I think it's slightly hard to explain why this book hits so hard. It might be because the book puts into words more eloquently that I ever could about some of the things that bother me so much, like rape culture or the stigma surrounding women's body parts. It might be because the book's very existence is telling us that the world is trying to progress, that there are people out there still trying desperately to make a difference and to change things for the better.
All of these monologues hurt my heart. I don't tear up easily, but I did here, with nearly every monologue. Here are some of my favorites:
1. Because He Liked to Look At It
This monologue focuses on a woman who learns how to love her vagina. Not because of the preaching people do these days about loving yourself. Not because of the feminist ideals that decree women learn to love themselves.
No, it was because someone else loved her vagina so much that he stopped sex just to look at it that she learned to love her vagina.
Isn't it silly, how sometimes all the morals and altruisms and theories in the world can't make us love ourselves, but a single person saying, "hey, I love this part of you" can make you instantly like something about yourself?
"'No,' he said, 'It's who you are. I need to look.'"
As simple as that. My vagina is who I am. And looking at it, somehow, has validated it. Someone else, even if it is just one person, liking it, suddenly made it beautiful. Because it is. Vaginas are beautiful. Period.
2. he Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy
This one is about a woman who simply enjoys making other women happy. Making them gasp and groan and express all of their happiness in a verbal way. It makes me wonder, just how much of female happiness sexually is still foreign to us? The porn laws in the UK don't allow female ejaculation, and other countries that restrain porn often focus on things that pleasure women. So why is it that women's happiness sexually still makes people uncomfortable?
This reminds me of a fact I read in the book. Apparently, the first man who discovered the clit was sure that it was a sign of the devil on the woman. Perhaps this is why sex before the Sexual Revolution always seemed more obligatory than enjoyable in media?
3. They Beat the Girl out of My Body, or so They Tried for Calpurnia and Andrea
This monologue is about a trans woman, who wanted to have a vagina, who was beat and cured at and made fun of because she wanted to be herself.
"My mother was worried
what people would think
of her, that she made this happen
until I cam to church
and everyone said you have a beautiful
daughter."
I can't help but quite literally tear up every time I read these words, because of course she is beautiful. She is finally herself. How could she not be stunning, dazzling, beautiful in every meaning of the word?
4. Say It for the "Comfort Women"
This one is personal. This is a monologue about the Chinese women who were used as "Comfort Women" for Japanese soldiers during World War II, and as a Chinese woman, this monologue speaks volumes to me about the lack of respect women continue to face and the way our stories continue to be buried.
Everyone knows about the massacre of Nanking. Everyone knows about the various other crimes committed during WWII. But when the crime pertains directly to women, somehow, the crime is nearly forgotten. To this day, I think of the way these women were used and treated as less than human beings, and I quite literally hurt. I can't think of the horrendous things that happened to them because of their gender without wanting to burn the world down, but I can't stop thinking about them either, because if even we stop thinking about them, who will shout their stories? Who will make sure they are never forgotten? Who will let them know that their suffering is not unacknowledged, that they are meaningful, that they exist?
5. Over It
This is a monologue about rape culture. Rape culture infuriates me, as does a lot of things in this book, but more importantly, it infuriates me because it is around me, every day, and I can't do anything about it besides fume in silence.
It is around me when I hear classmates talking jokingly about a woman's body. It is around me when I see comments on a woman's videos talking about her face and the way she would look having sex. It is around me when I read news articles about women who refused advances and get beaten as a result, because the men simply do not understand no as a concept. It is around me when I watch videos of celebrities talking about how forced sex is fine. It is around me when I know that films that feature women saying "no" and yet still being shown to enjoy the sex that they explicitly refused a moment ago exist.
I too am over it. Over rape culture, over ignoring women's stories, over forcing gender onto children, over stigmatizing women's sexual happiness, over having my vagina be painted as something ugly. I am over all of it.
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