The Vagina Monologues (2002) Movie Script
1
I'm just going to ask you
a few questions...
and just answer whatever
you're comfortable answering.
Don't go any further
than you feel like going.
And if you want to add
something later on...
to a question I've asked you,
that's fine too.
- Okay.
- Okay.
When was the first time you saw it?
You know, it was sort of like
an accidental thing.
There was like
a mirror on the floor...
and I walked up and I was like,
"What was that?"
I have to go home
and do some research.
I didn't look at myself
until probably in college.
I don't even say the word
to my ob-gyn.
And I went to the library,
I'm sneaking in the library...
looking through the books,
and you know...
like I'm covering the book
with like something else.
And then it's like.
"Admire it, it's a beautiful flower."
"You know, it's like roses."
I'm like, we're not looking
at the same thing, you know?
I took photos of it.
I had a polaroid camera...
and I would go into the bathroom
and take a picture.
- Are you embarrassed?
- Yes.
All those things
are kind of like secret.
You know?
And it's not for, you know...
it's like your own little joy.
I realized there was no context...
in which women ever talk
about their vaginas.
So, I just started casually
saying to friends of mine...
"What do you think
about your vagina?"
What do you think?
And over the course
of about three to five years...
I had interviewed over 200 women.
How does it feel
to be talking about it?
Very strange.
I think it's liberating,
but it's kind of funny too.
Anxious, kind of nervous...
not really sure
of what I'm going to say.
I really thought it was going to be
like, uncomfortable...
but it's not
because you make it kind of easy.
And everything every woman said...
was more surprising,
outrageous, disturbing...
exciting than the next.
And one woman would say to me...
"You really need to talk to so and so
about her vagina."
"She has an amazing story."
And she would say...
"No, you need to talk to so and so
about her vagina."
She has... And before I knew it...
I was really suck down
this vagina trail...
and I couldn't get back.
And I've been on the trail
for a long time...
and I don't think I'm getting off it
anytime soon.
Everything on the wall,
all of these were gifts...
or photographs or things
that have found me...
or have been given to me
as I traveled around the world.
Well, first I'd like to introduce
Vagina Barbie...
complete with duck lips.
A lovely vagina candle.
This salad here...
That's a vagina salad.
This is a vulva puppet.
They actually talk.
There's a whole world of vagina life
out there, which I find thrilling.
So, when the show
was first done downtown...
guys would call up and say...
"Can I have tickets
to 'The Vagina Dialogues'?"
And women would call up
and say...
"Can I have tickets
to 'The Monologues'?"
I've heard people call it
"The Viagra Chronicles".
And there was this punk ticket taker,
and she would say...
"Listen, if you can't say the name,
you can't come."
"Now, try again. Try again."
Thank you.
I bet you're worried.
I was worried.
That's why I began this piece.
I was worried about vaginas.
I was worried
what we think about vaginas.
And I was even more worried
that we don't think about them.
I was worried about my own vagina.
It needed a context, a community...
a culture of other vaginas.
There is so much darkness and secrecy
surrounding them.
Like the Bermuda Triangle,
nobody ever reports back from there.
In the first place, it's not so easy
to even find your vagina.
Women go days, weeks, months,
without looking at it.
I interviewed
a high-powered businesswoman.
She told me she didn't have time.
Looking at your vagina, she said,
is a full day's work.
You've got to get down there,
on your back...
in front of the mirror,
full-length preferred.
You've got to get
in the perfect position...
with the perfect light...
which then becomes shadowed
by the angle you're at.
You're twisting your head up,
arching your back, it's exhausting.
She was busy. She didn't have time.
So, I decided to talk to women
about their vaginas.
They began
as casual vagina interviews...
and they turned
into vagina monologues.
I talked with over 200 women.
I talked to younger women,
older women, married women...
lesbians, single women.
I talked to college professors,
corporate professionals...
actors, sex workers.
I talked to African-American women...
Asian-American women,
Hispanic women...
Native-American women,
Caucasian women...
Jewish women.
At first, women were a little shy.
A little reluctant to talk.
But once they got going,
you couldn't stop them.
Women love to talk
about their vaginas.
They do. They really do.
Mainly because no one's
ever asked them before.
Let's just start
with the word "vagina".
Vagina.
It sounds like an infection at best.
Maybe a medical instrument,
"Hurry, Nurse, bring me the vagina."
Vagina.
It doesn't matter how many times
you say the word...
it never sounds like
a word you want to say.
It's a completely ridiculous,
totally unsexy word.
If you use it during sex,
trying to be politically correct.
You kill the act right there.
I'm worried what we call it
and don't call it.
In Great Neck, New York,
they call it a "pussycat".
A woman told me there,
her mother used to tell her...
"Don't wear panties, dear,
underneath your pajamas."
"You need to air out your pussycat."
In Westchester,
they call it a "pookie".
In New Jersey, a "twat".
There's "powder box"...
a "poochi", a "poopi",
a "pee-pee", a "poopalu"...
a "pooninana" and a "piche".
There's "toadie", "dee-dee",
"nishi", "dignity"...
"coochie snorcher",
"cooter", "labbe"...
"Gladys Siegelman"...
"VA", "wee-wee", "whorespot"...
"nappy dugout", "mongo",
"monkey box", "pajama"...
"fannyboo", "mushmellow",
"ghoulie", "possible"...
"tamale", "tottita", "connie".
A "mimi" in Miami.
A "split knish" in Philadelphia.
And a "schmende" in the Bronx.
I am worried about vaginas.
Steve!
Vagina graduate!
This is Steve.
Steve just graduated from UVS.
That is
the University of Vaginal Sciences.
The most vagina friendly guy
in his class, okay?
Got the job. Yeah.
This first monologue
is based on one woman's story...
pretty much the way I heard it...
although the subject
of this interview came up...
in every interview
and was often fraught.
The subject being "Hair".
I love hair. I mean...
Hair vagina, hair is a vagina,
the vagina is hair.
I like my hair,
I'd like a lot more hair actually.
I'm a redhead and everything's red.
I mean, it's just red.
I've never shaved the bikini line.
I wear appropriate bathing suits
so that it covers, but I don't...
you know, I don't feel that
I had to work on it cosmetically.
Because I've been afflicted
with hair...
from the time I was eight years old
on my vagina...
I'm very curious
what it would feel like...
to be hairless.
I don't mean a haircut,
I mean, you know...
it's not anything like crazy,
I mean, you know...
I do it myself,
so how crazy can it be?
It's just like a normal...
nice, neat, you know, thing.
You know.
Thought everybody did that, no?
You cannot love a vagina...
unless you love hair.
Many people do not love hair.
My first and only husband hated hair.
He said it was cluttered and dirty.
He made me shave my vagina.
It looked puffy,
and exposed, like a little girl.
This excited him.
When he made love to my vagina,
it felt the way a beard must feel.
It felt good to scratch it,
and painful...
like scratching a mosquito bite.
There were screaming red bumps.
It felt like it was on fire.
I refused to shave it again.
Then my husband had an affair.
When we went to marital therapy,
he said he screwed around...
because I wouldn't please him
sexually, I wouldn't shave my vagina.
The therapist had
a thick German accent.
And she gasped,
between sentences...
to show her empathy.
She asked me why I didn't want
to please my husband.
Why I didn't want to shave my vagina.
I told her I thought it was weird.
I felt little when my hair was gone
down there...
and I couldn't help
talking in a baby voice.
And even calamine lotion
wouldn't stop the irritation.
She told me that marriage
was a compromise.
I asked her
if my shaving my vagina...
would stop my husband
from screwing around.
I asked her if she had
many cases like this before.
She told me
that questions diluted the process.
She was sure
it was a good beginning...
I just needed to jump in.
This time, when we got home,
he got to shave my vagina.
It was like a therapy bonus prize.
He clipped it a few times...
and there was a little blood
in the bathtub.
He didn't notice.
He was so excited shaving me.
Then, later, when my husband
was pressing against me...
I could feel his spiky sharpness...
sticking into
my naked exposed vagina.
There was no protection.
There was no fluff.
I realized then
that hair is there for a reason.
It's the leaf around the flower.
The lawn around the house.
You have to love hair
in order to love the vagina.
You can't pick the parts you want.
And besides, my husband, well...
he never did stop screwing around.
You know, I interviewed
a whole group of women...
between 65 and 75.
And that was definitely
the most poignant group.
Mainly because I don't think
many women in that group...
had ever had
a vagina interview before.
This particular woman
was 72 years old...
and she had never seen her vagina.
She'd washed it in the shower
and bath...
but never with conscious intention
or awareness...
and she'd never had an orgasm.
When she was 72...
she went to therapy
for the first time...
as we do in New York.
And she worked
with a wonderful therapist...
who got her to go home, by herself.
She told me she lit some candles...
she played some music,
she took a bath.
She got down with herself...
and she told me it took her
over an hour...
because she was arthritic.
But when she finally found
her clitoris...
she said she cried.
This is for her.
"The Flood."
Down there?
I haven't been down there
since 1953.
No. No, it had nothing to do
with Eisenhower.
No.
No, trust me,
you don't want to go down there.
It's very damp, very clammy.
Smell the mildew,
gets in your clothes, it's horrible.
No. No, and there was no accident
down there.
It didn't blow up or catch on fire.
It wasn't so dramatic.
What's a nice girl like you
going around...
talking to old ladies
about their "down there's" for?
We didn't do this kind of a thing
when I was your age.
Well...
There was this boy. Oh, God.
Andy. Andy Leftkov.
Oh, God.
He was so good looking,
and tall, like me.
He asked me out for a date,
I'll never forget...
in his new white Chevy BelAir.
Oh my God.
I can't do this. I'm sorry.
I can't talk to you about down there.
You just know it's there
like the cellar.
You can hear the pipes.
Things get caught there
from time to time.
Little animals and things.
It gets wet, people come,
they plug up the leaks...
otherwise the door stays closed,
you forget about it.
Andy. Oh, God, he was a catch.
That's what we called it in my day.
We're in his car and all I'm thinking
about are my kneecaps.
I have very long legs...
and my kneecaps were smushed up
against the dashboard.
When Andy just grabs me,
and kisses me in this...
"take you by control like they do
in the movies" kind of way.
Well, I got excited.
I got very excited.
And there was a...
Well, there was a...
Well, there was a flood down there.
This river of life,
this force of passion...
just flooded out of me.
Right through my panties,
right onto the car seat...
of his new white Chevy BelAir.
Well, it wasn't pee.
And it wasn't smelly.
Well, he said, Andy said, he said...
it smelled like sour milk
and it was staining his car seat.
I was "a stinky weird girl", he said.
I tried to explain that his kiss
had caught me off guard.
I wasn't normally like this.
I tried to wipe up the flood
with my dress.
It was a new,
yellow primrose dress...
and it looked ugly
with the flood on it.
Andy drove me home.
He never...
He never said another word to me.
And when I got out of his car,
I tell you, I closed it...
locked it, locked the store.
Never opened for business again.
I used to have these dreams,
though...
I mean, they're crazy dreams,
dopey dreams.
Why? Burt Reynolds.
I don't know why.
The guy never did a thing for me
in life.
But always in my dreams,
it was Burt and I...
Burt and I, Burt and I.
We'd be out for dinner.
One of those restaurants,
the kind you see in Atlantic City.
Huge chandeliers...
thousands of the waiters
with the vests on.
Burt would be there,
he'd give me an orchid corsage.
I'd pin it to my blazer.
We'd laugh. We were always laughing,
Burt and I. Laughing.
