When I was in high school, I took a day trip down to Tuscaloosa for a state-wide French Convention with my class. It was really fun, and my group did all sorts of French-related things, but we also saw a poster in the student union that we found hilarious. It was bright pink, 8 x 11 1/2 inches, and it had VAGINAS in bold print across the top. (I mean, come on. We were sophomores in high school.)

The poster was an advertisement for the university’s production of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues. At the time, all I knew about it was that it had a funny name and seemed ridiculous. I went on to associate it with the song “My Unfortunate Erection” from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in an essay I wrote for my high school lit mag about not enjoying the pressure of standing ovations at the theatre. Our advisor for the magazine (whaddup Verm) read it and said, “Actually, that play is really cool and says some important stuff-” and I was like, WHATEVER. SILLY NAME.

Me in my second year participating in Vagina Monologues. Things have changed.

Fast-forward a couple years, and I just finished performing in what I now know as Vag Mons for the second consecutive year. I know I’m biased, but Mizzou’s production of the Vagina Monologues has got to be one of the best in the country, if not the world. Each Sunday, I get to sit in a (relatively small) room surrounded by over a hundred like-minded women and learn about some of my favorite things during Vag Mons rehearsal. Our rehearsals are probably 1/4 business, 1/4 education and 1/2 rehearsal-y stuff. The education is my favorite part. We learn about intersectionality and intimate partner violence in the deaf community and the medicalization of birth and body positivity and vaginas! The stigma that our society places on sexuality extends to super important things like sexual and physical health, so a lot of women don’t even know basic facts about how their bodies work.

At last year’s production, we took a big picture with everyone involved in both RSVP and Vag Mons. It was great.

I would say that it’s hard for me to describe how awesome the Vagina Monologues are, but it’s actually not that hard. We’re a benefit performance, which means that all of our proceeds go toward violence prevention work. Most of the money goes to local organizations, such as True North (a shelter), the L.E.A.D. Institute (a shelter for the deaf/hard of hearing community) and MU Stop Traffic (a sex-trafficking prevention campus organization). The official sponsor of Vagina Monologues is a campus organization called STARS (Stronger Together Against Relationship and Sexual Violence), which I’m the president of, so it’s been an especially fun year because of that. And the women involved in the monologues are just frickin’ awesome! How lucky am I to get to spend time with them and learn from them and befriend them?

My monologue this year was “Outrageous Vagina Fact.”

I know that somewhere out there, there’s a high schooler just hearing about Vag Mons and thinking it sounds silly, but I know from experience that she could grow up to be a radical feminist with great love for the people around her, and that’s super exciting. I can’t wait to meet her one day.