we possibly get?
The Paulists are great priests. I really DON"T think they’d push for something that was against Catholic morals.
And there is the danger in any Catholic of any stripe supporting such a crude play. “Well if that good Catholic says it’s fine, then everything it proposes *must *be.” This is obviously not the case when one reads even a few pages of the V-Logs.
I’m skeptical as to whether the ‘anonymous’ nun on
bustedhalo.com was actually a nun. Incredibly skeptical. Don’t trust everything you read online.
To sum up the V-Logs, from the end of that article I linked…The play’s main goal is **not **combating violence against women in the least:
There are, to be sure, some passages relating to violence against women, which is hailed by apologists as the play’s main theme. To be specific, we note the following: 13 lines about a 16th century witchcraft trial; 14 lines about 19th century surgical procedures to halt womens’ masturbation (with one 20th century case); nine lines about a punch in the groin of a girl by a 10-year old; 15 lines about a rape of a girl by her father’s friend; and ten lines about the ending of the “tradition of genital cutting” in some places in Africa and the faking of the practice by one of the “chief ‘cutters’” – for a total of 151 lines in this 124 page play. To be sure, some pages are not full; and we might have missed some pertinent pages inadvertently. Still, the general proportions are clear and striking. Erase the passages celebrating homosexual, heterosexual, and autoerotic sex and the female sexual organ and there is no play left.
