The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could!

The house lights went down and the stage lights rose brightly; 20 women all dressed in red and black.  Positioned eloquently across the stage, the first word from the women’s mouths was VAGINA.  The word vagina would have to be one you were comfortable hearing as it was said hundreds of times in the short hour and a half that I sat there.  Welcome to the Vagina Monologues; sponsored by the California State University, Chico Associated Students Women‘s Center.

If your vagina could talk, what would it say?  If your vagina could wear clothes, what would wear?  These questions and many more were answered on Friday, February 29^th, at the Bell Memorial Union Auditorium.  However, before we continue further with what was said and talked about that night, let’s further explore exactly what Vagina Monologues is all about.  Vagina Monologues is an Obie Award-winning episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the off-Broadway Westside Theatre after a limited run at HERE Arts Center in 1996. Ensler originally starred in the production, playing all the various women who share their views about their vaginas with the audience; when she left the play it was recast with three celebrity monologists. The production has been staged internationally, and a television version featuring Ensler was produced by cable TV channel HBO. In 1998, Ensler launched V-Day, a global non profit that has raised over $50 million dollars for local anti-violence groups through benefits of The Vagina Monologues. 

Now that we have a brief background of the history of Vagina Monologues, let’s head back to the experience here in Chico. The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read and acted out by a varying number of women.  The woman that read the monologues were both Chico State Students and community members.  Every monologue that was done somehow related to the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the female body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality.  Some of the titles of monologues that I experienced included: 

These monologues were tastefully done, and with great intent to help brings awareness of womans empowerment and woman’s violence.  The entire evening benefited the following organizations:  Catalyst Domestic Violence Services, The Woman In Need Fund, Rape Crisis Intervention and Prevention, and the AS Women’s Center.   I highly recommend anyone to go to this event in the future.

• I was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me:  a chorus describing many young women’s and girls’ first menstrual period.
• My Angry Vagina:  a woman humorously rants about injustice brought against the vagina, such as tampons, douches, and the tools used by gynecologists.
• The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could:  a woman recalls memories of traumatic sexual experiences in her childhood and self-described “positive healing” sexual experiences in her adolescent years with an older woman.
• The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy:  a dominatrix for women discusses the intriguing details of her career and her love of giving women pleasure.  At the end of the monologue, the woman literally climaxes with a vocal demonstration of an array of different types of orgasms women experience.
• Because He Liked to Look At It:  a woman describes how she had thought her pubic area was ugly and had been embarrassed to even think about it, but changed her mind because of a sexual experience with a man named Bob who like to spend hours looking at it.
• I Was There in The Room:  a monologue in which a woman describes the birth of her granddaughter.