Too bad they didn't change the name to the Cootchie Snorcher Monologues.

So what's the child slang for puritanical moron(s)?

If this woman is upset that her niece saw the marquee, what wonderful term does she use for her own vagina?

::snicker::

I didn't learn "hoohah" until WAAAY after "vagina." In my house we would've called it "The Peepee Monologues."

Which makes me laugh even harder.

Some people are soooo fricking easy to fluster.

Yet more proof that Mike Judge's film 'Idiocracy' is actually a documentary from the future.

It's ridiculously ironic, and pathetic. A vagina is basic human anatomy. I can't believe the theatre caved to such a complaint!

Perhaps they should have asked a lot of questions about which scientific, gynecological terms are prohibited. Is uterus OK? How about cervix?

I wonder if changing the title of a play violates the author's intellectual property rights? IP lawyers in the house?

VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA

Man oh man, I wonder about how woman was planning on hiding all vaginas from her niece until the girl is 18.

Medical terminology is offensive now?

Eve Ensler should sue the fuck out them. They claim to be running a play called 'The Hoohah Monologues,' and they're not. They're running her intellectual property 'The Vagina Monologues.'

You can't appropriate artistic works under a different name. It's against copyright law.

I want to know how someone that stupid is able to drive. Let's just pray she doesn't breed.

This woman must be related to the one who made a comment I read last week, saying women shouldn't be allowed to breastfeed in public, because young children might see it.
*nodding* Yeah, we can't allow infants to be exposed to the horror of a naked female breast!!! *doubletake* Oh...wait.

Morons. I wonder if there's a correlation between sexual repression and profound idiocy...?

It's probably a good thing I wasn't the theatre manager and didn't say something like "What the hell is wrong with you?" to the complaining person (but slightly more colourfully). I mean, people should be allowed to find out what a vagina is. ESPECIALLY IF THEY OWN ONE. What kind of mistreatment is it of a kid not to allow them to learn the names of the parts of their own body? Gah.

Hehehe, now some other twitchy parent is going to have to answer the question, "Mommy, what's a 'hoohah'?"

I'm offended that they sell tampons in public restrooms and grocery stores. What if a child asked me what those were for? The horror!

Is it really easier to explain hoohah to a child than Vagina? At least Vagina is a respectable term. I find hoohah way more offensive.Hoohah is a term used by childern who are still too young to understand sexuality, and think boys have germs and should runaway. Is she also teaching her niece this? Grow up.

I completely agree. The woman is a moron and is raising her daughter to be completely alienated from her own body. I would also add this:

The entire world does not have to be appropriate for children. This is not a children's play. It does not deal with children's themes. It is an adult play, it deals with adult issues, and it has an adult name. If you don't want your child ever to be touched by the adult world, don't take her out of the house. Once you leave the house, you might just run into grown-ups doing grown-up stuff, and using grown-up language to describe it.

The idea that completely accurate term "vagina" is offensive is bullshit. Quite frankly, I'd tell the woman to suck it up even if the play were called The Cunt Monologues, but the fact is, the word she's objecting to is no more offensive than "elbow." It's the correct word for part of the human body. Changing it into some kind of childish euphemism is demeaning to the entire point of the play, which is that women should be comfortable with their bodies without hiding. If the theater can't see that, and if it's caving into such a minimal amount of pressure, maybe it should take a good long look at why it's doing the play in the first place.

(And by the way, I speak as somebody who loves kids, takes care of them often, and was once in the position of explaining to a child in her care what her vagina was, and what it was for.)

You should see that diagram in a fundamentalist school board-approved Texas biology handbook. I think the phrase "chasm of evil" gets bandied about.

My daughter was about 4 when she made up a counting song about vaginas. 1 vagina, 2 vaginas, 3 4 5 vagina vagina vagina... Her father was ready to turn me in to social services for 'inapppropriate sexual knowledge.' Ridiculous? Yes. I was under the impression that if you got one, you should know what it's called.

BTW, V-Day productions of the Vagina Monologues are often put on in rented or donated spaces by groups that may or may not be affiliated with the theater. Since it's February, I am guessing that's what is happening here.

This reminds me of when Jackass Number 2 came out and a theatre in the Iowa came under fire for the title and they changed it to Jackbutt Number 2. That's right. JACKBUTT, which made it totally funnier than had they left it alone.

What pisses me off is that they changed it apparently after ONE WOMAN complained.
ONE. Who the hell is she to make policy for everyone else?

Surely thats made things worse? With a name like "The Hoohah Monologues", many people just like the one who registered the complaint may go in under the assumption that this is an inoffesive comedy of some sort. Well I mean, if your incapable of allowing your children to understand the word "vagina", who knows what incompetence you could be capable of? Plus I think "The Mary Monologues" would have worked better.

