Hoopla About a Woman’s “Hoohaa” in The Vagina Monologues at John Jay High School. Three Young Liars Make The Today Show!
Bill O’Reilly missed it when he talked about it on The O’Reilly Factor. Meredith Vieira, the Today Show host, missed it when she interviewed the three girls, young women really, future leaders of America all, who stood up in school on open-mic night and recited two lines from Eve Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues. No, they both blew it. It was not only the controversial recitation of the word “vagina” that should have been addressed, but the flawed character exhibited by the three girls when they lied to the high school principal about whether they would recite the two lines or not. 
Oh, yeah, right. The girls didn’t outright lie. They didn’t SAY they were going to recite the lines, but when asked by the principal, they implied that they didn’t intend to. That’s the issue I’d like to address.
Splitting Hairs, Double Talk and Obfuscation 101.
You’ve no doubt heard the story. The high school principal forbade teenagers Hannah Levinson, Elan Stahl and Megan Reback from reciting these lines:
“My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.”
He told them not to perform at all if they felt that in all good conscience they could not omit the part that included the word vagina.
I saw the girls being interviewed by Meredith Vieira (a MOM for heaven’s sake) on The Today Show. It was clear from what the girls said that they understood 100% that by assuring the principal that they had made their “decision,” they were leading him to believe that they would not be including the lines. Then they brazenly went ahead and did it anyway.
Aside from the fact that the lines make me say: “Huh?” just as they did when I saw the play in a little theatre way off Broadway in New York City, I don’t think it is appropriate to ambush an audience with excerpts from The Vagina Monologues any more than I think it is okay to blindside an unsuspecting audience with lines from David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, a play notorious for its vulgarity and that spews out over 150 instances of the “F” word.
Yes, you may expect a few dopey surprises at a high school open–mic event, and you can always count on a few students making asses of themselves, but you have every right when watching a high school-sponsored production not to have to worry about getting your sensibilities offended from out of the blue.
And why skirt the other issue? Lying with impunity!
“When a student is told by faculty members not to present specified material because of the composition of the audience, and they agree to do so, it is expected that the commitment will be honored and the directive will be followed,” Principal Richard Leprine said. “When a student chooses not to follow the directive, consequences follow.”
Or maybe not. The one-day, in-school (!) suspension “outraged” some parents. Reback asked, “What did we do that was so wrong? We were insubordinate, but the reason we were insubordinate was that we talked about our body.” ”To me, they were reciting literature in an educational forum and they did it with grace and dignity,” said Dana Stahl, Elan Stahl’s mother.
Well, talking about your body certainly makes lying okay, doesn’t it? How clueless is that kid? And what’s with these parents?
I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman 402
This reminds me of the story about the kid who was told he could not bring a girl home with him after school when his parents were at work. When one of the parents unexpectedly dropped by the house mid-afternoon, she found the boy home with two girls. When confronted, the boy retorted, “I’m not home with one girl, I’m here with two.”
Does a lot of that go on at the Stahl’s house, too? Maddening. Where’s the paddle when you need it?
You couldn’t pay me to see The Vagina Monologues again. By the way, the full version of The Vagina Monologues does not include an intermission, otherwise I’m sure that unsuspecting lone guy who wandered into the theater and sat in the seat next to me would have hightailed it. To be honest, I would have left, too. Yes, the play had its moments, but most of the rest felt designed to shock simply for the sake of shocking. I know! I know! It is not politically correct to speak forthrightly about disliking the The Vagina Monologues and finding it more than a bit “precious,” to say the least.
For books and plays about “hoohaas,” child slang for vagina, I’d start with these stalwarts:
“Against Our Will—Men, Women & Rape” by Susan Brownmiller, “The Female Eunich” by Germaine Greer and of course “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan. (Ever heard of these authors, girls?) For wry, smart, poignant and often hilarious plays that involve feminism and family, buy a ticket to Wendy Wasserstein’s plays, including The Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosenweig. (That’s good theater, girls.) Forget about The Vagina Monologues.
Recently, I had the opportunity to see a local theater production of the The Vagina Monologues in East Hampton, but even a free ticket couldn’t coax me to the theater to see that play again, despite my knowing some of the actors.