Ate shrimp cocktail,
fabulous shrimp, huge shrimp.
Then Burt would lean towards me...
and just as
he was about to kiss me...
the entire restaurant
would start to shake.
Pigeons would fly out
from underneath the table.
I don't know
what the pigeons were doing there.
And the flood would come,
straight from down there.
It would pour out of me.
It would pour and pour.
There'd be little boats inside it...
and little fish...
and the entire restaurant
would fill up with my flood.
And there would be Burt,
standing waist deep in it...
looking horrified.
Horribly disappointed
I'd done it again...
as he watched his friends,
Dean Martin and the likes...
swim past us
in their tuxedos and evening gowns.
I don't have those dreams anymore,
no.
Not since they took
just about everything...
connected with down there.
Moved out the tubes, the uterus,
the whole works.
My doctor thinks
he's a real comedian.
He tells me,
"You don't use it, you lose it".
But, really, it was cancer.
The whole thing had to go.
Highly overrated anyway, right?
I do other things.
Love the dog shows.
I sell antiques.
Excuse me? Come again?
"What would it wear?"
What kind of question is that,
"What would it wear?"
It would wear a sign,
"Closed, due to Flooding".
What would it say?
I told you, it's not a thing
that speaks, it's a place.
A place you don't go.
Closed up, under the house,
down there.
You happy now, you happy?
You got an old lady to talk
about this stuff, you feel better?
Actually, I'll tell you the truth.
You are the very first person
I ever talked to...
about any of this stuff.
I feel a little better.
Did you ever look
at your vagina or...
No, I didn't.
- So, you've never seen your vagina?
- I don't think so.
I don't think so,
and I've had children.
- Really?
- Yeah.
What do you imagine it looks like?
Well, I guess I've seen it
in the doctor's office...
when I'm in the stirrups,
if there's a mirror...
I mean, I'm sure I must have seen it
in passing over the years.
Well, I happened to look down...
and there was this very ugly thing
staring back at me and...
Oh my God.
And do you have good sex today?
Yes.
You said "good",
you didn't ask how often.
Is there something specific
it's longed for?
Well, right about now, probably sex.
Because it's been a long time.
It's probably down there
just wishing.
- Just wishing.
- Just wishing.
"Why don't you get some sense, woman,
and give me some help down here?"
It still aches a little bit,
because I still like to play house.
I'm old, not dead.
No, I'm not holding this.
It's amazing
how many people complain...
that there are
not enough monologues...
about heterosexual,
vagina-loving men.
We have 10 minutes, Ms. Ensler.
There is a vagina-loving man.
Come in, Steve.
This is the guy. Right here.
Tell me, what've you learned
about vaginas in the last few days?
I've probably learned more
in the last three days...
than in my entire 24 years.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Specific?
Basically, I thought I knew something
and I knew nothing.
That's what it comes down to.
This next monologue
is based on an interview...
I did with a woman
who had a good experience with a man.
"Because He Liked to Look at It."
This is how I came to love my vagina.
It's embarrassing
because it's not politically correct.
I mean, I know
how it should have happened.
In a bath, with salt grains
from the Dead Sea...
Enya playing...
me loving my woman-self.
I know the story.
Vaginas are beautiful.
Our self-hatred is only
the internalized repression...
and hatred of
the patriarchal culture.
It isn't real. Pussies unite.
I know all of it.
Like if we'd grown up
in a culture...
where we were taught
fat thighs were beautiful...
we'd all be pounding down
milk shakes and doughnuts...
spending our days
lying on our backs...
thigh-expanding.
But we didn't grow up
in that culture, did we? No.
I hated my thighs,
and I hated my vagina even more.
I thought it was incredibly ugly.
I was one of those women
who had looked at it...
and from that moment on
I wished I hadn't.
It made me sick.
I pitied anyone
who had to go down there.
In order to survive,
I began to pretend...
there was something else
between my legs.
I imagined furniture.
Cozy futons
with light cotton comforters...
little velvet settees,
or pretty things.
Silk handkerchiefs,
quilted pot holders.
I got so accustomed to this,
I lost all memory of having a vagina.
Whenever a man was inside me...
I pictured him
inside a mink-lined muffler...
or a Chinese bowl.
Then I met Bob.
Bob was the most ordinary man
I ever met.
Thin, tall, nondescript,
he wore khaki tan clothes.
Bob did not like spicy foods
or listen to Prodigy.
He had no interest in sexy lingerie.
In the summer,
he spent time in the shade.
He did not share his inner feelings.
He didn't have any problems
or issues.
He wasn't even an alcoholic.
He wasn't very funny
or articulate or mysterious.
He wasn't mean or unavailable.
He wasn't self-involved
or charismatic.
He didn't drive fast.
I didn't particularly like Bob.
I would have missed him altogether...
if he hadn't picked up my change
that I dropped on the deli floor.
When he handed me back
my pennies and quarters...
and his hand
accidentally touched mine...
something happened.
I went to bed with him.
That's when the miracle occurred.
It turned out that Bob loved vaginas.
He was a connoisseur.
He loved the way they tasted,
the way they smelled...
the way they felt,
but most importantly...
Bob loved the way they looked.
He had to look at them.
First time we had sex,
he told me he had to see me.
"I'm right here, Bob."
"No," he said,
"You, I need to see you."
"Turn on the light," I said.
Thinking he was a weirdo
and freaking out in the dark.
He turned on the light.
"Okay," he said, "I'm ready,
I'm ready to see you."
"I'm right here, Bob, right here."
He began to undress me.
"What are you doing, Bob?"
"I need to see what you look like."
"But you've seen
a red leather couch before, Bob."
"I know you've seen that."
Bob continued, he would not stop.
I wanted to throw up and die.
"This is awfully intimate, Bob."
"Can't you just do it?"
"No," he said.
"It's who you are, I need to look."
I held my breath.
He looked, and looked.
He gasped, and smiled.
And stared, and groaned.
He got breathy,
and his face changed.
He didn't look ordinary anymore.
He looked like a hungry beast.
"You're so beautiful," he said.
"You're elegant and deep
and innocent and wild."
"You saw that there?" I said.
It was like he read my palm.
"I saw that," he said,
"And much, much more."
Bob stayed looking
for almost an hour...
as if he were studying a map,
observing the moon...
staring into my eyes.
But it was my vagina!
In the light,
I watched him looking at me.
He was so excited.
So peaceful and euphoric.
I began to get wet and turned on.
I began to see myself
the way he saw me.
I began to feel beautiful
and delicious...
like a great painting or a waterfall.
Bob wasn't afraid, no,
he wasn't grossed out.
I began to swell.
I began to feel proud.
I began to love my vagina.
And Bob lost himself there...
and I was there with him...
in my vagina.
And we were gone!
We're going to get little buttons
made that say, "I'm your Bob."
He's a "Bob", I can tell.
It's part of that whole
university training, you know?
Oh my God.
It's all about posture and hair.
Haven't thought about my hair
this much in my entire life.
I asked all the women I interviewed
the same questions.
And then I picked
my favorite answers.
Although I have to tell you...
I have never heard an answer
I didn't love.
The first question
I asked women was...
"If your vagina got dressed,
what would it wear?"
What would your vagina wear
if it got dressed?
I knew that question
was going to come...
and I said that everybody
would probably say...
that I would have on
a Ralph Lauren skirt...
or a Calvin Klein dress
or something like that.
I would probably put a hat on it.
- Lots of glitter.
- Red silk.
- Jeans.
- Probably a red boa.
Hiking boots and a lot of sun block.
Something from the 40s.
I like leather, it's sexy.
It would be bald.
And it'd have an earring.
Actually my vagina's a nudist.
Doesn't wear anything anymore.
Some "tims". Some baggy jeans.
Probably a hoodie.
Like a little old-fashioned dress.
Spotted leather pants,
and a black knit shirt.
- Daddy would love that.
- I know it, he would love it.
I've been traveling for several years
all around the world...
and I've been threatening
to create a map...
of all the vagina-friendly cities.
Five years in the theater,
not one map.
One hour in HBO, presto!
A vagina Friendly Map.
I bet you don't know
about some of...
the really many surprising
vagina-friendly cities.
Oklahoma City loves vaginas.
Who knew?
Boise, Idaho, recent convert.
They've come into vagina land.
Congratulations, Idaho.
There are on this map
vagina holiday zones.
New York City is vagina holiday zone.
San Francisco has its own status.
There is no other vagina
world fair zone.
It's the only one on the map,
just imagine the ride.
There are some areas which clearly...
as you look through
the mid-part of America...
have not been liberated as of yet.
But we have great faith
they will be liberated any day now.
Pittsburgh is a wild...
Where is Pittsburgh?
Wildly vagina-friendly city.
I've been there three times
and they love vaginas in Pittsburgh.
Who knew?
After one of my first shows there,
a woman came up to me and she said...
"I have to talk to you right away."
She was very upset. I called her
when I got back to New York.
She told me
that she liked the piece...
but she felt I had missed
the texture of the vagina.
She needed to talk texture.
For the next hour, she talked to me
about the texture of the vagina...
with such nuance and detail,
that to be honest...
I had to lay down
at the end of the conversation.
However, she also told me
in the course of our conversation...
that I had said something negative
about a particular word.
A pejorative word...
a word that's been used
to declaim the vagina...
and she needed to help me
reconceive this word.
So, for the next hour,
she talked to me about this word.
And when she was done,
I was a convert.
I wrote this for her,
"Reclaiming Cunt".
I call it "cunt".
I've reclaimed it.
Cunt.
I really like it.
Cunt.
Just listen to it, listen to it.
Cunt.
Ca...
Ca...
Cavern...
cackle, clit, cute, come-closed c...
closed inside, inside ca...
Ca...
Then u...
Then cu...
Then curvy, inviting sharkskin, u...
Uniform, under, up.
Urge.
U...
Then n, then cun..
Cun...
Snug letters
fitting perfectly together.
N...
Nest, now...
nexus, nice...
always depth,
always round in uppercase.
Cun...
A jagged wicked electrical pulse.
N...
Then soft n, warm n...
Cun...
Then t.
Then sharp certain tangy t.
Texture, take, tight, tent...
tantalizing, tensing, taste...
tendrils, time, tactile...
Tell me!
Tell me, cunt!
Cunt!
Say it!
Tell me, come on!
Cunt.
Cunt.
Cunt!
Love that word.
I can't say it enough.
I can't stop saying it.
Feeling a little irritated
in the airport...
just say "cunt", everything changes.
- "What did you say?"
- I said, "Cunt, that's right."
"Cunt." It feels good.
Try it, go ahead. Cunt. Come on.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
I'm a cunt.
My mother's going to see this,
I can't.
Cunt.
This is better than therapy.
Turns the day around, I promise you.
We're moving along. I asked women...
"If your vagina could talk,
what would it say?"
If your vagina could talk,
and it could say two words...
- what would it say?
- Slow down.
The first two words
that came to me head was...
"Oh, no" and I don't know
if that answers your question...
or if that's what my vagina
would say, like, "Oh, no".
- Ice pack.
- Feed me.
- Use me.
- "Eat me" comes to mind.
Stop thinking so much
and have a good time.
- Where's Tom?
- What do you want?
- Want some.
- Yes!
- Need some.
- More.
- Help me.
- Open for business.
- How you doing?
- Slow down.
- It's cozy.
- Howdie, partner.
- What's up, honey?
- Go, girl.
- I'm here.
- I'm here.
- I'm here.
- Thank you.
Accept gifts.
I'm happy.
That's it. That's what it would say.
For 10 years I had the privilege...
of working with women in New York
who had no homes.
