When I came back to campus this semester, I saw that a friend’s status on a certain social networking site contained an interesting looking link. I followed it to The Campus Majority: Gustavus Adolphus College. If you would like to see it yourself, you can go to campusmajority.blogspot.com

Here’s the headline from the homepage of this blog: “The Campus Majority is the Voice for Events Past and Present at Gustavus Adolphus College. As ‘The Right Source for Campus News,’ we have been ending the Gustavian Weekly’s monopoly on student news reporting since 2010.”

At first I thought it was a joke. The “monopoly” of The Gustavian Weekly?! You have got to be kidding me. If The Weekly does have a monopoly, it is the fault of the student body of Gustavus, not of the newspaper. The articles and commentary sections are all written and edited by students. This is OUR newspaper, and every single student voice can help make it better.

In order to avoid espousing the merits of the newspaper that pays me to write this, I will end my criticism of the blog’s headline here. Instead, I think it valuable to focus on the blog’s confusing relationship with the controversial play that will be performed on campus next month, the Vagina Monologues.

In a Feb 10 post, the unnamed writer for the Campus Majority claims that “the ‘Pathways to Progress’ group has been working to make sure that Senate cannot prohibit the Vagina Monologues production.” What is Pathways to Progress? I’ve never heard of it before and it is not listed as a 2009-2010 SAO recognized group. Is The Vagina Monologues really threatened right now? Is this mysterious new group really needed to protect a well-organized, well-attended and well-established event on our campus?

The plot thickens in a post from Feb 13. Our anonymous writer states the following: “In an email from the ‘DLC Representative’ of the Queers and Allies to their members, it was announced that, The ‘Diversity Leadership Council’ of the College (DLC) is ‘Writing a resolution to senate saying that they do not endorse or support Pathways for Progress.” Ah, now that’s interesting. Unlike Pathways to Progress, the DLC is listed as a 2009-10 SAO recognized organization. I have heard of the DLC and its work on campus. So why is this ghost organization attacking an established one and pretending like The Vagina Monologues is in danger?

I believe that the writer(s) of this blog do not support The Vagina Monologues and are only pretending to do so to create a false sense of objectivity. Perhaps they are even the original source of any threat to the production of the play. (If you think this is a bad assumption for me to make, end the “monopoly” of The Weekly! Write in and tell everyone why I’m wrong!) The February 10 post mentions the Vagina Monologues in the same breath as the Eddie James incident, an unfortunate event that allowed people not associated with our campus to say hateful things about a minority group. More evidence can be found in a post from January 29, 2010, arguing that The Vagina Monologues is “disgusting” because it “defines women as their sexual organs” and turns them into sex objects. Yes, of course I don’t want to be considered a sex object. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be denied the right to sexuality either. Shockingly, it is possible for a woman to be a sexual person and not have her life be defined by it.

I’m going to go out on a limb here. I believe this post—and possibly this entire blog—was written by a man, and maybe even one who has not actually seen The Vagina Monologues. This is not what The Vagina Monologues is all about, and it is a poor argument against showing the play on our campus.

Granted, the monologues are far from perfect. There are some representations of women in the play that I think show only one side of an issue and could be balanced by another monologue. For example, “The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy” is told by a female sex worker who got into her line of work because she loves it. Unfortunately, many sex workers, both female and male, do not do the work that they do because they enjoy it. The monologues could show both sides of this with another monologue on the topic.

The monologues do show more than one side to the issue of rape. I must agree with the anonymous writer of the blog editorial when he or she (but probably he) mentions the glorification of a lesbian rape. I have never liked the particular piece that is being referenced here, “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could.” Rape is rape is rape, no matter how you look at it. If you drug someone so they won’t fight back, physically restrain a person, prey on someone who is too drunk to say no, or, as in this case, seduce a child, you are raping someone. In defense of The Vagina Monologues, however, a very different view of rape is presented in another monologue, “My Vagina Was My Village.” I would tell you more, but maybe if I don’t you’ll be curious enough to come see Irma Marquez, Amara Berthelsen, Katie Schroeder and myself perform it this March.

Everyone has a right to their own feelings about images portrayed in each individual monologue, but the play needs to be considered as a whole. The Vagina Monologues shows different sides of women’s sexuality in the interest of opening a dialogue about women’s issues. Whether the types of sexuality represented are ‘right’ or not is up for interpretation, just as in real life. Maybe sometimes the monologues don’t say exactly what we want them to say about women, but we should take that as an opportunity to talk about women and their experiences even more.

Having personally experienced how difficult it is for young women to talk about sex in our society, I think any type of safe communication about women’s sexuality is amazing and liberating. How can a young woman who can’t talk openly about sex tell her boyfriend or girlfriend that she doesn’t want to have it, or wants to use protection when she does? How can young women who are afraid to use the words describing their bodies be expected to ever ask real, honest questions? And without questions like that, how can they be expected  to ever make any informed decisions?

As a young woman who still cringes and blushes when I have to say the words “vagina” or “sex” to a doctor, I am extremely excited to get up in front of a room full of people and say “cunt”and “pussy” unashamedly and feel safe doing it. Come see The Vagina Monologues on March 5 and 6, 2010 to form an opinion for yourself. Afterward, make sure to help make The Weekly even better by writing in with your thoughts.