“Don’t we want our children to resist authority when it’s not appropriate and wise?” said Eve Ensler, the author, in a quote that was picked up by the Associated Press.
YES, we do, Ms. Ensler. But it wasn’t the authority figure whose behavior was inappropriate and unwise. And you know it.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: As well as being a playwright, Eve Ensler is also the author of books that include V-World, I Am An Emotional Creature, Vagina Warriers, Insecure at Last, and The Good Body.
March 15th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Dear WW: Right you are. Call me a prude, but I wouldn’t see any play or movie that had the v-word in it. My
hoohaa is private and I’d appreciate it if other women kept theirs private, too. Now, about the naughty girls: saying you won’t do something someone objects to is a matter of keeping your word. You keep your word, you keep your integrity. The girls were foolish, but the onus is on the parents to raise their girls to be honest when they choose to speak out.
Note from The Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Katy Gurley is a newspaper reporter.
March 15th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Lynne, I haven’t seen this or the play where guys do penis puppets. I think that latter might at least be funny.
Maybe I should go see the Vagina Monologues, because I need material for the parody I am writing—The Boob Dialogues.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: DC is the author of the memoir The Art of Table Dancing: Escapades of an Irreverent Woman.
March 15th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Good job, girls. The “truth” is a social contract. A breach on one side nullifies the obligations of the other side. The justification “young children might hear the word vagina, so don’t use it” is the kind of thing I would expect to read in a Hawthorne novel about Hester Prynne. It is the equivalent of telling children: “Be ashamed of your body.” The girls are all honor students — do you really think they’re going to hell in a hand basket over ‘vagina?’
And before you fire off that flaming reply, let me ask you this: What do you weigh, and how do you feel about your appearance in public? Do others regularly use the words “confident,” “inspiring,” or “ennobling,” to describe your bearing? Does your closet have at least two outfits in it that you prefer for their “flattering” effect? Who made you feel that way?
March 15th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
YAWWWWN. It sounds like the children had some fun and now all the adults will spend a few days dancing the
Chicken over it. And note: their little stunt confirmed that they are, yes, still children.
I’m not quite sure how tampons, douches, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm and all the other of Ensler’s monologues tie into a high school presentation, but I’m sure the kiddies would have glibly fit all of them in had there been time (AND had they understood them). Kids love to shock for shock’s sake–who here is kidding themselves into thinking they had some high moral ground they were standing on?
Come on, folks. And I see these three little Barbies being compared to Abraham Lincoln, JFK and Martin Luther King????
Whether it’s streakers or obscene gestures or quoting something the school feels is inappropriate (wait till you get JOBS, children), these things will continue. But let’s recognize it for what it is–immaturity and nothing more. And give them the inattention they deserve.
The Today Show. What a waste. We have a war going on.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Andrew is a retired California Highway Patrolman turned freelance journalist and author. He is editor of The Jimston Journal, “a quarterly online publication for the arts.”
March 15th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
That’s 181 words of inattention, by my count, Mr. O’Hara, and that’s not counting the YAWWWWN.
Also, “compared:” yes. Compared how is more a matter of reading for comprehension. As the publisher of a journal for the arts, I expected a sharper eye from you.
As you say, there is a war going on. What would you advise these three (very near) future American voters to do about that? Sit on their plastic doll hands and keep their painted mouths properly shut? You have the terms and exhortation of your argument upside down and backwards, respectively.
What you wanted, if you are so concerned about the war, was: “Well done, girls. Now, having proven that you have minds of your own and the will to use them, let me, an adult authority (owner of a press outlet), explain to you the difference between peevish expressions of obsolete personal taste in the arts and the applied theory of political speech manipulation. Here is how to use that provocative bravery of yours in aid of more relevant causes. [fill in sage advice here]”
March 15th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
You lost me at “Where’s the paddle when you need it?”
I think it would, however, be effective on you to knock some sense into your brainless head.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Richard’s 10th volume of short stories, And to Think that He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, was described by Kirkus Discoveries in 2006 as “A funny, odd, somehow familiar and fully convincing fictional world.” Richard lives in South Florida and New York.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
(sigh) I will concede the point to Her Dyingbreedness. Far from this being a giggly prank thought up in the girl’s
restroom, as I so cynically suspected, I am sure the epic deed for which these young women have , ahem, sacrificed so greatly places them with Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King—yea, with the gods.