In that time,
I did all kinds of things.
I hung out, I ran groups,
I had meals, I went to the movies.
I interviewed hundreds
and hundreds of homeless women.
And I have to tell you
in all those years...
in all those interviews,
I only met one woman...
who was not sexually abused,
as a little girl...
or raped as a young woman.
This particular woman
I met seven years ago...
in a shelter, and this is her story,
just the way she told it to me.
I didn't add or change anything.
What's not in her story...
is that she met a woman
in that shelter...
and they fell in love.
And through their love, they both
got out of the shelter system.
I do this tonight for her,
because I loved her.
"The Little Coochie Snorcher
That Could."
Memory: December, 1965.
Five Years Old.
My mama tells me in a scary, loud,
life-threatening voice...
to stop scratching
my coochie snorcher.
I become terrified.
I have scratched it off down there...
and do not touch myself again.
Even in the bath, I am afraid
of the water getting in...
and filling me up so I explode.
I put band-aids
over my coochie snorcher...
to cover the hole,
but they fall off in the water.
I imagine a stopper,
a bath tub plug up there...
to prevent things from entering me.
I sleep with three pairs of happy
heart-shaped cotton underpants...
underneath my snap-up pajamas.
I still want to touch myself,
but I don't.
Memory: Seven Years Old.
Edgar Montane, who is 10,
gets angry at me and punches me...
with all his might between my legs.
It feels like he breaks
my entire self.
I limp home, I can't pee.
My mama says, "What's wrong
with your coochie snorcher, girl?"
And when I tell her
what Edgar did to me, she says...
"Never let anyone touch you
down there again."
I tried to explain.
"He didn't touch it, mama.
He punched it."
Memory: Nine Years Old.
I play on the bed,
bouncing and falling...
and impale my coochie snorcher
on the bedpost.
I make high-pitched
screaming noises...
that come straight
from my coochie snorcher's mouth.
I get taken to the hospital...
and they sew it up down there
from where it's been torn apart.
Memory: 10 Years Old.
I'm at my father's house
and he's having a party upstairs.
Everyone's drinking.
I'm playing alone in the basement...
and I'm trying on my new
cotton white bra and panties...
that my father's girlfriend gave me.
Suddenly my father's best friend...
this big man, Alfred,
comes up from behind...
and pulls my new underpants down.
And sticks his big, hard penis
right into my coochie snorcher.
I scream, I kick,
I try to fight him off...
but he already gets in.
My daddy's there then.
And he has a gun.
And there is a loud,
horrible noise...
and then there is blood
all over Alfred and me.
Lots of blood.
I am sure my coochie snorcher
is finally fallen out.
Alfred is paralyzed for life.
And my mama doesn't let me see
my father again for seven years.
Memory: 13 Years Old.
My coochie snorcher
is a very bad place.
A place of pain, nastiness, punching,
invasion and blood.
It's a site for mishaps.
It's a bad luck zone.
I imagine a freeway between my legs,
and girl, I am traveling.
I'm going far away from here.
Memory: 16 Years Old.
There is this gorgeous,
and I mean gorgeous...
24-year-old woman
in our neighborhood.
And I do not know why...
but I can't help
but staring at her all the time.
One day, she invites me into her car.
She asks me if I like to kiss boys,
and I say...
"No, I do not like to do that."
Then she says
she wants to show me something.
And she leans over.
And she kisses me
so softly on the lips with her lips.
And then she puts her tongue
in my mouth.
She asked me if I want to come over
to her house...
and then she kisses me again.
And tells me to relax, to feel it,
to let our tongues feel it.
She asks my mama
if I can spend the night...
and my mama's delighted...
that such a beautiful,
successful woman...
has taken an interest in me.
I am scared, but really I can't wait.
Her apartment is fantastic.
She's got it really hooked up.
It's the 70s, the beads...
the fluffy pillows, the mood lights.
I decide right then
I'm going to be a secretary...
just like her when I grow up.
She makes a vodka for herself...
and then she asks me
what I'm drinking.
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 is so beautiful.
I mean, I always thought
bulldaggers were ugly.
I say, "You look great."
She says, "So do you."
I say, "No, I only have this
white cotton bra and panties on."
So, she takes me into her closet...
and she changes me
into another satin teddy.
It is lavender,
like the first soft days of spring.
The alcohol has gone to my head,
and I am loose.
I am ready.
I notice, as she lays me down
on her bed...
that there is a picture
of a naked black woman...
with a huge afro.
As she slowly and gently lays me
down on her bed...
and just our bodies rubbing.
Just our bodies rubbing
makes me come.
Then she does everything to me
and my coochie snorcher...
that I always thought
was nasty before.
And oh my God, I am so excited.
She says, "Your vagina,
untouched by man...
smells so fresh, so nice."
"I wish I could keep it
that way forever."
I get crazy. I get crazy wild.
And then the phone rings,
and it's my mama.
She catches me at everything.
I try to act normal
when I get on the phone.
"What is wrong with you, girl?
Have you been running?"
I say, "No, mama, exercising."
Afterwards, the gorgeous lady
teaches me everything...
about my coochie snorcher.
She makes me play with myself
in front of her...
and she teaches me
all the different ways...
to give myself pleasure.
She is very thorough.
In the morning, I am worried
I've become a butch...
because I'm so in love with her.
She laughs,
but I never see her again.
You know, I realized later...
she was my surprising, unexpected,
politically incorrect salvation.
She transformed
my sorry-ass coochie snorcher...
and raised it up
into a kind of heaven.
In 1993,
I saw this incredible picture...
on the cover of "Newsday".
It was a picture
of six young Bosnian girls...
who had just been returned
from a rape camp...
in the former Yugoslavia.
And the picture
was really shocking...
because on one level they looked like
six young beautiful girls...
in their late teens, early 20s.
But from another direction
it was really clear...
that something had just occurred
to each of these girls...
that had changed them forever.
Inside the newspaper
was another photograph...
and there were 30 girls who had
been returned from a rape camp.
And they were all standing
in a semi-circle...
having their picture taken.
Yet not one of them could look
at the camera.
These pictures completely
haunted me...
and were responsible for my going
to the former Yugoslavia...
several months later during the war
where I spent months...
interviewing Bosnian women
refugees in camps and in centers.
Their stories were,
they were horrible.
And when I came back to the States,
I felt insane.
And I couldn't understand...
why we weren't doing anything
about the fact...
that between 20 and 70 thousand women
were being raped...
in the middle of Europe in 1993,
as a systematic tactic of war.
And a friend of mine finally said,
"Why are you surprised?"
"In this country, in one year,
and I do not exaggerate...
it's a documented fact."
"In this country in one year,
over 700,000 women are raped."
"And in theory, we're not at war."
I wrote this for the brave,
beautiful women of Bosnia and Kosova.
"My Vagina Was My Village."
My vagina was green water.
Soft pink fields, cow mooing.
Sun resting, sweet boyfriend.
Touching lightly
with a soft piece of blonde straw.
There is something between my legs.
I do not know what it is.
I do not know where it is. Not now.
Not anymore. Not since.
My vagina was chatty,
can't wait, so much saying...
words talking, can't quit trying,
Can't quit saying, "Yes."
Not since I dream
there's a dead animal...
sewn in down there
with thick black fishing line.
And the bad dead animal smell
cannot be removed.
And its throat is slit and it bleeds
through all my summer dresses.
My vagina singing all girl songs...
all goat bell ringing songs,
all wild autumn field songs.
Vagina songs, vagina home songs.
Not since the soldiers put
a long, thick rifle inside me.
So cold, the steel rod
canceling my heart.
Don't know
whether they're going to fire it...
or shove it through
my spinning brain.
Six of them, with black masks shoving
bottles up me too.
There were sticks,
and the end of a broom.
My vagina swimming
river water, clean...
spilling water
over sun-baked stones...
over stone clit,
clit stones over and over.
Not since I heard the skin tear...
and made lemon screeching sounds.
Not since a piece of my vagina
came off in my hand...
now one part of the lip...
one side of the lip
is completely gone.
My vagina.
A live, wet, water village.
My vagina was once my hometown.
Not since they took turns.
They took turns for seven days...
smelling like feces and smoked meat.
They left their dirty sperm
inside me.
And I became
a river of poison and pus...
and all the crops died and the fish.
My vagina...
a live, wet, water village.
They invaded it.
They butchered it and burned it down.
I do not touch now.
I do not visit.
I live someplace else now.
I don't know where that is.
Has anyone ever hurt your vagina?
The worst thing
was definitely being raped.
- And when was that?
- When I was 14 years old.
That was the first time
a man ever did enter my body.
That was when you were a virgin?
So, what happened?
He had cut me with his fingernails.
And then I walked around
trying not to pee...
because it hurt.
I experienced a date rape in college.
This was a very close friend
from high school.
And he one time was staying over...
and woke me up
in the middle of the night...
and ripped off my underwear,
stuffed underwear in my mouth...
pinned my knees down with his knees
and raped me.
I was walking home
from my friend's house...
and an older man came up behind me
and put his hand over my mouth.
And shoved his other hand
in my back...
and said,
"Don't scream or I'll kill you."
He beat me and he knifed me
and he raped me.
And he tried to kill me.
It was such an emotional injury...
that distorts your feelings
about your womanhood...
your self, relationships.
It took a long, long, long time
to trust anyone...
and to make really myself feel
that it was not my fault.
And thank God
I didn't catch anything behind it.
But, I was hurt more than my vagina.
Thank you.
My vagina's angry!
It is! It's pissed off!
My vagina is furious
and it needs to talk.
It needs to talk
about all this shit...
and it needs to talk to you.
I mean, what is the deal?
An army of people out there
thinking up ways...
to torture my poor-ass,
gentle, loving vagina.
Spending their days constructing
psycho products...
and nasty ideas
to undermine my pussy.
Vagina motherfuckers!
All this shit they're constantly
trying to shove up us.
Shove up us, stuff us up,
and make us go away.
Well, my vagina's not going away.
It's pissed off
and it's staying right here.
Is there anything
your vagina's ever been angry at?
Ever been angry at?
Yes, again it all has to do
with the invasiveness aspect...
you know, when it's not ready.
When it hasn't been...
When it hasn't been nurtured.
Let's just begin with tampons.
What the hell is that?
A dry wad of fucking cotton
stuffed up there.
Why can't they find a way
to subtly lubricate the tampon?
As soon as my vagina sees it,
it goes into shock!
It closes up. It says, "Forget it."
You have to work with the vagina.
Introduce it to things.
Prepare the way.
That's what foreplay's all about.
You've got to convince my vagina,
seduce my vagina...
engage my vagina's trust.
You can't do that
with a dry wad of fucking cotton.
You probably don't remember,
but they used to have...
elastic belts with little hooks
and they handed you a pad...
that was like thick enough for Barbie
to use as a raft, you know?
It was like gigantic.
I remember when I was...
After I'd started my period,
spending a summer...
trying to figure out
how to put a tampon in.
And I remember
sort of squatting over a mirror...
for days and days and days
trying to find the way in.
Stop shoving things up me!
Stop shoving and stop cleaning it up.
My vagina doesn't need
to be cleaned up.
It smells good already.
Don't try to decorate.
Don't believe him when he tells you
it smells like rose petals...
when it's supposed
to smell like pussy.
That's what they're doing,
you know, trying to clean it up...
make it smell like
a bathroom spray or a garden.
All those douche sprays.
Floral, berry, rain.
I don't want my pussy
to smell like rain!
All cleaned up like washing a fish
after you've cooked it.
