Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

Another rationale for Monologues

I find the "Vagina Monologues," based on what I have read about the play by both supporters and detractors, to be totally classless and unintellectual as well. These criticisms have been aired quite well already, so I will not waste any more time on them. What I would like to do is defend the play from an angle I am quite certain nobody else has even considered.Vocations. We all know about the vocations crunch and how it will probably get even worse in the years ahead. As a man, and having spoken to many other men about the issue, I can say with confidence that, for us, the biggest obstacle to the priesthood is the desire to marry. I think "Vagina Monologues" can effectively blunt this desire for many, if not most, men. If I were a Holy Cross priest teaching theology, I would drag my male students to this play, and then ask them afterward, "Now are you sure you actually want to get married?" This is not to say, of course, that most men are unaware that women have vaginas, and need to see this play to inform them of that fact. It is just not what men tend to consider primarily when they think of the fairer sex, or in such a crude and juvenile fashion. "Vagina Monologues" can fix that.I think internet pornography can serve the same role, by the way. Watch enough of that, so disgusting and degrading and you will be far more likely to agree with the Church that celibacy is indeed the superior way of life. There is a danger with some men of getting addicted to that stuff, though, so if I were a recruiter for the seminary I would not promote it. The "Vagina Monologues," like "Sex & the City," is a safer alternative. Or have them read the "Wife of Bath" tale in Chaucer. That tale is difficult to understand, though, and perhaps a little bit above the heads of most college students today. No danger of that in "Vagina Monologues," not intellectually anyway. The only part hard to understand is why female college students would produce and promote something so conducive to contempt for women.

Eric Mamrosh alumniClass of 1997Feb. 5