More seriously, however, this was not a test of “free speech.” This is a pubescent mockery of it and cheapens the work done by those who have bled inside and out for its preservation and this very day rot in cells because they practiced it. This childish acting out in hopes of drawing adulation and television coverage is not courage. In fact, they show little more understanding of freedom than the bully who boasts, “It’s a free country.”
I have served my country as a soldier and a policeman and hell will freeze solid before I see anyone challenge my rights to speak out. But too many of you fail to understand that we are not a “free country.” We are a country based on “Liberty.” And “liberty” is the exercise of freedom with restraint and respect for the rights of others. These girls–no, these children–have missed the important part of their civics lesson, the part that deals with responsibility, respect, and the rule of law (and yes, in this case, for children, it was the rule of law).
When they grow up, they will have to learn that they can’t play in any sandbox they like just because “it’s a free country.”
March 15th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Yanno, lastofadyingbreed and Andrew, neither of you seem to get it! They plain out and out LIED about what they intended to do. So therefore you think it was just childish whimsey.
I could give two rats asses about what they said, irregardless of that fact that it to, offended my sensibilities. The word vagina is just shock factor and that is all is was ever meant to be in this context.
But we’re raising another generation that think it’s okay to message the truth to fit their agenda. And with parents, and people like you both who dismiss the real offense here, our society will continue to go down the path of personal satisfaction that rejects the honesty principles that this country was founded on.
And don’t you dare give me that, “Get over it, crap!” When our executive branch of government hands you the same subjective truth, you yell to high heaven.
So I would hand back to you, the next time you accuse the president of telling a half truth, or fitting the words to his own agenda, I will remind you Andrew…children grown up to be adults, and you teach them how to treat you. And lastofadyingbreed, “The “truth” is a social contract!”
Sorry Lynne for going off, but lying and justifying it as personal freedom burns my ass with a flame about three and a half foot tall!
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Bonnie is the Director of the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance. She lives in Upstate New York.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:52 am
“I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country”
That’s not heroic. That’s bombast.
And one very big twat.
The end justifies the means, apparently.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:11 am
There would be severe consequences for my child if she lied directly or indirectly to the principal of her school. A one-day, in-school suspension (detention) is laughable as a punishment.
V.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Oh, my God! Some teenagers lied to their principal! Whatever shall we do? Puh-leeze. Teenagers lie. It’s one of the things they do. I lied when I was a teenager, and I’m betting everyone who reads this did too. Teenagers also like to say things for shock value. Those of you who know teenagers might have noticed this. And yes, Bonnie, I AM saying “get over it.” Comparing two teens lying to their principal to what our government is doing to us every single day is both disingenuous and intellectually lazy.
Furthermore, Lynne, your discomfort with the word “vagina” kinda clashes with your previous defense of the use
of the word “scrotum,” don’t you think? Vagina, like scrotum, is a perfectly honest non-perjorative clinical term. It’s not as if they said “pussy.” Aren’t you usually a defender of free speech?
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, isn’t this blog supposed to be about, you know, PUBLISHING? I come here (and recommend this site to others) for the insight on publishing, not for a non-story about how two teenagers pulled a fast one on their principal. Your more prudish readers seem to be eating this one up, but those of us in the book industry who read this for actual insight are scratching their heads or rolling their eyes.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Frazer. You inspired me to go back and add a “Note from the Wicked Witch” that includes a list of Eve Ensler’s published books! I also recommended three books in this posting. No, I don’t have any trouble with the use of the word “vagina” or “scrotum,” per se. I have a problem in this instance with the context in which Eve Ensler’s words were used. By the way, I don’t ever remember telling my parents a lie. [Frazer Dobson is an owner and handseller at Park Road Books in Charlotte, North Carolina. For the past 18 years Park Road Books has been voted “Charlotte’s Best” by readers and editors of Creative Loafing, the arts and entertainment newspaper.]