I want to taste the fish!
That's why I ordered it!
You heard the joke
about "Good evening, ladies"?
- No.
- Well, it's a joke that goes...
a blind man passed the fish market
and he says, "Good evening, ladies!"
My fiance says
it's like potpourri and roses.
That's sick.
That's like douching with like...
fabric fresh or Glad or whatever.
The thing you get like
all freaked out...
because there's all these warnings
about the odor.
And then the odor shows up...
and you're like,
"Oh my God, what's going on?"
And then you realize it's normal.
Then there's those exams.
Who thought up those exams?
I know there has to be a better way.
Why the scary paper dress
that scratches your tits?
Why the funky rubber gloves?
Why the flashlight all up there...
like Nancy Drew
working against gravity?
Why the Nazi steel stirrups?
Why the mean, cold duck lips
they shove inside you?
What is that?
My vagina is furious
about these visits.
It gets defended weeks in advance.
It won't go out of the house.
Then you get there,
"Don't you love that?"
"Relax your vagina."
"Relax, come on, scoot down,
relax your vagina."
Why?
My vagina's not stupid.
You're about to shove
mean, cold duck lips up inside it.
It's just horrible. First thing,
the room is always very cold.
You know, you're sitting there...
spreading your legs.
It's just horrible.
What they call a speculum,
or whatever that thing is?
I can't stand it...
even when that little brush thing
for the pap smear goes in there...
it makes me cringe.
And they're like,
"Does this hurt when I squeeze here?"
Well, yeah.
You're squeezing my vagina,
it's not a comfortable feeling.
Why can't they find
some nice, delicious purple velvet...
and wrap it around me.
Lay me down
in some feathery cotton spread.
Put on some friendly pink
or blue gloves.
And rest my feet
in some fur-covered stirrups?
Warm up the duck lips!
Work with my vagina!
But no, more tortures.
Dry wad of fucking cotton,
cold duck lips...
thong underwear!
That shit is the worst.
It is the worst.
It moves around all the time.
It gets stuck
in the back of your vagina...
real crusty butt.
The vagina is supposed to be
loose and wide...
not held together.
That's why girdles are so bad.
We need to move,
and spread and talk.
Vaginas need to talk.
Why don't they make
something comfortable...
something to give them pleasure?
Of course they won't do that.
They hate to see
a woman having pleasure.
Particularly sexual pleasure.
I say, make a nice pair
of white cotton underpants...
with a French tickler built in.
That's right.
Women would be coming all day.
Coming in the supermarkets.
"Give me the juice."
They wouldn't be able to stand it.
Seeing all these energized,
not-taking-shit...
hot, happy vaginas
coming down the street.
If my vagina could talk,
it would talk about itself like me.
It would talk
about other fabulous vaginas.
It would do vagina impressions.
It would wear
Harry Winston diamonds...
no clothing. Just there,
all draped in the diamonds.
My vagina helped release
a giant baby.
It thought it would be
doing more of that.
It's not. Now it wants to travel.
It does not want a lot of company.
It wants to read and know things
and get out more.
It wants sex. It loves sex.
It wants to go deeper.
It's hungry for depth.
It wants kindness.
It wants change.
It wants silence and freedom
and gentle kisses and warm liquids...
and deep touch.
It wants chocolate.
It wants to scream.
It wants to stop being angry.
It wants to come.
It wants to want.
It wants, my vagina, it wants...
it wants everything.
I interviewed
a whole group of sex workers...
and obviously women
who do sex work...
have rich, compelling...
complex relationships
with their vaginas.
This particular woman blew my mind.
She was a sex worker,
but she only did sex work with women.
You know when you go out
with someone...
and you think
they're in the same zone as you...
and five minutes
into the conversation you're like...
"Oh my God!"
That's what it was like
with this woman.
You know, you try to be hip.
"Right."
Meanwhile your head
is being blown off.
You just hope your scarf
will conceal it.
I wrote this for her.
"The Woman Who Loved
to Make Vaginas Happy."
I love vaginas.
I love women.
I do not see them as separate things.
Women pay me to dominate them,
to excite them, to make them come.
I did not start out like this.
No, to the contrary...
I started out as a lawyer.
But in my late 30s...
I became obsessed
with making women happy.
It began as a mission of sorts,
but then I got involved in it.
I got very good at it,
kind of brilliant.
You could say I found my calling.
I started getting paid for it.
I wore outrageous outfits
when I dominated women.
Lace, silk, leather.
I used props, whips, ropes...
handcuffs, dildos.
There was nothing like this
in tax law.
There was no props, no excitement...
and I hated
those blue corporate suits...
although I have to tell you...
I wear them now
in my new line of work...
and they fit in nicely.
Context is everything.
There was no wetness.
There was no dark,
mysterious foreplay.
No erect nipples.
No delicious mouths.
But mainly there was no moaning.
Not the kind
I'm talking about anyway.
I see now that moaning was the key.
It was the thing
that ultimately seduced me...
and got me addicted
to making women happy.
I made love to quiet women, okay?
I found a place inside them...
they shocked themselves
in their moaning.
I made love to moaners
and they found a deeper...
more penetrating moan.
I became obsessed,
I longed to be in charge...
like a bandleader or a conductor.
It was a kind of surgery,
a kind of delicate science...
finding the exact location
or home of the moan.
That's what I called it.
Sometimes I found it
over a woman's jeans.
Sometimes I snuck up on it,
off the record...
quietly disarming
the surrounding alarms...
and moving in.
Sometimes I used force...
but not violent,
oppressing force, no.
More like dominating,
"I'm going to take you someplace...
why don't you lay back,
enjoy the ride" kind of force.
Sometimes it was simply mundane.
I found the moan
before things even started...
while we were eating chicken
or salad in the kitchen...
right there,
with my fingers all mixed in...
with the balsamic vinegar.
Sometimes I used props, I love props.
Sometimes I made the woman
find her own moan in front of me.
I waited.
I stuck it out
until she opened herself.
I was not fooled by those minor,
more obvious moans. No.
I pushed her further,
all the way into her power moan.
Now...
there's the clit moan.
The vaginal moan.
The combo clit-vaginal moan.
The almost moan.
The on-it moan.
The elegant moan.
The Grace Slick moan.
The WASP moan.
The semi-religious moan.
The mountain top moan.
The baby moan.
The doggy moan.
The southern moan.
The militant,
uninhibited bisexual moan.
The machine-gun moan.
The tortured Zen moan.
The diva moan.
And finally,
the surprise triple-orgasm moan.
Oh, God, that's really good,
don't stop.
That's... That's it.
Oh my God, that's really good.
That's... Oh my God!
Can you believe
we're doing this on HBO?
Orgasms on HBO, I'm so excited.
I've been collecting vagina facts
for quite some time...
and I have to tell you,
I've been hard-pressed...
to find a happy vagina fact.
I found this one
and now I think I live to tell it.
The clitoris is pure in purpose.
It is the only organ
in the male or female body...
designed solely for pleasure.
The clitoris is simply
a bundle of nerves...
8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise.
That is a higher concentration
of nerve fibers...
than is found anywhere else
in the body...
including the fingertips,
lips, and tongue.
And it is twice...
twice...
twice the number in the penis.
- Do you want to go first?
- You go first, let's see.
- You go first.
- You go first.
Okay, first I feel it in my head
before I feel it anywhere else.
I do, I feel it like right here
in my head.
And then it like travels down...
and it's the most
incredible sensation.
I scream and I yell,
and I say, you know...
"More, it's good."
I have to squeeze all my muscles,
pretty much.
It's like every single muscle
in my body.
Yeah, I start breathing heavier,
and honestly...
you feel like
you're going to explode.
It's like...
you kind of lose your mind
for a little bit.
You just kind of go crazy.
It's sort of an eruptive state.
It's a rising, ignited state.
It can be kind of a boom,
or it can be soft.
It's just like...
Yes!
I'd been performing this piece
for quite some time...
and I didn't have one monologue in it
about birth...
which was a bizarre omission.
Although recently I was interviewed
by a male journalist and he said...
"Really, what's the connection?"
My husband was there,
and the doctor was there...
and the nurse, and my sister.
And they were holding my legs
and telling me to push.
When they said,
"We can see the head."
"One big push,
and you could push that baby out."
And there's this sort of
bone cracking, you know...
stretchy sound.
I felt this very strange sensation...
of like something swimming
through my body.
And I realized,
"Oh my God, he's coming out."
So, I just kept pushing harder.
And then finally there he was,
upside down...
hanging by his legs,
and he was okay.
It's so, I can't wait
until you experience it.
- I know you can't.
- I cannot wait.
It's so wonderful.
I can't wait. It's just...
It's the best thing ever.
Over the course
of writing the monologues...
my daughter-in-law got pregnant.
And she and my son
invited me to be there...
for the birth of my granddaughter.
And I have to tell you...
if I was in awe of vaginas
before this moment...
I'm in deep worship now.
I wrote this
for my daughter-in-law, Shiva...
and my granddaughter Coco.
"I Was There in the Room."
I was there when her vagina opened.
We were all there.
Her mother, her husband and I...
and the nurse from the Ukraine...
with her whole hand up there,
in her vagina...
feeling and turning
with her rubber glove...
as she talked casually to us...
like she was turning on
a loaded faucet.
I was there in the room
when the contractions...
made her crawl on all fours.
Made unfamiliar moans
leak out of her pores.
And still there, after hours...
when she just screamed,
suddenly wild...
her arms striking
at the electric air.
I was there when her vagina changed
from a shy, sexual hole...
to an archaeological tunnel.
A sacred vessel.
A Venetian canal.
A deep well
with a tiny stuck child inside...
waiting to be rescued.
I saw the colors of her vagina.
They changed.
Saw the bruised broken blue,
the blistering tomato red...
the gray-pink, the dark.
Saw the blood-like perspiration
along the edges.
Saw the yellow, white liquid...
the shit, the clots
pushing out all the holes...
pushing harder and harder.
Saw through the hole,
the baby's head.
Scratches of black hair.
Saw it just there, behind the bone.
Like a hard, round memory.
As the nurse from the Ukraine...
kept turning and turning
her slippery hand.
I was there when each of us,
her mother and I...
held a leg and spread her wide...
pushing with all our strength
against her pushing...
as her husband sternly counting,
"One, two, three."
Telling her, "Focus, focus harder."
We looked into her then.
We couldn't get our eyes
out of that place.
We forget the vagina, all of us.
What else would explain
our lack of awe...
our lack of reverence?
I was there
when the doctor reached in...
with Alice In Wonderland spoons.
And there as her vagina
became a wide, operatic mouth...
singing with all its strength.
First the little head,
then the gray flopping arm.
Then the fast, swimming body.
Swimming quickly
into our weeping arms.
I was there later when I just turned.
I turned and I faced her vagina.
I stood and I let myself see her...
all spread, completely exposed,
mutilated, swollen, torn...
bleeding all over
the doctor's hands...
who was calmly sewing her there.
I stood.
And as I stared...
her vagina suddenly became...
a wide, red, pulsing heart.
The heart is capable of sacrifice.
So is the vagina.
The heart is able to
forgive and repair.
It can change its shape
to let us in.
It can expand to let us out.
So can the vagina.
It can ache for us
and stretch for us...
and die for us.
And bleed and bleed us...
into this difficult wondrous world.
So can the vagina.
I was there in the room.
I remember.
Well, I didn't really want
to show vaginas in this movie.
I kind of resisted it, but HBO,
really wouldn't be an HBO movie...
without showing a vagina.
So, here we go. Here we go.
