Forest BB

hello all! So here's where we go to ask/talk/discuss. Wonderful, yup, yup, wonderful indeed I say. Anyways, I was in the 'Vagina Monologues' and I would like to write first few sentences of my monologue on the wall that goes up the stairs to the second floor, along the stairs, so that people could read it easily as they're walking up to the second floor. The monologue starts like this 'My vagina is a shell, a round, pink, tender shell, opening and closing, closing and opening. My vagina is a flower, an excentric tulip, the center acute and deep, the scent delicate, the petals gentle, but sturdy.' Even Ensler I think is the writer of the monologues. I was told that I have to post these kinds of things for general public's approval, so please tell me what you think.

Thanx a bunch,
Diana

Hi there -

I like the vagina monologues and all but:

1) vagina's compared to flowers is kind of cliché. o'keefe mined that field pretty well, right?
2) using material from the VM seems kind of counter to what i'd like to see on the walls. Not because it about vaginas but because it is already a massively popular and well-known show. While I understand that VM is intrinsicly different than, say, Phantom of the Opera or Queen: The Musical, I still think it would feel a bit strange.

Open to debate though, I guess.
R

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

I think a field of vaginas would get ploughed. And, if anything gets mined, it should be a shaft shurely.

hmmm, is it really? I thought the Vagina Monologues was only more or less popular in U.S.... ha, interesting, but people do seem to know it here... I kind of wanted to focus on something feminine, on something expressing a woman's power, or strenght, and I mean if Eve Ensler compared flowers to vagina's in her monologues, well, that was what she saw, wasn't it? And as you've mentioned already, it is imenesely popular, apparently, flowers and vaginas or no flowers and vaginas...

My own experience with the word vagina was, as I remember, almost traumatic. I just wanted to be in some kind of theater performance and really didn't expect to be chosen. When I learned that I'll have to say more than three pages of a monologue full of the word 'vagina', that was something I had to work through with a friend, him listening for me reading the whole monologue through the phone... And then talking to people. One of my best friends didn't come to the play because she felt the material too offensive... So you can imagine. Think about it, why was the play produced and written in the first place? What was the purpose of it? Is it wrong to promote something that would encourage a woman to be stronger, to trust herself more, etc? This really isn't about vagina's, even if it seems to say so. Here, I'll brake another 'taboo' (should I say it that way), of mine, by writing out the word, eh, god, this doesn't feel right at all to say, god, man, eh, ok, fine, I'll just say it, god, crap... mmm, penis. AHHHHHH!!!! Ok, god, man, crap, crap, I just said it, ok? Fine, anyways... That word seems to be said much easier than it's counterpoint, vagina. Vagina, the word, as the play/monologues suggest, is said with a kind of disease in mind. Now I don't see it this way anymore, but don't you?

Diana

oh, by the way, i don't necessarily have to use that line. There are many, many other lines from different monologues. There are also comparisons to fish, and telescopes, and dark wholes in space being sucked like a vacuum cleaner... Any preferences on that point?

Diana

if it helps, this is a great site for use of the words penis & vagina. also vag, ass, fuck, fucking, balls, clitoris etc...

http://overheardinnewyork.com/

I'd agree with Ryan on preferring to see original works of art on our walls, there are so many artists around who would like the chance to exhibit their works and ideas, it seems a shame to put out material that is already so well known.

Also, as a woman, I find this need for favouring art or literature which solely express our gender pretty limiting. Rather than a vagina monologue, why not have something like a vagina-cock dialogue where we intersperse germaine greer with henry james in a point::counterpoint style fashion? That might actually be pretty interesting.

More importantly though, I don't actually think that comparing a vagina to a flower or a shell is particularly liberating. My vagina is neither of those things. Nor is yours. It is a part of your body, which has functions including fucking, bleeding, birthing, wanking and other such delightful activities. To try to dehumanise the vagina and turn it into something so passive and inanimate isn't helpful. The flower and the shell are powerless, there to be picked and sniffed and thrown back in the sea. How is this analogy helpful to womankind? I bet the penis dialogues would compare themselves to something a hell of lot more interesting. Like spaceships or seven coloured lazers.

ps: vaginas doesn't need an apostrophe, as the vagina in question is not possessing anything (apart from possibly a monologue)

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

always peoples are calling flowers vaginas? what is it with peoples?

my flowers are beautiful shell like turtles, living and breathing. To say they are inanimate is to say that life would exist without them. it would not, flowers are plants vaginas, bees act as proxy in sexual union between flowers in this wonderful ecological plant kingdom (not mythical).

without flowers = no life.

without vaginas = no life.

without bees = no life. (truly, the bee is a flying penis)

therefore they are equal and at one in unity.

but the comparison is so common like potatoes, although arent they the king of vegetables? people call tomatoe fruit? can not a flower stand on its own without vaginas being intertwined or alluded to with every word of peoples? bring back the innocence of flowers, it upsets me much that always with flowers is the sexual story, vaginas always close by, and yet in the orchard or the flower box, often they are far.

frankly, it reminds me of an occasion back in the mid 90's when my friend Georg and I (Georg was not always my friend, but that is another story). anyway we were drinking a cider when a bee landed on his jacket collar, he went to swat it with his hand, but lucky i saw and stop him double speed, he say 'is a f*cking bee, get the f*cking bee off of me, before it sting me!'. and i say 'calm, calm Georg my friend, probably it will not sting you, it is just checking you out, maybe thinks you is a flower!' - this drive him crazy (you must understand Georg is not all there, all the time.) and he kick off, with 'who are you calling a flower you f**ing daffodil' and all this stuff!!!! it was very funny, but all was ok ok. (we still friends)

the shell tells the story of life also, buts its story is at the end of life, sometimers i wonder if the story of its life would be written on it, if we could see small enough?

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the pen is mightier than the word

LOOOL

Well Jane, what would you suggest in regards of a different monologue? i mean do you have any ideas as to how such a monologue should develop or how it should start, etc? Perhaps this woman vs. man thing is seen more in U.S. than here in Europe, I don't know, or maybe I've just encountered more people who want to have different kinds of statements like that expressed, the whole equality issue, etc.

I want to do something, something about the Saturday Nights, as I was talking to a friend about it, and the low self esteem that people express through the clothes they were... Perhaps this, however, is too weak to be made into anything and more challenging ideas are in need.

In the end, however, I am happy that such a discussion is taking place at all, in here.

diana

just something cool, it doesn't have to be controversial, political or weird (that doesn't mean to say it can't be any of those) but it really must be cool.

and surely with the amount of crazy minds in the Forest we don't have to recycle other people's ideas?

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It's like God's vagina!

All right Ghandi (btw, interesting photo there ), very well, I suppose that I am begining to see this a little better, as to what everyone seems to be saying. Very good, I mean, very well. Hmmmm... all right, all right.

I will think of something more original, but because of these posts I see (realize?), what are the major expecations, etc., surrounding the Forest. Hmmm... very interesting, indeed, indeed...

I am sick at the moment, very, but will be back later with something, well, holpefully more original?

Diana

get well soon!

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

Do we need UN Security Council resolution to state "Ms.Honourable Vagina speaks or not"?

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"Don't trust anyone over thirty" - Jerry Rubin

ROMAN!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! mmmmm, my god man (well, maybe not that evil...). Hmpf... Of course we do! The end.