Saturday, March 22, 2008

Vaginas? Really? (Eve Ensler, I'm Talking to You!)

So. Why all this fascination with reducing women to vaginas, America? *sigh* I suppose that since there's SO MUCH of that reduction going on, I ought to be a bit more specific of what kind I mean. Let's try to forget about the objectification of women for a minute (I know it's difficult, but let's just try). And let's also try to forget about all our puritanical friends who don't want to talk about sex at all (see ya later, asshats!). No no, for now, let's just focus on the people who actually TALK about sex, and try to do so in a respectful way. Everyone talks about vaginas as if they're the female equivalent of penises. "Men have a penis, and women have a vagina." "Women aren't going to vote for Hillary just because she has a vagina instead of a penis." "My vagina would wear a leopard print bikini." Even our enlightened feminist friends like Eve Ensler: all the time, vagina vagina vagina. I don't give a shit about my vagina. If we're going to reduce women to a "down there" part of their body, uh... HELLO, shouldn't it be the clit???? I don't think I need to go into the reasons why we should be talking about the clit instead of the vagina (semi-automatic and all that...), but I would have expected better from feminists. I guess I can understand the thinking of health and sex ed teachers who don't want to talk about something as SCARY as the clit, since it's about feeling good (*gasp*) instead of procreating in the image of god and chastity and properness and all that. But come ON feminists! I know YOU'RE not scared of a little good-feeling sex, so what's with all this buying into the dichotomy of penis-vagina? It seems to me that going with vaginas (instead of clits) just buys into heteronormativity, a puritanical desire to not to talk about pleasure, and this whole fixation with women being "the creators of the life" and "moon goddesses" and so on. Fuck that shit. Thanks, but I'll take that orgasm over a baby and a bunch of reusable pads any day.

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