The Vagina Monologues

The narrator shares a story about her husband, who made her shave her vagina. She describes the discomfort of shaving yet continues to do so because she hopes that doing so will make her husband stop cheating. Her marital counselor tells her to sacrifice her needs to fulfill her husband’s and that shaving her vagina is a compromise for their marriage. She realizes that hair protects the vagina and notes that her husband cheats on her regardless of whether she keeps it.

This untitled section begins with the question, “If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?” (11). A chorus of responses cover a range of options: “a pink boa” (11), “a male tuxedo” (11), “something machine washable” (11), “glasses” (12), and “purple feathers and twigs and shells” (12).

Another untitled section begins with the question, “If your vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?” (15). Another chorus of women respond: “yum, yum” (15), “brave choice” (15), “come inside” (15), “bonjour” (16), and “yes, there. There” (16).

In a Jewish Queens accent, an older female narrator describes her vagina as damp and clammy, saying that when she was a girl, women didn’t talk about their vaginas. She begins to talk about her first date before becoming embarrassed and saying she doesn’t often think about her vagina anymore. She then opens up about her experience with her first date and first kiss, which excited her sexually and caused her vagina to self-lubricate. She remembers it got on the seats of her date’s car, and while she couldn’t smell anything, her date told her it smelled and ruined his seats. He made fun of her, and she was so embarrassed and afraid of “the flood” that she avoided dating for the most part afterward.

Throughout her life, she had recurring dreams of Burt Reynolds; however, in her dreams, a date with him would turn into a nightmare: As he leaned in to kiss her, the flood would begin again and swallow up the restaurant. She shares that, after a hysterectomy because of cancer, the nightmares stopped. She says if her vagina wore something, it would be a sign that read, “Closed Due to Flooding” (24), and it wouldn’t talk because it’s out of order and a place she no longer goes. She says she feels better after telling that story, noting that it’s the first time she has.

An excerpt from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets describes the account of a woman bearing a “devil’s teat,” a description used by a male lawyer to identify a woman as a witch during the Salem trials in the 17th century. The anatomical mark was, in fact, her clitoris. The woman was convicted of witchcraft.

This section is a collective narrative sharing multiple women’s experiences with menstruation in adolescence, reflected in short, one- or two-sentence snippets of their experiences as girls ranging in age from seven to 16. In some responses, menstruation was a mark of maturation and a rite of passage; for others, it was a source of shame and guilt.

Several speakers reflect that their first period was scary and shameful, saying they were “terrified” or that they hid their used menstrual products. Some girls had nurturing mothers who bought them menstrual products, gave them wine, or took them out to dinner, while other mothers were indifferent or even seemed angry—two speakers were slapped by their mothers. Many speakers weren’t sure at first what was happening to them. Some women wanted their period, yet others dreaded it.

In an English accent, the narrator shares her experience taking a vagina workshop from a woman who cares about vaginas. The narrator speaks of her vagina as a flower and a shell—something beautiful and unique. She didn’t feel this way until after the workshop, though. Before the workshop, she thought of her vagina as something independent from her. During the workshop, she finally looked at her vagina. She was amazed by it, astounded at the layers she saw reflected in the mirror, and thought it was better than any natural wonder she had seen before.

When the instructor asked about orgasms, the narrator realized she had never tried to have an orgasm—she had only ever had them by accident. However, she was in the workshop because it had been too long since she’d had one and she was “frantic.” Once the instructor asked the participants to locate their clitorises, the narrator realized she hadn’t tried to look for hers because she was afraid she might not have one or might’ve lost it while swimming. As she panicked, the instructor helped her by telling her to “be” her clitoris, which helped her relax and find her clitoris and experience her vagina as a part of herself. She discovered both herself and her pleasure in this instance and realized she and her vagina are the same.

The second “Vagina Fact” is an excerpt from Natalie Angier’s Woman: An Intimate Geography. The passage details that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve fibers and is “the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure” (41). This is twice the number of nerves found in the penis.

A speaker takes an irreverent tone as she recounts her journey toward loving her vagina, reflecting that because she hated her vagina due to internalized patriarchal notions, it is not a “politically correct” journey (43). She thought her vagina was ugly and so imagined it to be something else. She forgot her vagina until she met a man named Bob. Bob loves to stare at vaginas and told the narrator that before they could make love, he needed to look at her vagina. In doing so, he stared so long that the narrator came to appreciate her own vagina as it is—instead of imaging it as something better.

The author dedicates this section to the women who were brutally raped during the Bosnian War. In alternating paragraphs that use italics to denote shifts in time, the narrator reflects on her vagina before rape and what it became after. Before, she describes her vagina as lush fields, songs, clean water, and happy memories. After, her vagina has been battered and destroyed with glass bottles and other objects and subjected to gang rape and torture. It’s no longer a place to go or remember.