March 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Then you’re a better kid than I ever was, Lynne! It’s part of testing boundaries. Mind you, when I did lie to my parents, I usually got caught and suffered the consequences!
BTW, it’s Park ROAD Books…..
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Whoops, I made the correction to Park Road Books. [Check out Frazer’s literary blog. I find it to be exceptional: www.sibaweb.com/frazer.]
March 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Perhaps this was all a deliberate ploy on their part to parlay some anticipated (and planned) publicity into fame and fortune? The teens have already achieved the former it seems: not so naive in my opinion. I’ll bet this isn’t the last we’ll hear of them….
March 16th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Isn’t bombast better defined as the noisy presumption of special status in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
I read all of you in the “children should be seen not heard camp” to believe that on the day these particular three girls were born, the world started going to hell in a hand basket. As if your generation has a special status to claim some (undefined) moral high ground. As if in some invoked, milky-haloed past, political speech (read me again, for comprehension this time, the phrase “free speech” is first used by you, not me), was uttered only by pedestaled titans of virtue.
The imperative “grow up” applies here, only if you are currently oriented in relation to a reflective surface. These girls are playing the game of American Debate with a much more sophisticated grasp of the rules (current and real, not imagined or wished-for) than anyone I have read here.
“In the hopes of” Mr. O’Hara? I’d say they succeeded in getting that TV coverage, didn’t they?
Your (collective) white-knuckled grip on romantic fantasies of “truth,” “respect,” or “liberty” in the words above are symptomatic more of a desperation to revisit youths of your own, than any practicable advice for some (undefined) lost generation.
The members of these girls’ generation (currently aged 16, some of whom will be voting for President in 2008) are indifferent to your breed of indignant hand wringing over idealistic abstractions because they are playing a different game than you. They are playing to win where win is measured by attention that can be converted into gain. That is the game we have, and you opt out (into the good ole’ days fantasy land) at your own risk.
You are playing solitaire in some world that doesn’t exist, in which you don’t lie to get what you want.
When these girls and all those like them are vying for the elected privilege of governing this country, your kids will be the ones voting, and these girls, and those like them, will be the ones running, and winning.
You want to effect change in a “generation” you get control by motivating for action, praising initiative, then channeling it to go where you want (like they did in Basic, Mr. O’Hara?), not by issuing nostalgic temper tantrums. Don’t any of you people have kids?
March 16th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Well, the play has never appealed to me, and I haven’t seen it. Don’t see a whole lot to get het up about though,
compared with a lot of other plays and other “visual media” that feature a whole lot worse than the excerpt you provide (which, whether it was OK or not to go ahead and recite the lines after saying they wouldn’t, do sound somewhat poetic at least).
Today I heard that the BBC is being forced to remove the main revision/learning website that my daughters use. I am afraid that getting upset over a couple of lines of a boring-sounding play pales in comparison. Apologies if I am not my normal self, but I am reeling over this stupid, shortsighted, politically correct situation.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Maxine Clarke is a mega-blogger. She authors seven blogs, mostly about her love of books, publishing, and the writing world. Petrona is her personal blog, which shares the life and thoughts of a mother of two living in the South of England. Maxine has been a science journal editor for most of her working life.
March 16th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I love the irony here. These young women had to lie about reciting a line that actually contains the proper term for
their genitals. In contrast, we have many of the rap and rock songs, performed by males, gracing the airwaves calling female genitalia anything but its proper name, Vagina.
Thank goodness, I’m a civil rights 1964/EEO generation baby and have never ever been ashamed to call my genitalia anything but its proper term.
Unfortunately, I’ve liberated myself to the point where I bandy about the P-word at times. Yes, I know it’s unacceptable in polite company but it’s so invigorating to say it instead of having some man say it within earshot.
Aside: Have you heard about blogtalkradio.com. I believe your blog is a perfect fit for the medium. I hope you will check it out.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Mel Hopkins is a commercial writer and editor in broadcast/print journalism, marketing communications, and creative and technical writing. She was the news anchor/reporter for CBS Network affiliate, WTRF-TV and Clear Channel radio station, WWVA in the Ohio Valley. Hopkins owns The LeadStory, a media communications firm specializing in public affairs. She lives in Naperville, IL.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
“When these girls and all those like them are vying for the elected privilege of governing this country…”
Believe me, I can’t wait. As one wrote, their “self steam is good.” Works for me.