Okay, we're done.
I'm just going to ask you
a few questions...
and just answer whatever
you're comfortable answering.
Don't go any further
than you feel like going.
And if you want to add
something later on...
to a question I've asked you,
that's fine too.
- Okay.
- Okay.
When was the first time you saw it?
You know, it was sort of like
an accidental thing.
There was like
a mirror on the floor...
and I walked up and I was like,
"What was that?"
I have to go home
and do some research.
I didn't look at myself
until probably in college.
I don't even say the word
to my ob-gyn.
And I went to the library,
I'm sneaking in the library...
looking through the books,
and you know...
like I'm covering the book
with like something else.
And then it's like.
"Admire it, it's a beautiful flower."
"You know, it's like roses."
I'm like, we're not looking
at the same thing, you know?
I took photos of it.
I had a polaroid camera...
and I would go into the bathroom
and take a picture.
- Are you embarrassed?
- Yes.
All those things
are kind of like secret.
You know?
And it's not for, you know...
it's like your own little joy.
I realized there was no context...
in which women ever talk
about their vaginas.
So, I just started casually
saying to friends of mine...
"What do you think
about your vagina?"
What do you think?
And over the course
of about three to five years...
I had interviewed over 200 women.
How does it feel
to be talking about it?
Very strange.
I think it's liberating,
but it's kind of funny too.
Anxious, kind of nervous...
not really sure
of what I'm going to say.
I really thought it was going to be
like, uncomfortable...
but it's not
because you make it kind of easy.
And everything every woman said...
was more surprising,
outrageous, disturbing...
exciting than the next.
And one woman would say to me...
"You really need to talk to so and so
about her vagina."
"She has an amazing story."
And she would say...
"No, you need to talk to so and so
about her vagina."
She has... And before I knew it...
I was really suck down
this vagina trail...
and I couldn't get back.
And I've been on the trail
for a long time...
and I don't think I'm getting off it
anytime soon.
Everything on the wall,
all of these were gifts...
or photographs or things
that have found me...
or have been given to me
as I traveled around the world.
Well, first I'd like to introduce
Vagina Barbie...
complete with duck lips.
A lovely vagina candle.
This salad here...
That's a vagina salad.
This is a vulva puppet.
They actually talk.
There's a whole world of vagina life
out there, which I find thrilling.
So, when the show
was first done downtown...
guys would call up and say...
"Can I have tickets
to 'The Vagina Dialogues'?"
And women would call up
and say...
"Can I have tickets
to 'The Monologues'?"
I've heard people call it
"The Viagra Chronicles".
And there was this punk ticket taker,
and she would say...
"Listen, if you can't say the name,
you can't come."
"Now, try again. Try again."
Thank you.
I bet you're worried.
I was worried.
That's why I began this piece.
I was worried about vaginas.
I was worried
what we think about vaginas.
And I was even more worried
that we don't think about them.
I was worried about my own vagina.
It needed a context, a community...
a culture of other vaginas.
There is so much darkness and secrecy
surrounding them.
Like the Bermuda Triangle,
nobody ever reports back from there.
In the first place, it's not so easy
to even find your vagina.
Women go days, weeks, months,
without looking at it.
I interviewed
a high-powered businesswoman.
She told me she didn't have time.
Looking at your vagina, she said,
is a full day's work.
You've got to get down there,
on your back...
in front of the mirror,
full-length preferred.
You've got to get
in the perfect position...
with the perfect light...
which then becomes shadowed
by the angle you're at.
You're twisting your head up,
arching your back, it's exhausting.
She was busy. She didn't have time.
So, I decided to talk to women
about their vaginas.
They began
as casual vagina interviews...
and they turned
into vagina monologues.
I talked with over 200 women.
I talked to younger women,
older women, married women...
lesbians, single women.
I talked to college professors,
corporate professionals...
actors, sex workers.
I talked to African-American women...
Asian-American women,
Hispanic women...
Native-American women,
Caucasian women...
Jewish women.
At first, women were a little shy.
A little reluctant to talk.
But once they got going,
you couldn't stop them.
Women love to talk
about their vaginas.
They do. They really do.
Mainly because no one's
ever asked them before.
Let's just start
with the word "vagina".
Vagina.
It sounds like an infection at best.
Maybe a medical instrument,
"Hurry, Nurse, bring me the vagina."
Vagina.
It doesn't matter how many times
you say the word...
it never sounds like
a word you want to say.
It's a completely ridiculous,
totally unsexy word.
If you use it during sex,
trying to be politically correct.
You kill the act right there.
I'm worried what we call it
and don't call it.
In Great Neck, New York,
they call it a "pussycat".
A woman told me there,
her mother used to tell her...
"Don't wear panties, dear,
underneath your pajamas."
"You need to air out your pussycat."
In Westchester,
they call it a "pookie".
In New Jersey, a "twat".
There's "powder box"...
a "poochi", a "poopi",
a "pee-pee", a "poopalu"...
a "pooninana" and a "piche".
There's "toadie", "dee-dee",
"nishi", "dignity"...
"coochie snorcher",
"cooter", "labbe"...
"Gladys Siegelman"...
"VA", "wee-wee", "whorespot"...
"nappy dugout", "mongo",
"monkey box", "pajama"...
"fannyboo", "mushmellow",
"ghoulie", "possible"...
"tamale", "tottita", "connie".
A "mimi" in Miami.
A "split knish" in Philadelphia.
And a "schmende" in the Bronx.
I am worried about vaginas.
Steve!
Vagina graduate!
This is Steve.
Steve just graduated from UVS.
That is
the University of Vaginal Sciences.
The most vagina friendly guy
in his class, okay?
Got the job. Yeah.
This first monologue
is based on one woman's story...
pretty much the way I heard it...
although the subject
of this interview came up...
in every interview
and was often fraught.
The subject being "Hair".
I love hair. I mean...
Hair vagina, hair is a vagina,
the vagina is hair.
I like my hair,
I'd like a lot more hair actually.
I'm a redhead and everything's red.
I mean, it's just red.
I've never shaved the bikini line.
I wear appropriate bathing suits
so that it covers, but I don't...
you know, I don't feel that
I had to work on it cosmetically.
Because I've been afflicted
with hair...
from the time I was eight years old
on my vagina...
I'm very curious
what it would feel like...
to be hairless.
I don't mean a haircut,
I mean, you know...
it's not anything like crazy,
I mean, you know...
I do it myself,
so how crazy can it be?
It's just like a normal...
nice, neat, you know, thing.
You know.
Thought everybody did that, no?
You cannot love a vagina...
unless you love hair.
Many people do not love hair.
My first and only husband hated hair.
He said it was cluttered and dirty.
He made me shave my vagina.
It looked puffy,
and exposed, like a little girl.
This excited him.
When he made love to my vagina,
it felt the way a beard must feel.
It felt good to scratch it,
and painful...
like scratching a mosquito bite.
There were screaming red bumps.
It felt like it was on fire.
I refused to shave it again.
Then my husband had an affair.
When we went to marital therapy,
he said he screwed around...
because I wouldn't please him
sexually, I wouldn't shave my vagina.
The therapist had
a thick German accent.
And she gasped,
between sentences...
to show her empathy.
She asked me why I didn't want
to please my husband.
Why I didn't want to shave my vagina.
I told her I thought it was weird.
I felt little when my hair was gone
down there...
and I couldn't help
talking in a baby voice.
And even calamine lotion
wouldn't stop the irritation.
She told me that marriage
was a compromise.
I asked her
if my shaving my vagina...
would stop my husband
from screwing around.
I asked her if she had
many cases like this before.
She told me
that questions diluted the process.
She was sure
it was a good beginning...
I just needed to jump in.
This time, when we got home,
he got to shave my vagina.
It was like a therapy bonus prize.
He clipped it a few times...
and there was a little blood
in the bathtub.
He didn't notice.
He was so excited shaving me.
Then, later, when my husband
was pressing against me...
I could feel his spiky sharpness...
sticking into
my naked exposed vagina.
There was no protection.
There was no fluff.
I realized then
that hair is there for a reason.
It's the leaf around the flower.
The lawn around the house.
You have to love hair
in order to love the vagina.
You can't pick the parts you want.
And besides, my husband, well...
he never did stop screwing around.
You know, I interviewed
a whole group of women...
between 65 and 75.
And that was definitely
the most poignant group.
Mainly because I don't think
many women in that group...
had ever had
a vagina interview before.
This particular woman
was 72 years old...
and she had never seen her vagina.
She'd washed it in the shower
and bath...
but never with conscious intention
or awareness...
and she'd never had an orgasm.
When she was 72...
she went to therapy
for the first time...
as we do in New York.
And she worked
with a wonderful therapist...
who got her to go home, by herself.
She told me she lit some candles...
she played some music,
she took a bath.
She got down with herself...
and she told me it took her
over an hour...
because she was arthritic.
But when she finally found
her clitoris...
she said she cried.
This is for her.
"The Flood."
Down there?
I haven't been down there
since 1953.
No. No, it had nothing to do
with Eisenhower.
No.
No, trust me,
you don't want to go down there.
It's very damp, very clammy.
Smell the mildew,
gets in your clothes, it's horrible.
No. No, and there was no accident
down there.
It didn't blow up or catch on fire.
It wasn't so dramatic.
What's a nice girl like you
going around...
talking to old ladies
about their "down there's" for?
We didn't do this kind of a thing
when I was your age.
Well...
There was this boy. Oh, God.
Andy. Andy Leftkov.
Oh, God.
He was so good looking,
and tall, like me.
He asked me out for a date,
I'll never forget...
in his new white Chevy BelAir.
Oh my God.
I can't do this. I'm sorry.
I can't talk to you about down there.
You just know it's there
like the cellar.
You can hear the pipes.
Things get caught there
from time to time.
Little animals and things.
It gets wet, people come,
they plug up the leaks...
otherwise the door stays closed,
you forget about it.
Andy. Oh, God, he was a catch.
That's what we called it in my day.
We're in his car and all I'm thinking
about are my kneecaps.
I have very long legs...
and my kneecaps were smushed up
against the dashboard.
When Andy just grabs me,
and kisses me in this...
"take you by control like they do
in the movies" kind of way.
Well, I got excited.
I got very excited.
And there was a...
Well, there was a...
Well, there was a flood down there.
This river of life,
this force of passion...
just flooded out of me.
Right through my panties,
right onto the car seat...
of his new white Chevy BelAir.
Well, it wasn't pee.
And it wasn't smelly.
Well, he said, Andy said, he said...
it smelled like sour milk
and it was staining his car seat.
I was "a stinky weird girl", he said.
I tried to explain that his kiss
had caught me off guard.
I wasn't normally like this.
I tried to wipe up the flood
with my dress.
It was a new,
yellow primrose dress...
and it looked ugly
with the flood on it.
Andy drove me home.
He never...
He never said another word to me.
And when I got out of his car,
I tell you, I closed it...
locked it, locked the store.
Never opened for business again.
I used to have these dreams,
though...
I mean, they're crazy dreams,
dopey dreams.
Why? Burt Reynolds.
I don't know why.
The guy never did a thing for me
in life.
But always in my dreams,
it was Burt and I...
Burt and I, Burt and I.
We'd be out for dinner.
One of those restaurants,
the kind you see in Atlantic City.
Huge chandeliers...
thousands of the waiters
with the vests on.
Burt would be there,
he'd give me an orchid corsage.
I'd pin it to my blazer.
We'd laugh. We were always laughing,
Burt and I. Laughing.
Ate shrimp cocktail,
fabulous shrimp, huge shrimp.
