(Parts I, II, III, IV and V).

A Vagina Monologues cast member writes today in the Duke Chronicle to respond to Nathan Carleton’s article (see Part V):

… I am honored and proud to have been a part of a production pulsing with eccentricity, women from different backgrounds and at different levels of their sexuality. And guess what, Nathan Carleton, our vaginas have nothing to do with you.

I can’t speak for Carleton, but I won’t take issue with the notion of Vagina Monologues cast members being eccentrics (pulsing or otherwise).

As for the eccentrics being “at different levels of their sexuality” ? what kind of levels are we talking about? How are the levels attained? Are merit badges involved, or is some sort of examination required? Is there perhaps some outside body conferring degree levels, sort of a sexuality Scottish Rite, and if so, are there 32 levels of sexuality? Is there also an honorary 33rd level?

I doubt, however, that her “our vaginas have nothing to do with you” riposte parries Carleton’s point about TVM’s message being that “it?s a woman?s genitals, not her personality, that define who she is.”

Back to the letter:

The Vagina Monologues is not about lesbianism or man hating. It?s about grabbing our notoriously taboo sexuality by the horns and cultivating it.

Planting horny vaginas ? got it.

Huh?