The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler Read Free Book Online Page A

hooked up. It’s the seventies: the beads, the fluffy pillows, the mood lights. I decide right there that I want to be a secretary like her when I grow up. She makes a vodka for herself and then she asks what I want to drink. I say the same as she’s drinking and she says she doesn’t think my mama would like me drinking vodka. I say she probably wouldn’t like me kissing girls, either, and the pretty lady makes me a drink. Then she changes into this chocolate satin teddy. She’s so beautiful. I always thought bulldaggers were ugly. I say, “You look great,” and she says, “So do you.” I say, “But I only have this white cotton bra and underpants.” Then she dresses me, slowly, in another satin teddy. It’s lavender like the first soft days of spring. The alcohol has gone to my head and I’m loose and ready. I noticed that there’s a picture over her bed of a naked black woman with a huge afro as she gently and slowly lays me out on the bed.
    And just our bodies rubbing makes me come. Then she does everything to me and my coochi snorcher that I always thought was nasty before, and wow. I’m so hot, so wild. She says, “Your vagina, untouched by man, smells so nice, so fresh, wish I could keep it that way forever.” I get crazy wild and then the phone rings and of course it’s my mama. I’m sure she knows; she catches me at everything. I’m breathing
    so heavy and I try to act normal when I get on the phone and she asks me, “What’s wrong with you, have you been running?” I say, “No, Mama, exercising.” Then she tells the beautiful secretary to make sure I’m not around boys and the lady tells her, “Trust me, there’s no boys around here.”
    Afterward the gorgeous lady teaches me everything about my coochi snorcher. She makes me play with myself in front of her and she teaches me all the different ways to give myself pleasure. She’s very thorough. She tells me to always know how to give myself pleasure so I’ll never need to rely on a man. In the morning I am worried that I’ve become a butch because I’m so in love with her. She laughs, but I never see her again. I realized later she was my surprising, unexpected, politically incorrect salvation. She transformed my sorry-ass coochi snorcher and raised it up into a kind of heaven.
    During the course of my run inNew York, I received this letter: As the honorary chair of the Vulva Club, we would be more than pleased to make you a member. However, when Harriet Lerner developed this club over twenty years ago, membership was predicated on the understanding and correct
    usage of the word vulva and being able to communicate that to as many people as possible, especially women.
    Warm regards,
    Jane Hirschman
THE VULVA CLUB
    I have always been obsessed with naming things. If I could name them, I could know them. If I could name them, I could tame them. They could be my friends. For example, I had a large collection of frogs when I was a little girl: stuffed frogs, china frogs, plastic frogs, neon frogs, happy battery-operated frogs.
    Each one had a name. I took time to know them for a while before I named them. I sat them on my bed and would watch them in daylight, wear them in my coat pocket, hold them in my sweaty little hands. I came to know them by their texture, their smell, their shape, their size, their sense of humor. Then they would get named, usually in a splendid naming ceremony. Surrounding them with their frog friends, I would dress them in ceremonial coats, put sparkles on them, or gold stars, stand them in front of the frog chapel, and name them. First, I would whisper the coveted name into their ear.
    (whispering) “You are my
    Froggie Doodle Mashy Pie.” I would make sure the frog accepted the name. Then I would say it out loud for the other excited frogs, some of whom were waiting for their own names.
    “Froggie Doodle
    Mashy Pie.” Then there would be singing, usually the name repeated over and over, joined by the other