Friday, April 28, 2006

"Monologues" produce confusion, not good

Below is a link to a Letter to the Editor by a rape victim who takes issue with Fr. Jenkin's decision...

An excerpt:
Standing against "The Vagina Monologues" is a hard thing to do because to do so is to risk being persecuted as anti-woman, anti-feminist and to be framed as an ultra-legalistic conservative - afraid of sexuality, crude words and scantily clad women - a fact that I think has contributed to much of the success of "The Vagina Monologues." I am not afraid of my sexuality. I will be married this fall and I look forward with anticipation to a happy and frequent sex life. I am not afraid of crude words. I have a very quaint grandmother who when given the proper provocation can make even a truck driver blush. And I am certainly not afraid of scantily clad women, fighting for women's protection or raising awareness for true feministic issues. However, despite the author's good intentions, "The Vagina Monologues" clearly trivializes the dignity of women because it gauges the health of a woman's sexuality by her ability to personify her vagina, not to mention the blatant misandry throughout the dialogues making it seem more like a work of hate than of love.
. . .
To say that "The Vagina Monologues" does not violate our Christian identity or show contempt for part of our community is to cross over onto very thin ice. As Catholics we are not allowed to do even a small amount of evil so that good may be obtained. I believe that "The Vagina Monologues" does more than a little evil by further confusing the dignity of women and obtains only an infinitesimal amount of good through its efforts to raise awareness of violence against women. There are much better ways to accomplish this goal while still preserving an open, academic environment.
While this woman's lucid explanation may not convince the blind, it will, nonetheless, confirm what we already knew to be true.

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