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

frogs. (make up a song) “Froggie Doodle Mashy Pie. Froggie Doodle Mashy Pie.” This would happen with dancing.
    I would line the froggies up and dance in and out of them, hopping like a frog and making general frog noises, always holding the newly christened frog in my hands or arms, depending on the size. It was an exhausting ceremony, but crucial. It would have been fine if it had been limited to frogs, but soon I needed to name everything. I named rugs and doors and chairs and stairs. Ben, for example, was my flashlight, named after my kindergarten teacher, who was always in my business.
    I eventually named all the parts of my body. My hands—Gladys. They seemed functional and basic, like Gladys. I named my shoulders Shorty—strong and a little belligerent. My breasts were Betty. They weren’t Veronica, but they weren’t ugly either. Naming my “down there” was not so easy.
    It wasn’t the
    same as naming my hands. No, it was complicated. Down there was alive, not so easy to pinpoint. It remained unnamed and, as unnamed, it was untamed, unknown. We had a baby-sitter around then, Sara Stanley. She talked in this high-pitched voice that made me pee. When I was taking a bath one night, she told me to be sure to wash my “Itsy Bitsy.” I can’t say that I liked this name. It took a while even to figure out what it was. But there was something about her voice. The name stuck. Yes, there it is, my Itsy Bitsy.
    Unfortunately, this name followed me into adulthood. On our first night in bed, I informed the man I would later marry that Itsy Bitsy was a little shy but eager, and if he would be patient, she would surely reveal her mysteries. He was a bit freaked out, I think, but as is his nature, he went along with it and later would actually call her by name. “Is Itsy Bitsy there? Is she ready?” I myself was never happy with her name, and so what happened later is not really surprising.
    One night, my husband and I were in the act. He called out to her, “Come here, my little Itsy Bitsy,”
    and she did not respond. It was as if she suddenly wasn’t there. “Itsy Bitsy, it’s me, your biggest fan.” No word. No motion. So I called to her.
    “Itsy Bitsy, come on out. Don’t do this to me.”
    Not a word, not a sound. Itsy was dead and mute and gone.
    “Itsy Bitsy!”
    For days she did not come, then weeks, then months. I became despondent. I reluctantly told my friend Teresa, who was spending all her time in this new women’s group. I said, “Itsy Bitsy will not speak to me, Teresa. She won’t return my calls.”
    “Who is Itsy Bitsy?”
    “My Bitsy,” I said. “My Itsy.”
    “What are you talking about?” she said in a voice that suddenly sounded much deeper than mine.
    “You mean your vulva, girl?”
    “Vulva,” I said to Teresa. “What exactly is that?”
    “It’s the package,” she said. “It’s the entire deal.”
    Vulva. Vulva. I could feel something unlock. Itsy Bitsy was wrong. I knew this all along.
    I could not
    see Itsy Bitsy. I never knew who or what she was, and she did not sound like an opening or a lip. That night, we named her—my husband, Randy, and I. Just like the frogs. Dressed her in sparkles and sexy clothes, put her in front of the body chapel, lit candles. At first we whispered it, “Vulva, vulva,” softly to see if she’d hear. “Vulva, vulva, are you there?” There was sweetness and something definitely stirred.
    “Vulva, vulva, are you real?”
    And we sang the vulva song, which didn’t involve croaking but kissing, and we danced the vulva dance, which didn’t involve hopping but leaping, and all the other body parts were lined up—Betty and Gladys and Shorty—and they were definitely listening. VAGINA FACT In some places, Africans seem to have been quietly putting an end to the tradition of genital cutting. InGuinea, for instance, Aja Tounkara Diallo Fatimata, the chief “cutter” in the capital,Conakry, used to be reviled by Western human-rights