RE: “One benefit event to avoid” by Greg Scharf – The Californian, January 10, 2007
http://nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/12/opinion/scharf/19_42_231_10_08.txtValentine Day approaches and Eve Ensler’s at it again, right between San Diego and LA in Temecula, California. Ms. Jane Fonda may be there too. Yup, there's an upcoming benefit production of the Vagina Monologues. You know the play that raises money for domestic violence shelters while promoting lesbian rape of young girls, male bashing, and other wholesome virtues every young American should learn. Hmm.. Maybe we should picket.
As I type I’m looking at a copy of the Vagina Monologues I got at a used book store last week for six bucks. Greg Scharf says in “One Benefit to Avoid” that, “It's very trendy. The printed version of the play is in its 15th printing, and indeed while there are some valuable topics ---- such as the rape camps in Bosnia and the horrors of female circumcision ---- the play turns pornographic, bordering on criminal. "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could" celebrates the lesbian rape of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old neighbor who plies her with vodka to seduce her. In prior performances, I understand, the closing line was "if it was a rape, it was a good rape." I’m still searching for a first edition to see how things have changed over the years; my used one is the 15th edition.
No matter, Ensler well describes a basis for her brand of misogynistic activism in the monologue “My Angry Vagina – My vagina’s angry. It is. It’s pissed off. My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean, what’s the deal. An army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina… Spending their days constructing psycho products and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy…”
And I thought Freud needed more meds. In a surrealistic piece of fiction I wrote several years back came:
“At least you’re not as bad off as Freud, although he didn’t have a clue either. Billed himself as some sort of liberator from religious and pathological terror. In reality, he was simply a prisoner of his refusal to accept the myriad facets of his prolific existence, sexual and otherwise. Freud was a seasoned time traveler and should have known better. A part of him was Marquis de Sade’s favorite-leathered pincushion and whipping boy. More troublesome was his life as the obscure eunuch who escorted Babylon’s Chaldean army from the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Which somewhat explains why Freud never completely disconnected from the Jews, although he openly denied everything supernatural, or God like. Then, there were two lesser trips as an Ivory Coast slave trader, and one as a tightly curled Basque sheepherder just north of medieval Toledo, as in Spain. Freud was bled, beaten and belittled pretty badly, particularly by women and a couple of rams he confused for ewes. So, he had a sizable load on when dumped into 1853 Moravia. A load he later refused to deal with while seeking reasons for that which he never was, or would allow himself to be or become. In that round the bend, his anger popularized denial for Christ’s sake. Understand?”
The Vaginal Monologues are like that. Convoluted and confused. In Ensler’s round the bend, her anger popularized societies denial of vaginas. It’s hard to know what she did in past lives, but as a drop-out legal eagle turned dominatrix perhaps she met up with Freud somewhere in Spain or took notes for the Marquis de Sade. She certainly had a sizable load on when conjuring the Vagina Monologues, though it seams she just dumped it all on the rest of us rather than carry all that baggage by herself. Understand?
One of the problems most men have is the constant quest to return from whence they came, to a vagina. It seems Ensler’s quest is the same, she’s just wide open about it. Who knows about Jane Fonda? Maybe she found her vagina in Viet Nam; or, was that where she should have lost her American passport? Both questions are too hairy for me. While Freud may have fancied sheep in a past life, Ensler seems to have an affinity for the Ever-Ready Bunny. Neither Ensler or Fonda have a clue, batteries not included. Regardless, I wish Ensler would take her meds and shut her talking vagina.
In a sense, this is a crowning achievement. Not just because Mr. Pederson was able to discuss parenting issues with a major presidential candidate; but, because the sweat shirt was designed by National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM) member, graphic artist, and the one and only Mr. Ray Blumhorst.
