We went to the Vagina Monologues at UCSD last night and it was kind of strange. Our primary motivation was that a student intern at Lea's job was performing and we went to see her. The last time we saw the VM at KU, I was pretty sure it would be the last time. Not because they are not great and powerful and all that but because it seemed to be getting a little old as each year went by. A little burnout. So, it has been 4 years since I last saw them and absence makes the heart grow fonder. It was really fun and these ladies did a great job. It was more dramatic and they were more theatrical, adding great physicality to it that I don't recall in the KU productions. But I have to admit it was also strange. No one I have taught was actually on stage, although one of my current students was a stage hand, but I see these folks very differently now.

At KU, even though I was older than most undergraduates having taken the scenic route through college, I was one of them even if I did not perform I took part in the event. Now I teach people their age and see them as so young. But they are adults and can talk about vaginas all they want. So it was a little weird. But good. It was also neat to be reminded of the fact that even though it is something "old" for me, this is their first opportunity to take part like this. It is a radical event and probably very life changing. It is always important to be reminded of that and it made me appreciate it even more.

There were these two young guys sitting in front of us and they appeared to get more and more uncomfortable as the show went on. My first response was to think, why be here if you cannot handle it and that they didn't need to be there if they were going to be so easily embarrassed. Then I realized that, almost as much as the young women, young men need to be there. They need to see it. They need to learn about how awesome vaginas are and how so many women suffer sexual violence in our world. These two guys were very shocked when at the beginning the emcee asked people to stand up if they had been or knew someone who had been a victim of sexual violence. Almost all of the women stood up. Men need to know that women's vaginas are a source of great pain and pleasure and that they are not just penis recepticles, even if a woman engages in heterosexual sex. Even though they were embarrassed, I hope that the experience helps them understand the women in their lives better, that they become better lovers and better human beings.

At KU we always had a Vagina Festival go along with the monologues complete with vagina cookies. I believe that these students should also have vagina cookies. Perhaps Lea can suggest it to the student she knows. My favorite little bit is the part where a lady talks about the clitoris as the ONLY organ in the human body designed purely for pleasure and that it has 8000 nerve endings in this little tiny bundle, fully 2x as many as the head of a penis, which is way bigger, too. So the absolute and relative number is bigger. Excellent.

Good times.