At my radio station we were denied rights to put the Vagina Monologues on air for international women's day in Canada because too many of the monos are "crude and offensive". Honestly, its a feminist radio show, and if people can't handle the word "cunt" and noises of orgasms thats just sad. But its down right stupid to not be able to handle the word "vagina".

I'm sad to know there is a little girl out there who doesn't even know what her own sex organs are called and has people in her life who refuse to acknowledge that she has the right to know about her own body.

kpisu, that is one of the best stories I have ever heard. I am totally going to start chanting the vagina counting rhyme in my spare time.

Imagine my shock when I read "Atlantic Beach" in one of my favorite blogs. I'm embarassed to say I grew up one beach town over from Atlantic Beach. My far from progressive mother taught me the vagina word early on - it's medical for chrissakes. So sad to see my beaches turned fundie weirdo this way.

My son is 5 and knows the meaning of the word vagina. He does not, however, know the meaning of the word Hooha.

Your diagram, which I applaud you for posting, is missing the most important part (by my standards, at least) -- the clitoris!

SabrinaStar, I prefer to think it'll be the same woman.

SCENE: THE NEXT DAY

Vaginaphobe lady drives past the theatre with her niece.

NIECE: Aunty, what's a hoohah?

JACKBUTT, which made it totally funnier than had they left it alone.
...hee hee heeeeee.

JACKBUTT.

*giggles like a twelve-year-old*

Maybe it's a New Zealand thing, but here "hoohah" means nonsense or rubbish.
For example, someone says something untrue or stupid, you could respond "that's a load of old hoohah".
I guess it's a polite way of saying "bullshit".
It certainly has nothing to do with vaginas.
Although, over here, "fanny" is not a word one would use in "polite" company.

How else are wimmen gonna learn that their...thingies...are *dirty*? How else can we be sure that no one reaches adulthood without the requisite amount of shame at being a mammal?

PENIS!

Funny Vagina Monologues tangent: I was organizing my first V-Day production and I went snowboarding with my sweety. I was getting off the chairlift and fell, vagina-first, onto my snowboard binding. Mind-numbing pain ensued. I lay curled on the snow, screaming 'it hurts it hurts' and my sweety asked 'what hurts?' and i couldn't bring myself to say 'my vagina' until we were away from other people.

I am a feminist. I love my vagina. Yet it was REALLY HARD to say, at that moment.
end of tangent!

A friend told me once about babysitting a young girl who came in, pointed and said "My this hurts." It's all kinds of wrong to keep this kind of information from them.

I recall a woman friend on an old AOL humor message board referring to her 'coo coo'.

I guess 'timing' is everything...

I'm really, really, really thankful for those who've taken up the cause of spreading vaginas.

Huh? Okay, Auntie, what's a 'chauvinist pig'?

(runs away, covering his mono-log...)

Just as an aside, how come that picture doesn't have the clitoris labelled or very pronounced?
'Cause that's one part of my vulva I wouldn't want overlooked!

The Crab:How about cervix?

Or 'cervix with a smile' ?

(I know, I know, I'm having flashbacks to middle school).

Anorak, I'm with you! No picture of the female anatomy is complete without the clitoris! Yay for the clitoris!

I LOL'd. This is right up there on the same caliber of stupid as the review I read, I belive on IMDB, saying the Vagina Monologues are "too gyno-centric." Uh, it's about women's bodies? That's kinda the point?

And I concur with Anorak and Kevin. Where's the clit?

Indeed, Kattyben. One might even say that it deserves its *own* monologue.

"Monologues" is also a difficult word with filthy connotations. It's the part in the play where characters reveal inner thoughts which are not always child-appropriate (including, as in Shakespeare, the method of murdering another human being, or hateful observations about other characters).

I'm highly offended at the prospect of having to explain all this ugliness to a future niece. Can we please change it to "The Hoohah Pleasantries"?

Also, "The" is a tricky describer affiliated with such awful entities as "THE third reich" and "THE rapist." Strike it, please.

I organize the annual V-Day Vagina Monologues performance at my college. Last night all the organizers got an email to remind us that we are required to use the full and accurate name of the play at all times... since, after all, the "vagina" part is kinda the point. :)
Vagina is not a dirty word!

That's not a vagina. That's a vulva. Big difference, and you all should know better. Especially kpsisu, because I really don't think you got a snowboard in your vagina. You fell on your vulva.

VULVA!

In addition to the clitoris, we need more hair! I for one am way hairier than that!

My friend back home is very much like that. In fact, *she* has taught her daughter to use the word hoohah in place of vagina. My daughter, on the other hand, has used the word vagina since she was 2. She'll be 5 in a couple of weeks.

I find the word hoohah MUCH more offensive. Much more. Ugh.