March 16th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Prudish? You betcha and proud of it.
Let’s see… it’s okay to lie.
It’s okay to spout a falsehood if I want to speak freely.
Lying to the principal is not a bad thing. Since lying to the principal is not a bad thing, then it follows that it’s okay to lie to parents, the police, my boss, on my income tax form. So long as I get a lot of attention from my lying, that makes it okay. After all, it’s just fiction, right? It’s just a prank, right? No real consequences… chuck me under my chin and pat my head. I’ll grow up in to a fine, responsible, prudent and trustworthy adult.
Poppycock.
This is precisly why white collar crime is so prevalent: the false notion that the end justifies the means. Teenagers already have the mistaken presumption that nothing bad will ever happen to them, that they will never get caught and only other people get pregnant. Why encourage that?
For the record, Lynne, I’m the Lifestyles Editor of a newspaper in Mississippi and I’ve finished that blasted book. I seriously doubt I’ll get it published because I can make more money as an editor… and they don’t make a whole lot, either.
The above statement was for the fellow that complained this topic wasn’t “publishy” enough. It is a true statement, though, and not made just for the sake of free speech.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Gina is a lifestyle’s editor in Mississippi. She has just finished her first book, Running from Shadows.
March 17th, 2007 at 7:30 am
“Lying to the principal is not a bad thing. Since lying to the principal is not a bad thing, then it follows that it’s okay to lie to parents, the police, my boss, on my income tax form. So long as I get a lot of attention from my lying, that makes it okay.”
You were almost in the real world, there, Gina, right up to the end. What you were looking for was: “I’ll grow up into a competitive, self-aware, resourceful, realistic adult, who stands a chance of reaching a position of ownership or leadership, rather than a position of servitude; who won’t waste her life building fantasies about the past based on peasant-class guilt; who isn’t thanatoptically drunk on her own delusion that lying to the boss, the IRS, the spouse, the kids, or the police is not a daily necessity, or that everyone around me is not doing so on a regular basis.”
I admire all the stamina here. That death-grip on this hallucination of peasant-cuddle morality would have wrung my fingers loose long ago.
Is that you in the corner, Andrew? Gina?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: First laugh of the morning! Five-alarm fire!
March 17th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Hello Lynne,
Without knowing these young women, it’s a bit of a tough call. On the whole, this seems more about shock, than addressing anything of substance.
I get the sense that Joan Didion or Doris Lessing presented with a similar platform would have merely read a perfectly worded essay and made a lasting impact; leaving a chimp like Bill O’Reilly demanding a dictionary.
March 17th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I am amused.
A good post, Lynne! A hoo-haw over hoo-haw.
You are so wicked.
Bernita
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Bernita is from Ontario, Canada. Her blog,”An Innocent A-Blog—Journal of a Barely Post-Luddite Miranda,” is very funny.
March 17th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
As usual, I am having trouble coming down definitively on one side or the other on this matter, which I don’t think is a trivial one. There are hundreds of newspapers at high schools and colleges that are battling constantly for freedom of the press and not having school administrators dictate what can and can’t be published.
These girls were faced with a demand that was wrong. The banned word itself doesn’t really matter, it
was the further erosion of free speech rights and students are the easiest victims. If they agree to the ban, their rights as Americans are emasculated (so to speak). Yet to say one thing and do another is not right either.
They should have invoked Sir Thomas More, who stayed silent on the question of Henry VIII’s second marriage which implied consent but under English law meant . . . silence, and more likely an objection.
The three girls in a way were silent by not giving a direct answer, and then when the opportunity arose they boldly asserted their free speech rights.
March 17th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Mr. Clavin, misleading the principal was wrong. I think you are trying to whitewash that with intellectual blather about Sir Thomas Mo[o]re.
March 17th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Some of this is waxing a bit personal, so I will bow out. Suffice to say that, if these lassies were indeed the Lincolns and Gandhis of tomorrow, they would already know the early-stage qualities that have set the greats
aside from the mediocre.
