by Pallavi Mehra
(11/26/08)
Like a nose, an eye, a baby toe, an armpit, my vagina is simply a body part and it definitely is not deserving of a monologue.
My vagina is just something people touch and use as they wish, like a pen, a keyboard, a subway pass. It is a tool, like a carpenter's hand or the sole of a trapeze artist's foot. And like the palm of a hand, the sole of a foot, it is worn and used.
My vagina is not me, so it is not deserving of a monologue. My vagina is not special, it is not unique, it is not pretty or ugly, it is not strength or fear, it is not woman any more than my pinky toe. It just is.
Once, perhaps, my vagina was special. Maybe it did define me as a little girl. But then I figured it out. I learned the secret that none of you vagina-loving, women power, rah-rah chicks have learned. Sure it's true that special things have power. But special things give other people power over you. So when I was younger, I said to him...some him...you can't take this and make it yours. I said, from now on you can't pretend this is special. I'm taking it back and making it mine. From now on you pay me to touch this. From now on this is a business deal.
Bent over in a warehouse, in this one's car during school break, in the conservation park, in that one's cheap dirty basement, in Motel 8 (pay by the hour), in this one's expensive house with the satin sheets, my unspecial vagina went to all these places. I know you're all asking why I started. You want to be able to point to something and then fix it. An uncle, a neighbor, a mean boyfriend. But life doesn't always give you reasons. It was certainly none of those things.
I define my vagina how I want to define it. I define it as a tool. Tools cannot be violated.
It can never be special again and it will never be a part of me. When someone touches it, when I touch it, it will always be with a goal, some goal: get some cash, alleviate boredom, make him happy, go to sleep.
It will never be beautiful, mystical, magical.
It was worth it to be spared years of violation and humiliation when I gave people that so-called "special" part of me. Spared years of emotional attachment to what is quite simply another mound of flesh.
It was worth it. My vagina is not deserving of a monologue.
