On My Plans for Valentine's Day

This week is the Vagina Monologues, which in addition to being a great time with an amazing group of women, is one of my favorite times of the year because it allows me the opportunity to make people extraordinarily uncomfortable by yelling at them about vaginas.

 Now, the reason I enjoy making people uncomfortable by yelling at them about vaginas is not simply because I like making people uncomfortable.  The fact is that I like pointing out the ways in which your discomfort doesn't make sense.  The word "vagina," and the legions of college girls yelling about them in the Student Commons, are considered weird or offensive because we are taught from a very young age that vaginas and the things they do and the things they're used for ought to be shameful and secretive.  All you need to know to know that is to look at the ways a girl will go out of her way to hide the fact that she's on her period -- which is, y'know, entirely out of our control and completely natural.

So girls are taught that our bits are supposed to be secrets that ought to be kept quiet, out of sight, and out of mind.  But while it's weird and disconcerting for women to be tabling about their vaginas (and, more honestly, about the violence which is perpetrated against those people who possess them), it's totally fine for men to be yelling about testicular cancer or to draw penises in public.  But people see our weird emoticon-vaginas on our posters and think they're creepy and wrong.

{( )}

For the record, they look like that.  Is that weird?

So, yes, I will continue to yell at you, professor who is refusing to make eye contact, about the wonders of vaginas and the things we say about them and the things we don't say about them (the things that lead to illness and violence because we're AFRAID or ashamed to talk about them), because I want to force you to think about why exactly the most quintessential piece of female human anatomy should be seen as creepy or wrong.  I mean, yeah, I get that they're all flaps and doo-dads, but I'll keep yelling about them Until the Violence Stops.

Yours in Vagina-Love,
Rachel Leigh

For the record, any one in the area of the University of Richmond, the show is the 13th, 14th, and 15th in the Pier (Tyler Haynes Commons) at 9 pm. You can get tickets, t-shirts, or chocolate vagina lollipops in the Commons every day.