The Vagina Monologues: An Editor Responds… Again

For those who did not read my opinions piece in the last issue (The Vagina Monolouges: An Editor Responds 2/23/2010), you can do so online. For those of you who have, you no doubt read or contributed to the slew of comments I received (also available online, below my article). In voicing my opinion, I was called immature, a misogynist, a poor journalist, and I was even called insensitive towards rape victims. This latter charge has brought me back to the keyboard to clarify myself.

When I initially wrote my two pieces, I did not feel that I violated journalistic integrity by asking professors for quotes for a news piece and then criticizing their responses in a separate editorial. If any professors feel as though I have violated their trust as a journalist, I wholeheartedly apologize. Voicing criticisms of the Monologues ought to happen, and I am sorry that my doing so occurred during one of my less remarkable moments as a writer. I am sure a sampling of my other writings online will give critics a different view of my work for The Observer.

That being said, I cannot help but feel that, had I written a positive piece about the Monologues, no charges against my journalistic integrity would have surfaced. Meanwhile, the arguments presented in my opinions piece went largely unanswered. Of the 18 comments, only a couple respondents online gave me valuable criticism. The rest told me (to varying degrees) that I was insensitive to women, a charge totally void of substance. I have yet to hear a good reason why 14 departmental co-sponsorships are necessary for the annual Monologues production and how the number of co-sponsorships does not indicate ulterior motives on behalf of department or program heads.

Further, I want to clarify my charge that little dialogue occurs as a result of the Monologues. Two years ago, I attended the “Dialogues on the Monologues” panel discussion. It consisted of four or five tenured professors, the director of the play, and a moderator – who acted as more of a panelist herself – all debating one sophomore writer for The Observer. The only people in the crowd of about 30 who spoke against the Monologues were those who The Observer writer had invited. Challenges to the play and those whose understandings of sexuality differ from that presented in the play were met not with answers but with eye rolls, snide remarks to the side, and an overall attitude of haughtiness which told the critics, “Your view does not matter.”

No apology was issued for the arrogant behavior that night.

Now two years later, I have attended both the play and the follow-up discussion “Men and the Monologues.” Upon entering the discussion, I was handed a copy of the left-leaning student paper and listened to a few left-leaning professors belittle critics of the play and conservatism in general. Yet again, I was welcomed with the sense that certain opinions are not welcome. And now students and faculty wonder why I take issue with the “academic interests” of the Monologues at Boston College.

So perhaps I was wrong in saying that “no dialogue” occurs as a result of the Monologues presence, but the dialogue that does happen occurs within certain confines. If you have a remotely traditional religious background, if you uphold the virtue of chastity as the fulfillment of human sexuality, if you want to (even on a secular level) treat sexuality not with silence, but with reverence, then you will find very little that the Monologues or discussions thereof can offer.

The play, like any work of art, needs to be appreciated as a whole. The aspects of the play dealing with violence against women cannot be divorced from the sexual ideology of the play – namely sexual license and free love. I, along with a plethora of critics, take major issue with the latter aspect of the work, and thus we believe that issues of violence against women need a better venue through which they can be discussed. Raising awareness about physical violence done to women while simultaneously doing violence to a healthy understanding of sexuality and the human person bears little fruit.

My reaction, however controversial, should not be cast aside. My opinion in itself is nothing, but it speaks for a large number of voices who should not be ignored. Accusing someone of insensitivity towards rape victims simply for disagreeing with the presence of the play on campus only alienates critics who would otherwise improve discussion. Such charges only buttress my argument that disagreement with the underlying ideas of the play yields no dialogue, only sarcasm and hatred.

After publication I remarked that I would change nothing of what I had written in my previous opinions piece. That is, in retrospect, not true. In the end of paragraph #4 of my opinions piece I clearly use the same phrase of words twice at the ends of two consecutive sentences – a mistake anyone who has taken English 101 should avoid. I would alter that, and I otherwise stand by my every word.

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