Then Burt would lean towards me...
and just as
he was about to kiss me...
the entire restaurant
would start to shake.
Pigeons would fly out
from underneath the table.
I don't know
what the pigeons were doing there.
And the flood would come,
straight from down there.
It would pour out of me.
It would pour and pour.
There'd be little boats inside it...
and little fish...
and the entire restaurant
would fill up with my flood.
And there would be Burt,
standing waist deep in it...
looking horrified.
Horribly disappointed
I'd done it again...
as he watched his friends,
Dean Martin and the likes...
swim past us
in their tuxedos and evening gowns.
I don't have those dreams anymore,
no.
Not since they took
just about everything...
connected with down there.
Moved out the tubes, the uterus,
the whole works.
My doctor thinks
he's a real comedian.
He tells me,
"You don't use it, you lose it".
But, really, it was cancer.
The whole thing had to go.
Highly overrated anyway, right?
I do other things.
Love the dog shows.
I sell antiques.
Excuse me? Come again?
"What would it wear?"
What kind of question is that,
"What would it wear?"
It would wear a sign,
"Closed, due to Flooding".
What would it say?
I told you, it's not a thing
that speaks, it's a place.
A place you don't go.
Closed up, under the house,
down there.
You happy now, you happy?
You got an old lady to talk
about this stuff, you feel better?
Actually, I'll tell you the truth.
You are the very first person
I ever talked to...
about any of this stuff.
I feel a little better.
Did you ever look
at your vagina or...
No, I didn't.
- So, you've never seen your vagina?
- I don't think so.
I don't think so,
and I've had children.
- Really?
- Yeah.
What do you imagine it looks like?
Well, I guess I've seen it
in the doctor's office...
when I'm in the stirrups,
if there's a mirror...
I mean, I'm sure I must have seen it
in passing over the years.
Well, I happened to look down...
and there was this very ugly thing
staring back at me and...
Oh my God.
And do you have good sex today?
Yes.
You said "good",
you didn't ask how often.
Is there something specific
it's longed for?
Well, right about now, probably sex.
Because it's been a long time.
It's probably down there
just wishing.
- Just wishing.
- Just wishing.
"Why don't you get some sense, woman,
and give me some help down here?"
It still aches a little bit,
because I still like to play house.
I'm old, not dead.
No, I'm not holding this.
It's amazing
how many people complain...
that there are
not enough monologues...
about heterosexual,
vagina-loving men.
We have 10 minutes, Ms. Ensler.
There is a vagina-loving man.
Come in, Steve.
This is the guy. Right here.
Tell me, what've you learned
about vaginas in the last few days?
I've probably learned more
in the last three days...
than in my entire 24 years.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Specific?
Basically, I thought I knew something
and I knew nothing.
That's what it comes down to.
This next monologue
is based on an interview...
I did with a woman
who had a good experience with a man.
"Because He Liked to Look at It."
This is how I came to love my vagina.
It's embarrassing
because it's not politically correct.
I mean, I know
how it should have happened.
In a bath, with salt grains
from the Dead Sea...
Enya playing...
me loving my woman-self.
I know the story.
Vaginas are beautiful.
Our self-hatred is only
the internalized repression...
and hatred of
the patriarchal culture.
It isn't real. Pussies unite.
I know all of it.
Like if we'd grown up
in a culture...
where we were taught
fat thighs were beautiful...
we'd all be pounding down
milk shakes and doughnuts...
spending our days
lying on our backs...
thigh-expanding.
But we didn't grow up
in that culture, did we? No.
I hated my thighs,
and I hated my vagina even more.
I thought it was incredibly ugly.
I was one of those women
who had looked at it...
and from that moment on
I wished I hadn't.
It made me sick.
I pitied anyone
who had to go down there.
In order to survive,
I began to pretend...
there was something else
between my legs.
I imagined furniture.
Cozy futons
with light cotton comforters...
little velvet settees,
or pretty things.
Silk handkerchiefs,
quilted pot holders.
I got so accustomed to this,
I lost all memory of having a vagina.
Whenever a man was inside me...
I pictured him
inside a mink-lined muffler...
or a Chinese bowl.
Then I met Bob.
Bob was the most ordinary man
I ever met.
Thin, tall, nondescript,
he wore khaki tan clothes.
Bob did not like spicy foods
or listen to Prodigy.
He had no interest in sexy lingerie.
In the summer,
he spent time in the shade.
He did not share his inner feelings.
He didn't have any problems
or issues.
He wasn't even an alcoholic.
He wasn't very funny
or articulate or mysterious.
He wasn't mean or unavailable.
He wasn't self-involved
or charismatic.
He didn't drive fast.
I didn't particularly like Bob.
I would have missed him altogether...
if he hadn't picked up my change
that I dropped on the deli floor.
When he handed me back
my pennies and quarters...
and his hand
accidentally touched mine...
something happened.
I went to bed with him.
That's when the miracle occurred.
It turned out that Bob loved vaginas.
He was a connoisseur.
He loved the way they tasted,
the way they smelled...
the way they felt,
but most importantly...
Bob loved the way they looked.
He had to look at them.
First time we had sex,
he told me he had to see me.
"I'm right here, Bob."
"No," he said,
"You, I need to see you."
"Turn on the light," I said.
Thinking he was a weirdo
and freaking out in the dark.
He turned on the light.
"Okay," he said, "I'm ready,
I'm ready to see you."
"I'm right here, Bob, right here."
He began to undress me.
"What are you doing, Bob?"
"I need to see what you look like."
"But you've seen
a red leather couch before, Bob."
"I know you've seen that."
Bob continued, he would not stop.
I wanted to throw up and die.
"This is awfully intimate, Bob."
"Can't you just do it?"
"No," he said.
"It's who you are, I need to look."
I held my breath.
He looked, and looked.
He gasped, and smiled.
And stared, and groaned.
He got breathy,
and his face changed.
He didn't look ordinary anymore.
He looked like a hungry beast.
"You're so beautiful," he said.
"You're elegant and deep
and innocent and wild."
"You saw that there?" I said.
It was like he read my palm.
"I saw that," he said,
"And much, much more."
Bob stayed looking
for almost an hour...
as if he were studying a map,
observing the moon...
staring into my eyes.
But it was my vagina!
In the light,
I watched him looking at me.
He was so excited.
So peaceful and euphoric.
I began to get wet and turned on.
I began to see myself
the way he saw me.
I began to feel beautiful
and delicious...
like a great painting or a waterfall.
Bob wasn't afraid, no,
he wasn't grossed out.
I began to swell.
I began to feel proud.
I began to love my vagina.
And Bob lost himself there...
and I was there with him...
in my vagina.
And we were gone!
We're going to get little buttons
made that say, "I'm your Bob."
He's a "Bob", I can tell.
It's part of that whole
university training, you know?
Oh my God.
It's all about posture and hair.
Haven't thought about my hair
this much in my entire life.
I asked all the women I interviewed
the same questions.
And then I picked
my favorite answers.
Although I have to tell you...
I have never heard an answer
I didn't love.
The first question
I asked women was...
"If your vagina got dressed,
what would it wear?"
What would your vagina wear
if it got dressed?
I knew that question
was going to come...
and I said that everybody
would probably say...
that I would have on
a Ralph Lauren skirt...
or a Calvin Klein dress
or something like that.
I would probably put a hat on it.
- Lots of glitter.
- Red silk.
- Jeans.
- Probably a red boa.
Hiking boots and a lot of sun block.
Something from the 40s.
I like leather, it's sexy.
It would be bald.
And it'd have an earring.
Actually my vagina's a nudist.
Doesn't wear anything anymore.
Some "tims". Some baggy jeans.
Probably a hoodie.
Like a little old-fashioned dress.
Spotted leather pants,
and a black knit shirt.
- Daddy would love that.
- I know it, he would love it.
I've been traveling for several years
all around the world...
and I've been threatening
to create a map...
of all the vagina-friendly cities.
Five years in the theater,
not one map.
One hour in HBO, presto!
A vagina Friendly Map.
I bet you don't know
about some of...
the really many surprising
vagina-friendly cities.
Oklahoma City loves vaginas.
Who knew?
Boise, Idaho, recent convert.
They've come into vagina land.
Congratulations, Idaho.
There are on this map
vagina holiday zones.
New York City is vagina holiday zone.
San Francisco has its own status.
There is no other vagina
world fair zone.
It's the only one on the map,
just imagine the ride.
There are some areas which clearly...
as you look through
the mid-part of America...
have not been liberated as of yet.
But we have great faith
they will be liberated any day now.
Pittsburgh is a wild...
Where is Pittsburgh?
Wildly vagina-friendly city.
I've been there three times
and they love vaginas in Pittsburgh.
Who knew?
After one of my first shows there,
a woman came up to me and she said...
"I have to talk to you right away."
She was very upset. I called her
when I got back to New York.
She told me
that she liked the piece...
but she felt I had missed
the texture of the vagina.
She needed to talk texture.
For the next hour, she talked to me
about the texture of the vagina...
with such nuance and detail,
that to be honest...
I had to lay down
at the end of the conversation.
However, she also told me
in the course of our conversation...
that I had said something negative
about a particular word.
A pejorative word...
a word that's been used
to declaim the vagina...
and she needed to help me
reconceive this word.
So, for the next hour,
she talked to me about this word.
And when she was done,
I was a convert.
I wrote this for her,
"Reclaiming Cunt".
I call it "cunt".
I've reclaimed it.
Cunt.
I really like it.
Cunt.
Just listen to it, listen to it.
Cunt.
Ca...
Ca...
Cavern...
cackle, clit, cute, come-closed c...
closed inside, inside ca...
Ca...
Then u...
Then cu...
Then curvy, inviting sharkskin, u...
Uniform, under, up.
Urge.
U...
Then n, then cun..
Cun...
Snug letters
fitting perfectly together.
N...
Nest, now...
nexus, nice...
always depth,
always round in uppercase.
Cun...
A jagged wicked electrical pulse.
N...
Then soft n, warm n...
Cun...
Then t.
Then sharp certain tangy t.
Texture, take, tight, tent...
tantalizing, tensing, taste...
tendrils, time, tactile...
Tell me!
Tell me, cunt!
Cunt!
Say it!
Tell me, come on!
Cunt.
Cunt.
Cunt!
Love that word.
I can't say it enough.
I can't stop saying it.
Feeling a little irritated
in the airport...
just say "cunt", everything changes.
- "What did you say?"
- I said, "Cunt, that's right."
"Cunt." It feels good.
Try it, go ahead. Cunt. Come on.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
- Cunt.
I'm a cunt.
My mother's going to see this,
I can't.
Cunt.
This is better than therapy.
Turns the day around, I promise you.
We're moving along. I asked women...
"If your vagina could talk,
what would it say?"
If your vagina could talk,
and it could say two words...
- what would it say?
- Slow down.
The first two words
that came to me head was...
"Oh, no" and I don't know
if that answers your question...
or if that's what my vagina
would say, like, "Oh, no".
- Ice pack.
- Feed me.
- Use me.
- "Eat me" comes to mind.
Stop thinking so much
and have a good time.
- Where's Tom?
- What do you want?
- Want some.
- Yes!
- Need some.
- More.
- Help me.
- Open for business.
- How you doing?
- Slow down.
- It's cozy.
- Howdie, partner.
- What's up, honey?
- Go, girl.
- I'm here.
- I'm here.
- I'm here.
- Thank you.
Accept gifts.
I'm happy.
That's it. That's what it would say.
For 10 years I had the privilege...
of working with women in New York
who had no homes.
