Isn’t that cool? I love the Vagina Monologues. The first time I saw it was at the Claremont School of Theology. The Vagina Monologues are a contextual performance piece. Where it is performed is just as important as the performance itself.
The exact thing that Lisa Brown said that started off this firestorm was, “Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no,’”
While quite eloquent and amusing, Rep. Brown may have touched upon a sensitive nerve among the men on the floor. You see, vaginas are actually vitally important things. In fact, the entire human species depends upon them. Not only that, but throughout Nature, males are biologically programmed to be preoccupied with them.
Not all males, of course. There is a little something called male homosexuality that interrupts that process, but generally, in Nature, the overwhelming rule of thumb is, males compete for the privilege of being chosen by females. Females choose males. Nature has granted the female of the species the right to choose the contributors of the next generation’s gene pool.
To males, Nature has given the right to compete in the game. Who will she choose? Will it be the guy with the brightest colors? The one with the loudest, most beautiful song? The one that wins in physical confrontations with other males?
Will it be the one with the flashiest car? The loudest woofer? The one that plays guitar in a rock band? The one that plays the best basketball?
Humans, being the incredible clever and complicated primates that we are, have carried the rules of the game to a dizzying level of complexity. Males compete for females by showing off their bodies, their earning power, their engineering expertise, their musical skills, their technical skills. Sometimes, females are willing to have sex with a male for a simple cash exchange. Sometime it takes a more elaborate exchange (a ring, car, and a house). Sometimes a female will choose a male because he will be a good husband and father. Sometimes because he is a bad-boy, and none of those other things. Sometimes she’ll choose the bad-boy to make the babies but the good husband/father to raise them (it’s best if no one knows about this arrangement).
Males go through all kinds of strategies for the simple privilege of having access to a vagina. Further, I would be willing to bet that every male in the House of Representatives that day has used numerous strategies in their lifetime to do this, and that some strategies have been successful, while most have not.
However, no one likes to be told “no”… especially when it comes to vagina-access. Because, simply, that means that you do not measure up as a male… you have failed to successfully compete. Your genes may not be passed on, and you have just lost your another chance at immortality.
The Hebrew Bible tells us that God made Man first, and then created Eve from Adam’s rib. That is totally ridiculous. If one has to say that there was one sex created before the other, that sex would have to be the female sex. That is the only logic that makes sense.
Furthermore, all this business about men wanting to control women’s reproductive systems is not new. That is all that men have EVER done. I’ll even go a step further… all of the “stuff” that men do… everything from inventing things to making money to making war to building cities… all of it, is in service to the competition to be the one with the access to the vagina.
Thought of in that way, VAGINAS are kind of the ultimate power in the universe (or, at least on this planet).
So, yes, Mr. Speaker… No STILL means NO. Get over it.
