PCUSA promotes controversial show, The Vagina Monologues The Layman Online Monday, November 18, 2002 The Presbyterian Church (USA) recently used its Web site to advertise a ghoulish Halloween observance, including a "haunted hall" in the denomination's headquarters in Louisville. Now, the PCUSA is using the Web site to promote performances of a controversial stage show titled The Vagina Monologues, which Les Gutman of Curtain Up described as "a huge 'Girls' Night Out' with catcalls to rival any stag night." But it's for a good cause, say the PCUSA's promoters, who are hawking sales of tickets ranging from $42 to $50 and, especially, a $100 ticket that would earn $58 for the Center for Women and Families. Besides a promo on its Web site, the PCUSA provides a direct link to a ticket sales site. Monologues is a conversation all about genitalia from a feminist perspective. The themes are victimization and power. But Wendy McElroy, editor of Ifeminists.com, says the Monologues movement has a double standard. McElroy wrote: The play is meant to decry rape and other violence against women. Yet, the original performances of the play and the published book eulogize lesbian "rape" of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol. The pedophile section is entitled "The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" – Coochi Snorcher being the nickname of the little girl's genitalia. Her vagina's tale of seduction begins, "She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed ..." After becoming more graphic, the little girl gratefully concludes, "I'll never need to rely on a man." Both by statute and by feminist definition, the "seduction" scene is rape. Nevertheless, the Coochi Snorcher declares, "...if it was rape, it was a good rape."

Respond to this article

Home · News · PLC Publications · The Presbyterian Layman Online Reviews · Archives · History of the Lay Committee · Feedback · Links