In that time,
I did all kinds of things.
I hung out, I ran groups,
I had meals, I went to the movies.
I interviewed hundreds
and hundreds of homeless women.
And I have to tell you
in all those years...
in all those interviews,
I only met one woman...
who was not sexually abused,
as a little girl...
or raped as a young woman.
This particular woman
I met seven years ago...
in a shelter, and this is her story,
just the way she told it to me.
I didn't add or change anything.
What's not in her story...
is that she met a woman
in that shelter...
and they fell in love.
And through their love, they both
got out of the shelter system.
I do this tonight for her,
because I loved her.
"The Little Coochie Snorcher
That Could."
Memory: December, 1965.
Five Years Old.
My mama tells me in a scary, loud,
life-threatening voice...
to stop scratching
my coochie snorcher.
I become terrified.
I have scratched it off down there...
and do not touch myself again.
Even in the bath, I am afraid
of the water getting in...
and filling me up so I explode.
I put band-aids
over my coochie snorcher...
to cover the hole,
but they fall off in the water.
I imagine a stopper,
a bath tub plug up there...
to prevent things from entering me.
I sleep with three pairs of happy
heart-shaped cotton underpants...
underneath my snap-up pajamas.
I still want to touch myself,
but I don't.
Memory: Seven Years Old.
Edgar Montane, who is 10,
gets angry at me and punches me...
with all his might between my legs.
It feels like he breaks
my entire self.
I limp home, I can't pee.
My mama says, "What's wrong
with your coochie snorcher, girl?"
And when I tell her
what Edgar did to me, she says...
"Never let anyone touch you
down there again."
I tried to explain.
"He didn't touch it, mama.
He punched it."
Memory: Nine Years Old.
I play on the bed,
bouncing and falling...
and impale my coochie snorcher
on the bedpost.
I make high-pitched
screaming noises...
that come straight
from my coochie snorcher's mouth.
I get taken to the hospital...
and they sew it up down there
from where it's been torn apart.
Memory: 10 Years Old.
I'm at my father's house
and he's having a party upstairs.
Everyone's drinking.
I'm playing alone in the basement...
and I'm trying on my new
cotton white bra and panties...
that my father's girlfriend gave me.
Suddenly my father's best friend...
this big man, Alfred,
comes up from behind...
and pulls my new underpants down.
And sticks his big, hard penis
right into my coochie snorcher.
I scream, I kick,
I try to fight him off...
but he already gets in.
My daddy's there then.
And he has a gun.
And there is a loud,
horrible noise...
and then there is blood
all over Alfred and me.
Lots of blood.
I am sure my coochie snorcher
is finally fallen out.
Alfred is paralyzed for life.
And my mama doesn't let me see
my father again for seven years.
Memory: 13 Years Old.
My coochie snorcher
is a very bad place.
A place of pain, nastiness, punching,
invasion and blood.
It's a site for mishaps.
It's a bad luck zone.
I imagine a freeway between my legs,
and girl, I am traveling.
I'm going far away from here.
Memory: 16 Years Old.
There is this gorgeous,
and I mean gorgeous...
24-year-old woman
in our neighborhood.
And I do not know why...
but I can't help
but staring at her all the time.
One day, she invites me into her car.
She asks me if I like to kiss boys,
and I say...
"No, I do not like to do that."
Then she says
she wants to show me something.
And she leans over.
And she kisses me
so softly on the lips with her lips.
And then she puts her tongue
in my mouth.
She asked me if I want to come over
to her house...
and then she kisses me again.
And tells me to relax, to feel it,
to let our tongues feel it.
She asks my mama
if I can spend the night...
and my mama's delighted...
that such a beautiful,
successful woman...
has taken an interest in me.
I am scared, but really I can't wait.
Her apartment is fantastic.
She's got it really hooked up.
It's the 70s, the beads...
the fluffy pillows, the mood lights.
I decide right then
I'm going to be a secretary...
just like her when I grow up.
She makes a vodka for herself...
and then she asks me
what I'm drinking.
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 is so beautiful.
I mean, I always thought
bulldaggers were ugly.
I say, "You look great."
She says, "So do you."
I say, "No, I only have this
white cotton bra and panties on."
So, she takes me into her closet...
and she changes me
into another satin teddy.
It is lavender,
like the first soft days of spring.
The alcohol has gone to my head,
and I am loose.
I am ready.
I notice, as she lays me down
on her bed...
that there is a picture
of a naked black woman...
with a huge afro.
As she slowly and gently lays me
down on her bed...
and just our bodies rubbing.
Just our bodies rubbing
makes me come.
Then she does everything to me
and my coochie snorcher...
that I always thought
was nasty before.
And oh my God, I am so excited.
She says, "Your vagina,
untouched by man...
smells so fresh, so nice."
"I wish I could keep it
that way forever."
I get crazy. I get crazy wild.
And then the phone rings,
and it's my mama.
She catches me at everything.
I try to act normal
when I get on the phone.
"What is wrong with you, girl?
Have you been running?"
I say, "No, mama, exercising."
Afterwards, the gorgeous lady
teaches me everything...
about my coochie snorcher.
She makes me play with myself
in front of her...
and she teaches me
all the different ways...
to give myself pleasure.
She is very thorough.
In the morning, I am worried
I've become a butch...
because I'm so in love with her.
She laughs,
but I never see her again.
You know, I realized later...
she was my surprising, unexpected,
politically incorrect salvation.
She transformed
my sorry-ass coochie snorcher...
and raised it up
into a kind of heaven.
In 1993,
I saw this incredible picture...
on the cover of "Newsday".
It was a picture
of six young Bosnian girls...
who had just been returned
from a rape camp...
in the former Yugoslavia.
And the picture
was really shocking...
because on one level they looked like
six young beautiful girls...
in their late teens, early 20s.
But from another direction
it was really clear...
that something had just occurred
to each of these girls...
that had changed them forever.
Inside the newspaper
was another photograph...
and there were 30 girls who had
been returned from a rape camp.
And they were all standing
in a semi-circle...
having their picture taken.
Yet not one of them could look
at the camera.
These pictures completely
haunted me...
and were responsible for my going
to the former Yugoslavia...
several months later during the war
where I spent months...
interviewing Bosnian women
refugees in camps and in centers.
Their stories were,
they were horrible.
And when I came back to the States,
I felt insane.
And I couldn't understand...
why we weren't doing anything
about the fact...
that between 20 and 70 thousand women
were being raped...
in the middle of Europe in 1993,
as a systematic tactic of war.
And a friend of mine finally said,
"Why are you surprised?"
"In this country, in one year,
and I do not exaggerate...
it's a documented fact."
"In this country in one year,
over 700,000 women are raped."
"And in theory, we're not at war."
I wrote this for the brave,
beautiful women of Bosnia and Kosova.
"My Vagina Was My Village."
My vagina was green water.
Soft pink fields, cow mooing.
Sun resting, sweet boyfriend.
Touching lightly
with a soft piece of blonde straw.
There is something between my legs.
I do not know what it is.
I do not know where it is. Not now.
Not anymore. Not since.
My vagina was chatty,
can't wait, so much saying...
words talking, can't quit trying,
Can't quit saying, "Yes."
Not since I dream
there's a dead animal...
sewn in down there
with thick black fishing line.
And the bad dead animal smell
cannot be removed.
And its throat is slit and it bleeds
through all my summer dresses.
My vagina singing all girl songs...
all goat bell ringing songs,
all wild autumn field songs.
Vagina songs, vagina home songs.
Not since the soldiers put
a long, thick rifle inside me.
So cold, the steel rod
canceling my heart.
Don't know
whether they're going to fire it...
or shove it through
my spinning brain.
Six of them, with black masks shoving
bottles up me too.
There were sticks,
and the end of a broom.
My vagina swimming
river water, clean...
spilling water
over sun-baked stones...
over stone clit,
clit stones over and over.
Not since I heard the skin tear...
and made lemon screeching sounds.
Not since a piece of my vagina
came off in my hand...
now one part of the lip...
one side of the lip
is completely gone.
My vagina.
A live, wet, water village.
My vagina was once my hometown.
Not since they took turns.
They took turns for seven days...
smelling like feces and smoked meat.
They left their dirty sperm
inside me.
And I became
a river of poison and pus...
and all the crops died and the fish.
My vagina...
a live, wet, water village.
They invaded it.
They butchered it and burned it down.
I do not touch now.
I do not visit.
I live someplace else now.
I don't know where that is.
Has anyone ever hurt your vagina?
The worst thing
was definitely being raped.
- And when was that?
- When I was 14 years old.
That was the first time
a man ever did enter my body.
That was when you were a virgin?
So, what happened?
He had cut me with his fingernails.
And then I walked around
trying not to pee...
because it hurt.
I experienced a date rape in college.
This was a very close friend
from high school.
And he one time was staying over...
and woke me up
in the middle of the night...
and ripped off my underwear,
stuffed underwear in my mouth...
pinned my knees down with his knees
and raped me.
I was walking home
from my friend's house...
and an older man came up behind me
and put his hand over my mouth.
And shoved his other hand
in my back...
and said,
"Don't scream or I'll kill you."
He beat me and he knifed me
and he raped me.
And he tried to kill me.
It was such an emotional injury...
that distorts your feelings
about your womanhood...
your self, relationships.
It took a long, long, long time
to trust anyone...
and to make really myself feel
that it was not my fault.
And thank God
I didn't catch anything behind it.
But, I was hurt more than my vagina.
Thank you.
My vagina's angry!
It is! It's pissed off!
My vagina is furious
and it needs to talk.
It needs to talk
about all this shit...
and it needs to talk to you.
I mean, what is the deal?
An army of people out there
thinking up ways...
to torture my poor-ass,
gentle, loving vagina.
Spending their days constructing
psycho products...
and nasty ideas
to undermine my pussy.
Vagina motherfuckers!
All this shit they're constantly
trying to shove up us.
Shove up us, stuff us up,
and make us go away.
Well, my vagina's not going away.
It's pissed off
and it's staying right here.
Is there anything
your vagina's ever been angry at?
Ever been angry at?
Yes, again it all has to do
with the invasiveness aspect...
you know, when it's not ready.
When it hasn't been...
When it hasn't been nurtured.
Let's just begin with tampons.
What the hell is that?
A dry wad of fucking cotton
stuffed up there.
Why can't they find a way
to subtly lubricate the tampon?
As soon as my vagina sees it,
it goes into shock!
It closes up. It says, "Forget it."
You have to work with the vagina.
Introduce it to things.
Prepare the way.
That's what foreplay's all about.
You've got to convince my vagina,
seduce my vagina...
engage my vagina's trust.
You can't do that
with a dry wad of fucking cotton.
You probably don't remember,
but they used to have...
elastic belts with little hooks
and they handed you a pad...
that was like thick enough for Barbie
to use as a raft, you know?
It was like gigantic.
I remember when I was...
After I'd started my period,
spending a summer...
trying to figure out
how to put a tampon in.
And I remember
sort of squatting over a mirror...
for days and days and days
trying to find the way in.
Stop shoving things up me!
Stop shoving and stop cleaning it up.
My vagina doesn't need
to be cleaned up.
It smells good already.
Don't try to decorate.
Don't believe him when he tells you
it smells like rose petals...
when it's supposed
to smell like pussy.
That's what they're doing,
you know, trying to clean it up...
make it smell like
a bathroom spray or a garden.
All those douche sprays.
Floral, berry, rain.
I don't want my pussy
to smell like rain!
All cleaned up like washing a fish
after you've cooked it.
I want to taste the fish!
