The Vagina Monologues at OSU promoted discussion of important gender issues

The Vagina Monologues have been famously performed across the nation since its first production in 1996. It was written by Eva Ensler and starred Whoopi Goldberg in its debut performance at Madison Square Garden. Each of the monologues were based on interviews Ensler conducted with 200 women about their womanhood — and not metaphorically.

Each monologue revealed that once a woman got talking about her vagina — the nitty-gritty, the amazing, the horrific and all — they didn’t stop, because no one had ever asked them about it. The play milks the overlooked secrets of female sexuality and presents to the audience a night of daring comedy, intense tragedy, but an agreeable amount of relatability and awareness nonetheless.

This past weekend, Ohio State hosted its own rendition of these monologues and donated all proceeds to the Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio (SARNCO), an organization working to prevent sexual assault and support survivors of sexual assault in the greater Columbus area.

The amount of underground talent and solidarity toward a cause showcased on this small stage was unbelievable. The small room was easily sold out, but the audience that did attend to see such a controversial event — an event whose name alone could steer away a squeamish majority of the public— was surely made up of very open-minded, empathetic people.

In this small room, the unspeakable was finally shared without any inhibition. One monologue, performed by Dominique McClean, detailed a woman’s experience with a husband who coined her pubic hair as an excuse for his disloyalty. Jen Trimmer reenacted the story of an old woman who lost the value of intimacy after a scarring experience with a typical, merciless 1920s fuckboy. One piece, starring Carrie Stratton, stood up for a very relevant issue about the faultlessness of short skirts for rape, and how a woman’s dress code does not permit sexual violence. An especially enlightening piece followed a transgendered woman through the emotional journey from a biological male to her true self.

Piercing dialogue was tossed from performer to performer, as it took at least five women to effectively hit the target of this truly remarkable piece. It was the kind of story that made the hairs on your arms raise in salute, that made your eyes lock onto the performers. A person was born a male, and when she found herself, a wrong was righted. The experience of finally being accepted as a female was described as “if a car alarm that rang in your head throughout your life was finally turned off.” It was one-liners like this when the room fell silent, collectively honoring the silent suffering of millions with similar gender issues felt around the world.

There is something to be said about Ohio State for holding an event that gives these kinds of issues a stage. By hosting the Vagina Monologues, the Ohio State University and the College of Medicine have taken something that is difficult to talk about and encouraged its discussion. It forces us to listen to struggles that are not sweet on the ears, and then applaud our fellow humans for it. It makes us respect walks of life that we wouldn’t have stopped twice to care for. Sometimes an hour and a half of hearing the word “vagina” more than you ever have in your life is just what it takes to see that.