A Vagina Monologue - Rated PG

originally published August 2, 2006

In 1918, Marie Stopes, a British woman, wrote a book titled Married Love. Apparently Stopes had consulted several medical books that led her to realize she was a virgin despite having been married for a year. Her husband, it seems, was impotent, but poor Marie had no idea that just the act of the marital ceremony did not in itself constitute the end of her virginity. It kind of gives new meaning to the man-dreaded phrase, “Is it in yet?” Well, it wasn’t in, not even close. Stopes’ sex manual was the first book to suggest that women should enjoy sex as much as men, and it was fiercely opposed by doctors, the press and the church.

I would like to think we are much more enlightened, 88 years later, about our bodies and our sexuality, and that while Marie’s mother may have failed to have the all-important mother-daughter sex talk with a blossoming little Marie circa 1918, that would surely never happen in this day and age. It is hard to imagine a woman naïve enough to be a virgin and not know it. Our generation has more access to sexual information than any before. We can google “female orgasm,” “how to give a blow job,” “anal sex” and “foot fetishes.” We can get quick access to STD symptoms, birth control legislation and tantric sex techniques.

I recall my first sex teacher being a less techno-savvy medium, though - some yellowed paperback novels I discovered in the back of my grandfather’s closet. These steamy treasures were as sexually deviant as they came - sadomasochism, group sex, bestiality - nothing was off limits. At the time, I had not yet begun to feel those special stirrings that would become so ever-present in my teenage years. As a prepubescent girl with no interest in my own body and no access to a boy’s, these books were nothing more to me than an interesting anthropological window, and an early introduction to fine literature. I would hide away for hours at a time, camouflaging the tiny copy of Madam’s Girls within the large hardback Little Women, and my grandmother would lament, “That child sure does love to read.”

A similar reaction occurred when I saw my first Hustler. There was nothing sexually exciting about the images, just some initial shock, and then a prolonged comparison of the women’s naked bodies to my own. The most disturbing thing about it was seeing a penis up close and personal, and in great detail. It looked so harsh and angry jutting out on the glossy page, not like the tender arm-like extension I had pictured in my mind. That was my first disappointment in the male member, and unfortunately it wouldn’t be my only, as years later I was unlucky enough to have my own “Is it in yet?” moment.

When I was actually approaching puberty and I began to wonder about sex and reproduction as they might relate to me personally, I consulted Judy Blume. I think most women of my generation garnered at least some of their knowledge about their bodies from Ms. Blume. The fact that there was such scandal surrounding many of her titles made them that much more essential to read. I had to know what Dennie had done to be pulled off the shelves of my small town elementary school library. When I found out, my disappointment was paramount. Touching yourself, down there, in the bathtub, didn’t much compare to my earlier literary heroines who had not only touched themselves down there, but had touched a lot of other people (and animals) down there, often for some type of monetary compensation. Oh Dennie, you have so much to learn.

Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women, published in 1976, was considered revolutionary by the women of the day. Every mom who was in touch with herself at all read it, then gave it to her daughter to read. It became part of the feminist canon, answering questions about the anatomy and sexual response that were taboo to many.

It had followed Dr. David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, which also happens to be my favorite Woody Allen movie. But I digress. Reuben’s book, faulty first because it was written by a man, is now a pop-culture joke. The book contains much outdated medical and psychological information. Reuben states that homosexuals all want to be women and that syphilis and gonorrhea could be eliminated by giving everyone mandatory injections of penicillin. But Reuben also went out on a long limb detailing sex acts and anatomy that hadn’t before been given their rightful place in commonplace literature.

I guess neither book made it onto my grandmother’s shelf though (not that there was much room left next to grandpa’s porn). Only recently after a visit to the urologist did she come to understand that the urethra and vagina were two separate exits with two different functions. She was of the mentality that there was “one hole” “down there” and that was all that was needed. This seemed pretty shocking to me. Pornographic books and magazines didn’t register at all on my What-The-Fuck-O-Meter, but a grown woman knowing so little about her own body certainly did.

When I was pregnant, she accompanied me to a doctor’s visit and on the car ride the conversation somehow turned to blow jobs. I don’t know how, it just did. She said she had never done that and never would. Never! Disgusting! “Some things you just don’t put in your mouth, child.” That registered a level 8 easy. I had never even entertained the idea that some women didn’t give blow jobs. After all, I came of age during the Clinton administration and even before the nation knew what he had been up to, every young person my age knew the logical predecessor to sexual intercourse was oral sex. It’s just what you did if you were intimate with someone. Was there a time when fellatio and cunnilingus were not a normal part of the mating ritual? It was like trying to imagine life before the wheel.

Yes, times they are a-changin’. I would hope that all us hip mommies take full advantage of the wealth of information out there and have fully embraced our sexuality. In reality, though, I know busy mommies, under the emotional strain of sleep deprivation and projectile poop, often forget they are sexual beings at all. Hibernating away is the saucy woman who got you into the position of motherhood in the first place, replaced by someone who is, at best, neutral on the subject of copulation.

If this is the case, I suggest you reawaken her. Flirt with your husband, and for that matter, any other man who can appreciate some non-threatening sexual attention. Visit a sex shop. You can’t legally buy a vibrator in Georgia, but the “massagers” are excellent. Rent an adult film. Remember what it was like to make out in the car. And then take your guy to the car and make out. And don’t forget the blow jobs! There is nothing more effective for getting him to do his share around the house than some good old-fashioned oral attention. I stand by that ladies.

I believe we should be having all the satisfying sex our mothers and grandmothers never had the chance to. After all, if we don’t nurture our sexual selves, we are no better off than poor Marie Stopes.

Elizabeth Deroshia

Elizabeth Deroshia