That's why I ordered it!
You heard the joke
about "Good evening, ladies"?
- No.
- Well, it's a joke that goes...
a blind man passed the fish market
and he says, "Good evening, ladies!"
My fiance says
it's like potpourri and roses.
That's sick.
That's like douching with like...
fabric fresh or Glad or whatever.
The thing you get like
all freaked out...
because there's all these warnings
about the odor.
And then the odor shows up...
and you're like,
"Oh my God, what's going on?"
And then you realize it's normal.
Then there's those exams.
Who thought up those exams?
I know there has to be a better way.
Why the scary paper dress
that scratches your tits?
Why the funky rubber gloves?
Why the flashlight all up there...
like Nancy Drew
working against gravity?
Why the Nazi steel stirrups?
Why the mean, cold duck lips
they shove inside you?
What is that?
My vagina is furious
about these visits.
It gets defended weeks in advance.
It won't go out of the house.
Then you get there,
"Don't you love that?"
"Relax your vagina."
"Relax, come on, scoot down,
relax your vagina."
Why?
My vagina's not stupid.
You're about to shove
mean, cold duck lips up inside it.
It's just horrible. First thing,
the room is always very cold.
You know, you're sitting there...
spreading your legs.
It's just horrible.
What they call a speculum,
or whatever that thing is?
I can't stand it...
even when that little brush thing
for the pap smear goes in there...
it makes me cringe.
And they're like,
"Does this hurt when I squeeze here?"
Well, yeah.
You're squeezing my vagina,
it's not a comfortable feeling.
Why can't they find
some nice, delicious purple velvet...
and wrap it around me.
Lay me down
in some feathery cotton spread.
Put on some friendly pink
or blue gloves.
And rest my feet
in some fur-covered stirrups?
Warm up the duck lips!
Work with my vagina!
But no, more tortures.
Dry wad of fucking cotton,
cold duck lips...
thong underwear!
That shit is the worst.
It is the worst.
It moves around all the time.
It gets stuck
in the back of your vagina...
real crusty butt.
The vagina is supposed to be
loose and wide...
not held together.
That's why girdles are so bad.
We need to move,
and spread and talk.
Vaginas need to talk.
Why don't they make
something comfortable...
something to give them pleasure?
Of course they won't do that.
They hate to see
a woman having pleasure.
Particularly sexual pleasure.
I say, make a nice pair
of white cotton underpants...
with a French tickler built in.
That's right.
Women would be coming all day.
Coming in the supermarkets.
"Give me the juice."
They wouldn't be able to stand it.
Seeing all these energized,
not-taking-shit...
hot, happy vaginas
coming down the street.
If my vagina could talk,
it would talk about itself like me.
It would talk
about other fabulous vaginas.
It would do vagina impressions.
It would wear
Harry Winston diamonds...
no clothing. Just there,
all draped in the diamonds.
My vagina helped release
a giant baby.
It thought it would be
doing more of that.
It's not. Now it wants to travel.
It does not want a lot of company.
It wants to read and know things
and get out more.
It wants sex. It loves sex.
It wants to go deeper.
It's hungry for depth.
It wants kindness.
It wants change.
It wants silence and freedom
and gentle kisses and warm liquids...
and deep touch.
It wants chocolate.
It wants to scream.
It wants to stop being angry.
It wants to come.
It wants to want.
It wants, my vagina, it wants...
it wants everything.
I interviewed
a whole group of sex workers...
and obviously women
who do sex work...
have rich, compelling...
complex relationships
with their vaginas.
This particular woman blew my mind.
She was a sex worker,
but she only did sex work with women.
You know when you go out
with someone...
and you think
they're in the same zone as you...
and five minutes
into the conversation you're like...
"Oh my God!"
That's what it was like
with this woman.
You know, you try to be hip.
"Right."
Meanwhile your head
is being blown off.
You just hope your scarf
will conceal it.
I wrote this for her.
"The Woman Who Loved
to Make Vaginas Happy."
I love vaginas.
I love women.
I do not see them as separate things.
Women pay me to dominate them,
to excite them, to make them come.
I did not start out like this.
No, to the contrary...
I started out as a lawyer.
But in my late 30s...
I became obsessed
with making women happy.
It began as a mission of sorts,
but then I got involved in it.
I got very good at it,
kind of brilliant.
You could say I found my calling.
I started getting paid for it.
I wore outrageous outfits
when I dominated women.
Lace, silk, leather.
I used props, whips, ropes...
handcuffs, dildos.
There was nothing like this
in tax law.
There was no props, no excitement...
and I hated
those blue corporate suits...
although I have to tell you...
I wear them now
in my new line of work...
and they fit in nicely.
Context is everything.
There was no wetness.
There was no dark,
mysterious foreplay.
No erect nipples.
No delicious mouths.
But mainly there was no moaning.
Not the kind
I'm talking about anyway.
I see now that moaning was the key.
It was the thing
that ultimately seduced me...
and got me addicted
to making women happy.
I made love to quiet women, okay?
I found a place inside them...
they shocked themselves
in their moaning.
I made love to moaners
and they found a deeper...
more penetrating moan.
I became obsessed,
I longed to be in charge...
like a bandleader or a conductor.
It was a kind of surgery,
a kind of delicate science...
finding the exact location
or home of the moan.
That's what I called it.
Sometimes I found it
over a woman's jeans.
Sometimes I snuck up on it,
off the record...
quietly disarming
the surrounding alarms...
and moving in.
Sometimes I used force...
but not violent,
oppressing force, no.
More like dominating,
"I'm going to take you someplace...
why don't you lay back,
enjoy the ride" kind of force.
Sometimes it was simply mundane.
I found the moan
before things even started...
while we were eating chicken
or salad in the kitchen...
right there,
with my fingers all mixed in...
with the balsamic vinegar.
Sometimes I used props, I love props.
Sometimes I made the woman
find her own moan in front of me.
I waited.
I stuck it out
until she opened herself.
I was not fooled by those minor,
more obvious moans. No.
I pushed her further,
all the way into her power moan.
Now...
there's the clit moan.
The vaginal moan.
The combo clit-vaginal moan.
The almost moan.
The on-it moan.
The elegant moan.
The Grace Slick moan.
The WASP moan.
The semi-religious moan.
The mountain top moan.
The baby moan.
The doggy moan.
The southern moan.
The militant,
uninhibited bisexual moan.
The machine-gun moan.
The tortured Zen moan.
The diva moan.
And finally,
the surprise triple-orgasm moan.
Oh, God, that's really good,
don't stop.
That's... That's it.
Oh my God, that's really good.
That's... Oh my God!
Can you believe
we're doing this on HBO?
Orgasms on HBO, I'm so excited.
I've been collecting vagina facts
for quite some time...
and I have to tell you,
I've been hard-pressed...
to find a happy vagina fact.
I found this one
and now I think I live to tell it.
The clitoris is pure in purpose.
It is the only organ
in the male or female body...
designed solely for pleasure.
The clitoris is simply
a bundle of nerves...
8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise.
That is a higher concentration
of nerve fibers...
than is found anywhere else
in the body...
including the fingertips,
lips, and tongue.
And it is twice...
twice...
twice the number in the penis.
- Do you want to go first?
- You go first, let's see.
- You go first.
- You go first.
Okay, first I feel it in my head
before I feel it anywhere else.
I do, I feel it like right here
in my head.
And then it like travels down...
and it's the most
incredible sensation.
I scream and I yell,
and I say, you know...
"More, it's good."
I have to squeeze all my muscles,
pretty much.
It's like every single muscle
in my body.
Yeah, I start breathing heavier,
and honestly...
you feel like
you're going to explode.
It's like...
you kind of lose your mind
for a little bit.
You just kind of go crazy.
It's sort of an eruptive state.
It's a rising, ignited state.
It can be kind of a boom,
or it can be soft.
It's just like...
Yes!
I'd been performing this piece
for quite some time...
and I didn't have one monologue in it
about birth...
which was a bizarre omission.
Although recently I was interviewed
by a male journalist and he said...
"Really, what's the connection?"
My husband was there,
and the doctor was there...
and the nurse, and my sister.
And they were holding my legs
and telling me to push.
When they said,
"We can see the head."
"One big push,
and you could push that baby out."
And there's this sort of
bone cracking, you know...
stretchy sound.
I felt this very strange sensation...
of like something swimming
through my body.
And I realized,
"Oh my God, he's coming out."
So, I just kept pushing harder.
And then finally there he was,
upside down...
hanging by his legs,
and he was okay.
It's so, I can't wait
until you experience it.
- I know you can't.
- I cannot wait.
It's so wonderful.
I can't wait. It's just...
It's the best thing ever.
Over the course
of writing the monologues...
my daughter-in-law got pregnant.
And she and my son
invited me to be there...
for the birth of my granddaughter.
And I have to tell you...
if I was in awe of vaginas
before this moment...
I'm in deep worship now.
I wrote this
for my daughter-in-law, Shiva...
and my granddaughter Coco.
"I Was There in the Room."
I was there when her vagina opened.
We were all there.
Her mother, her husband and I...
and the nurse from the Ukraine...
with her whole hand up there,
in her vagina...
feeling and turning
with her rubber glove...
as she talked casually to us...
like she was turning on
a loaded faucet.
I was there in the room
when the contractions...
made her crawl on all fours.
Made unfamiliar moans
leak out of her pores.
And still there, after hours...
when she just screamed,
suddenly wild...
her arms striking
at the electric air.
I was there when her vagina changed
from a shy, sexual hole...
to an archaeological tunnel.
A sacred vessel.
A Venetian canal.
A deep well
with a tiny stuck child inside...
waiting to be rescued.
I saw the colors of her vagina.
They changed.
Saw the bruised broken blue,
the blistering tomato red...
the gray-pink, the dark.
Saw the blood-like perspiration
along the edges.
Saw the yellow, white liquid...
the shit, the clots
pushing out all the holes...
pushing harder and harder.
Saw through the hole,
the baby's head.
Scratches of black hair.
Saw it just there, behind the bone.
Like a hard, round memory.
As the nurse from the Ukraine...
kept turning and turning
her slippery hand.
I was there when each of us,
her mother and I...
held a leg and spread her wide...
pushing with all our strength
against her pushing...
as her husband sternly counting,
"One, two, three."
Telling her, "Focus, focus harder."
We looked into her then.
We couldn't get our eyes
out of that place.
We forget the vagina, all of us.
What else would explain
our lack of awe...
our lack of reverence?
I was there
when the doctor reached in...
with Alice In Wonderland spoons.
And there as her vagina
became a wide, operatic mouth...
singing with all its strength.
First the little head,
then the gray flopping arm.
Then the fast, swimming body.
Swimming quickly
into our weeping arms.
I was there later when I just turned.
I turned and I faced her vagina.
I stood and I let myself see her...
all spread, completely exposed,
mutilated, swollen, torn...
bleeding all over
the doctor's hands...
who was calmly sewing her there.
I stood.
And as I stared...
her vagina suddenly became...
a wide, red, pulsing heart.
The heart is capable of sacrifice.
So is the vagina.
The heart is able to
forgive and repair.
It can change its shape
to let us in.
It can expand to let us out.
So can the vagina.
It can ache for us
and stretch for us...
and die for us.
And bleed and bleed us...
into this difficult wondrous world.
So can the vagina.
I was there in the room.
I remember.
Well, I didn't really want
to show vaginas in this movie.
I kind of resisted it, but HBO,
really wouldn't be an HBO movie...
without showing a vagina.
So, here we go. Here we go.
Okay, we're done.