We (as in her dad and I) had to explain what a clitoris was the other day. I'm embarrased to say that was the toughest conversation we've ever had.

Is that what my vagina is supposed to look like? Because I don't think it looks like that. At all.

EG: Wholeheartedly agreed on your point that this is NOT a child's world and should scrubbed (arguably) clean for their (also arguable) benefit.

I am told that my work is deeply vaginal. Does that word upset you, Jeffery?

Hehehe, now some other twitchy parent is going to have to answer the question, "Mommy, what's a 'hoohah'?"

When the movie "Hocus Pocus" was first came out, I was sitting in the audience watching the scene from the Halloween party where Thora Birch's character (a little girl back then) was teasing her big brother about liking some girl because of her "big bazooms". Dry joke. Nobody laughed. A little boy in the theater asked, "Mommy, what're bazooms?" The whole theater heard him and everyone cracked up!

Ensler is incredibly protective of the play - there are a lot of rules that have to be followed, including that none of the monologues can be omitted. I would think that she'll be all over this, and possibly yank the group's sanction to perform it ever again.

TN: yup.
Carlie: from the article it sounds like the group is just leasing or renting or having the theater space donated. Maybe they can produce it elsewhere next year.

Oh, yeah. I want to be on record as the first to use the phrase "hoohaa dentata."

Gotta say that is a seriously unappealing vagina picture.

My son is going to learn the words "vagina" and "penis" the same as he learns "nose" and "hand" and the hell with anybody who tells me it's wrong.

But to the poster talking about her snowboarding injury...you actually probably hurt your labia, technically, not your vagina. A man would say he hurt his balls, but we don't seem to have a labia-slang equivalent.

I agree, that diagram is rather nasty.

We do need labia slang, don't we? I vote we call them llamas, just because that's the first word that popped into my head. After all, there's nothing offensive about the Llama Monologues.

Who's with me?

Ya know... there are prudes in the world. We aren't repressed nor repressive. We just ask that the public sphere accomodate some standard of decency. I've seen the Vagina Monologues. I would not go again, but I managed the first time. Eve Ensler's play is designed to shock and get people out of their comfort zone; it's not unreasonable to ask that such be kept low-key in the public area.

oh for fuck's sake... irony doesn't even begin to describe this....

Maybe Georgia O'Keeffe would have painted a prettier vagina...but I think the vagina drawing is fine… minus the aforementioned lack of a clitoris.

We should not be made to be ashamed of our bodies!

As a child…my mom explained everything about sex and anatomy to me very clearly when I asked.

I remembered saying to her..."Wait you mean you pee'd me out?!!" LOL!!

"Eve Ensler's play is designed to shock and get people out of their comfort zone"

I think it's very ignorant when people use this argument as a reason a work should not be seen or otherwise marginalized. It's very rare that a serious work of art is only conceived to "shock." There's rather a difference between wanting to "shock" and audience and wanting to make it think and consider.

Oenophile: While I'll agree that there need to be standards of decency in a society, I don't think this is breaching them.

Vagina is a medical/clinical term.
If the sign said "cunt" or another word generally considered to be a swear word, then ok.

But it wasn't.

You're completely entitled to feel a bit conservative about what is acceptable in public space, but I have to respectfully disagree with you as to the inappropriateness of "vagina" in public.

I think it's fine.

I am so glad that I went to a middle and high school with a teacher who was not afraid of the words vagina and penis. As part of our health class, we went up and down the halls saying PENIS and VAGINA rather loudly. And we weren't allowed to go back to the room until everyone had said it at least once.

"I mean, people should be allowed to find out what a vagina is. ESPECIALLY IF THEY OWN ONE. What kind of mistreatment is it of a kid not to allow them to learn the names of the parts of their own body? Gah."

Hmm...

"Don't show that play's name! I'm offended that my little girl saw the word vagina!"
"Huh? You're offended that...Oh, I get it, she must not already have one herself. It's great that you're a supportive aunt instead of ignoring her transsexuality and calling her 'he,' and I wish her the best of luck when she gets that surgery she needs to stop being trapped in a male body..."

Dunno about all of you, but I just have a hoohah and ta-tas... or would it be more appropriate to refer to them as funbags?

To me it is soooo much more inappropriate and derogatory to use a diminuitive slang term for the vagina than the actual proper name.

Not that a play is quite comparable with a life-threatening illness, but breast cancer not called titty cancer to protect the innocent children, after all.

I agree: More hair, call it a vulva, and label the clitoris. It's the best part! =D

Also: Penis, vagina, vulva, scrotum, testes. They're perfectly scientific words and everyone has some variation of those parts. What's wrong with using them?

The entire point of the VAGINA Monologues is to use the word VAGINA! To talk about our VAGINAS! To get away from the shame about our VAGINAs.

