By snoadmin
Cal State Long Beach’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Student Association, collectively whirled a colorful terrain of stories, issues and pure enthusiasm on all things vagina.
The sold-out performances of “The Vagina Monologues” happened this past weekend at the Beach Auditorium.
The body of material itself comes from Eve Ensler, a New York-based playwright who first introduced “The Vagina Monologues” in the basement of a Greenwich Village café-theatre house in 1996. It was sexually frank — immediately catapulting Ensler into the global spotlight.
Since then, Ensler has channeled her fame into becoming a prominent women’s activist. Her “Monologues” continue to circle the world and are performed in more than 45 languages around the world.
A screaming match brought on by one of the monologues, performed by sophomore Patty Moeses, roused an unsuspecting, on-looking crowd into a rowdy, climactic force finally yelling, “Cunt!”
Equally vivacious efforts came from chattier chapters, like “Hair,” where girls imagined dressing up their vaginas with red, feathered boas.
In “Smell,” another group of girls contemplated the exact smell of their v-things. The answers ranged from “yum, yum,” to “garbage,” to “carne asada.”
A few dialogue pieces delved into the unexpected realm of lesbian-loving, abusive relationships, the early age awakenings of “The Flood,” worshipping boyfriends, the dilemma of hair or no hair, and a casually entertaining protest to the inevitable: pap smears and Tampax.
More humbling moments hit with pieces like “My Vagina was My Village,” where a duo of girls portrayed the happy-to-hopeless life of a Bosnian war prisoner, a single woman, among thousands, who suffered burns and a botched vagina in a result of tactic rapes.
The unique embrace from the play allowed Ensler to establish the profound 12-year-old movement called V-Day — the V standing for many things, though mainly for victory, Valentine and vagina, according to its Web site, VDay.org. This movement serves as a catalyst that promotes creative events that work toward eliminating violence against women and girls — like battery, incest, genital mutilation, sexual slavery and rape.
As part of a V-Day effort, Ensler visited CSULB in 2001 for the V-Day College Campaign, teaching student organizations her play.
Most girls are lured into “Monologues” production because it inspires a new sense of empowerment, said Audrey Silvestre, a senior-year Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies student. She also said, as part to Ensler’s deal to acquiring rights to the play, the group also learns that it’s not always about them — all proceeds are donated to organizations working on accomplishing Ensler’s ideals.
WGSSSA is dividing this weekend’s proceeds among campus venues — like the Women’s Resource Center in FA-3, which offers anything from hot tea to self-defense classes — and local organizations, like Long Beach’s Women’s Shelter, who help women recover from battered and abusive relationships; women who usually leave their homes with nothing.
