The Vagina Monologues

The fourth “Vagina Fact” quotes a 1996 New York Times article about female genital mutilation (FGM) and includes figures from a 2013 UNICEF report regarding FGM. Over 200 million women had undergone FGM as of 2013, and 30 million more women could expect to experience this practice, which takes place predominantly in African countries. The short-term consequences of the procedure range from tetanus to hemorrhages, and the long-term consequences include chronic uterine infections, dangerous and agonizing childbirth, and early death.

A narrator speaks on behalf of her “pissed off” vagina, which is angry at the products and services meant for vaginas that do not work with the vagina. She says that gynecological exams and douches, for example, are not proper ways to treat a vagina. Instead, vaginas should smell like themselves and should be treated tenderly instead of with cold instruments. But to give women pleasure would oppose patriarchy since “they [...] hate to see a woman having pleasure” (60). Her vagina, instead of all these products and exams, wants to wear diamonds, travel, eat chocolate, and scream, “[I]t wants everything” (61).

A Southern woman recounts a series of traumatic events to which her “coochi snorcher” has been exposed, sharing memories in chronological order. At age seven, she recalls a punch to her mons pubis and vulva from a boy at school. At nine, she injures her vulva on a bedpost while playing. At 10, she is raped by her father’s friend, whom her father then shoots in front of her. Her vagina becomes a “site for mishaps” until, at 16, she meets a 24-year-old woman who gives her alcohol, lingerie, and her first real experience with pleasure, which changes how she thinks about her “sorry-ass coochi snorcher” (65).

This section begins with the question, “What does a vagina smell like?” (69). The responses are collective, reflecting a range of phrasal responses: “Wet garbage” (69), “Sweet ginger” (69), “Damp moss” (69), “Fish” (69), and “The beginning” (70).

In a short monologue, a speaker proclaims that she has reclaimed the term “cunt.” She moves through the word letter by letter, describing the sounds of individual letters and what they add to the complete word: “C C, Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come […] then curvy, inviting sharkskin u—uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u” (73).

The narrator asks a six-year-old the same questions listed earlier in the play, like “What would your vagina wear?” and “If it could speak, what would it say?” (75). She also asks what her vagina reminds her of and what it smells like. The little girl answers that her vagina smells like “snowflakes” and would wear “red high-tops and a Mets cap worn backward” (75).

The speaker, a sex worker and dominatrix and former tax lawyer, describes her experience helping women find their sexuality and their pleasure. She reflects that moaning was her entry point into being a dominatrix; she became obsessed with her own moan and helping other women to moan. She realized, after having to pee badly and moaning once she finally could, that moans are less about sex and more about delaying desire until a moan catches you off-guard. After this, she began to moan loudly, which many men found off-putting, so she felt ashamed. Then, once she began sleeping with women, she felt free to moan and make other women moan, realizing that she was “unlocking the vagina’s mouth” (80). She details the different kinds of moans she has encountered as a dominatrix, ranging from “the almost moan (a circling sound)” to the “surprise triple orgasm moan” (82).

Dedicated to Shiva and Coco, this section is presented as a poem and details the author’s experience of being in the delivery room as her daughter-in-law gave birth to V’s granddaughter. The narrator reflects on the mother experiencing contractions and the dilation of the cervix as well as the opening of the vaginal canal, alternating anatomical descriptions with metaphors as the mother moves through the process of giving birth. She remembers holding the mother as she pushed and the wonder she felt at the vagina’s ability to change shape and expand when the child was born. She finally compares the vagina to the heart and its capacity to give life.