The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

            Maybe I missed the point of this book.  I believe in raising domestic violence awareness.  I believe in the concept of V-Day.  I believe that female mutilation is atrocious.  I believe that society should be as comfortable saying vagina as it is saying penis.  I even believe that women should be more aware of their own bodies and what gives them pleasure.

            What bothers me about this book is the sexual assaults that took place and seemed to be overlooked or underemphasized as an assault.  Children being assaulted by grown males and females should have had the emphasis placed on the act as a wrongful assault on an innocent child.  Maybe if someone had told these children sooner that they didn’t do anything wrong and that they were the child-victims of monsters in our society, they could have had a better life.

I don’t think that talking about and reading about women masturbating raises awareness to domestic violence.  I didn’t care to read about masturbation or sexual relations between two women, woman on child, man on child or for that matter man on woman/woman on man.  It makes me uncomfortable and I just didn’t enjoy reading this book at all.

The stage performance received rave reviews by all accounts.  The V-Day celebrations have raised thousands of dollars for the victims of domestic abuse.  I do believe that the V-Day celebrations have even raised awareness in colleges across America and abroad.  These young adult males and females need to be aware of abuse.  They need to be able to recognize the signs and strong enough to get themselves out of the situation before it gets worse – and it always gets worse.

Abuse takes on many forms.  It is no longer just men abusing women.  Women are abusing men as well.  Women are leaving their children behind and doing all of the things that men were damned for doing in the past.  It’s a different world today than it was 30 or even 20 years ago. 

Maybe I did get the point of this book.  Maybe my passion against abuse in all forms has surfaced.  Maybe my objections are because women are worth so much more than what this book portrays.