*screams*

Talk about completely and utterly missing the point.

A man would say he hurt his balls, but we don't seem to have a labia-slang equivalent.

Flaps. As in the song:

Do your flaps hang low?
Do they waggle to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them over your shoulder
Like a continental soldier?
Do your flaps. hang. low?

oenophile, your an idiot. I am a prude, my mother is a prude (She is a former nun, after all), but she always insisted that we use the correct terminology, and the correct terminology is vagina, not hooha.

I mean you're.

I guess I am an idiot, too, but not on this subject.

"but I think the vagina drawing is fine… minus the aforementioned lack of a clitoris."

cept for that random hole in the middle there thats labelled "opening of urinary canal". i do beleive 1) its ridiculously large 2) that aint where it is (but i guess to put it where it actually is youd have to label the clitoris..oh the shame!)

Update: The play's organisers pointed out that they wouldn't be allowed to put it on under that title and the theatre changed it back.

*clears throat*

w00t!

They could have put 'The V***** Monologues' but there would have been a huge number of confused Trekkies thinking Leonard Nimoy would be there...

They could have put 'The V***** Monologues' but there would have been a huge number of confused Trekkies thinking Leonard Nimoy would be there...

Oopsie -- the joke's not funny enough to be there twice. Sorry.

Um, frankly, there was internal swelling and bruising, so actually, I think my vagina was injured, as well as the labia- basically it was a solid black mass of swelling from the middle of the vulvar region to my ass cheek. I couldn't sit for a couple days. It was very embarassing. Especially when I called my (female) gyno and talked to her secretary to ask if I needed to go in- my gyno called back and was like 'you did what? to your what? really? well, stick to hand jobs for a couple weeks, he he he... '

Why not just say that Eve Ensler's play is showing? Everyone knows what it is, so the people who want to see it can and other people can just ignore it. I really wouldn't want to see "The Penis Monologues" in bright lights, either. While "vagina" is an anatomical term, it is also highly sexualised in this context: one cannot say with a straight face that Miss Ensler wrote her work as a medical treatise.

While the purpose of the Vagina Monologues is, inter alia, to get people to talk about vaginas, that really only applies to the people who see said play. I love the fact that it's out there for women as a resource and a bonding experience and outreach, but that doesn't justify every possible method of promotion. It also doesn't mean that the entire country is now required to talk about vaginas.

You simply cannot say that it is all about getting women to be comfortable in their sexuality and then say, in the next breath, that it isn't an adult play, from the title to the end.

Feminists are certainly conflicted about women's seuxality in the public square. I seem to remember a post a few days back about two billboards, each featuring the leg of a woman with cars driving down the middle. (For freakin'joy. It was disguisting.)

There is certainly room for reasonable opinions on both sides. The only unreasonable thing, IMHO, is to replace "vagina" with a slang term instead of a euphemism (i.e. Eve Ensler's play).

Well, there's two unreasonable things. The other is that Tabitha thinks that a woman with a 160 IQ is an idiot for actually pointing out another dimension to a debate.

--
Thank you, Anorak!! :) Likewise, I'll respectfully half-way disagree with you, being conflicted enough to find this to be a grey area. (Meaning, of course, that I can see the merit in the other side.)

"Why not just say that Eve Ensler's play is showing? Everyone knows what it is"

um i would have no idea what it was and im pretty sure thered be alot of people that only would recognize it if it were called the freakin name of the play...then again the word vagina doesnt put me into puritan mode (but im totally getting an amadeaus vibe from people that dont like the word...like when he tried to make an opera about a brothel? hah then again this is 2007 and thats kind of sad)

Eve Ensler has, in fact, written more than one play.

Thank you, EG... I didn't know that. Mea culpa.

You can have an opera about a brothel, or R-rated movies with lots of steamy sex scenes (wasn't that some of the point of "Eyes Wide Shut?" - please correct if wrong, I never saw it), but when you give a play a name that is intended to be sexual, you're making it difficult to advertise.

To me, it's not about protecting girls from the fact that they have vaginas, but not using the medical term in a sexual setting where little kids are present.

IMHO, the "Hoohah Monologues" is no more polite - and even worse - than the real title.

Incidentally, St. John's did not allow it to be produced on campus.

Oenophile, why don't you simply rename yourself "Devil's Advocate?" Because, you know, it's getting kind of predictable, thread after thread. PS - not sure where you're from or how you were "tested", but the most widely used measure of intellectual functioning - by far - in North America (and actually, internationally as well) has an upper ceiling of 155, which would in itself necessitate a *perfect* score. So that's pretty incredible, that you got a 160! As in, not credible. And what's with "Feminists are certainly conflicted about women's seuxality in the public square"?

Pandagon's having a "Best troll" contest, maybe there's room for one more nomination.