The list goes on. These little girls are, fortunately, little more than a blip of amusement on the screen after basking in their sought-after moment of fame. Fortunately for us, they will fade and be left to giggle about the incident at their slumber parties.
I will hazard to say that I do see young people of promise today exhibiting many of the above characteristings, but without the false humility and sense of bimbo-ish grandiosity your Barbies showed in this silliness. So yes, there is great hope. Next year, maybe the girls will try some graffitti from Mein Kampf. Hey, they’re on a roll.
March 17th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
It strikes me that it might be useful to contemplate the role integrity should or needn’t play in one’s comportment.
(For the record, my working definition of integrity is “unity of thought, word and deed.”)
LastOfADyingBreed apparently considers those who value integrity to be naïve, unsophisticated and superannuated. She implies that since some (many? most? all?) people regularly compromise their integrity, the attempt to maintain it is not just pointless, but puts one at a competitive disadvantage. Indeed, she anticipates a future that belongs to those to whom standards of integrity hold little sway and whose attainment of prominence and power will rest on how much more proficient they are in the art of deception than those against whom they compete. It would seem that from LODB’s perspective, we’re performing a service to our youth when we support their fledgling stabs at mendacity.
True, in some situations massaging or shading the truth seems more or less acceptable, even necessary. Perhaps President Bush provides the most remarked-upon recent example of speaking deceptively in order to achieve a desired goal. If you recall, shortly before the November elections, in response to a question, he stated unequivocally that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would remain with him until the end of his presidency, only to fire Rumsfeld shortly afterwards. When asked about the apparent deception, Mr. Bush explained: “I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of the campaign, so the only way to answer that question and to get on to another question was to give you that answer.”
I guess to some extent the question is: if most adults, including the President of the United States, do it, shouldn’t we applaud high-school students when they do it, too? Shouldn’t we pursue a sort of “lowest common denominator” approach to high-school behavior, where any action is acceptable as long as it has a counterpart that is widely exhibited in the adult community?
Come to think of it, if the standard for what we teach in school is what people do as adults, then why bother teaching formal English, or algebra, or physical education, for that matter, since the bulk of the adult population speaks and writes colloquial English, relies almost exclusively on calculators and computers for computation, and is mostly sedentary. Conversely, should we perhaps encourage students to practice driving drunk, since in so many adult situations people drink and then drive when impaired?
In the case at hand, it seems to me we need to decide which of two incompatible life-skills we want our schools to teach:
LODB falls on the side of the former along with, she claims, most current adolescents and young adults. How much of the rest of the population feels the same is anybody’s guess, but I’d say that the other side of the equation is well represented. (Perhaps there’s a third approach on the horizon: teaching how to lie your way to a goal without compromising your integrity along the way.)
That’s not to say that defiance of authority in high school is never justified. High school authorities can be arbitrary and capricious, and in some circumstances authority absolutely must be confronted, as was certainly the case during the civil rights era of last century. It seems a stretch to accept that the right to quote from The Vagina Dialogues approaches anywhere near that level of exigency, however.
Perhaps integrity just isn’t so important in this day and age. On the other hand, when push comes to shove, so much in our day-to-day life—not to mention in the business world and in our overall culture—depends on trust, that even if LODB’s assessment of the latest generation were accurate, I can’t imagine that an open, democratic society that encouraged widespread lying could sustain itself for very long. More likely it would slip into totalitarianism, one hallmark of which has historically been the “big lie.”
Certainly, some individuals who have gone far by systematically deceiving everyone around them have never paid a price. But lying eventually catches up with most people. Call it Karma, “what goes around, comes around,” or whatever, but deception ultimately undermines trust, and trust lost inevitably has consequences. That’s a tough lesson that’s been learned recently by the likes of Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay, and Jack Abramoff (and perhaps is about to be learned by Alberto Gonzalez.)
And frankly, I think on a much smaller scale it could have been a valuable lesson for these three young women. But it wasn’t to be.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Mark D. is a father and a former teacher.
March 17th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Hey, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’m heading out to get liquored up, too. Will post comments when I get back. WWofP
March 17th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Mark D. - Excellent comment and analysis.
Lynne - I agree completely that “The Vagina Monologues” is overvalued, to put it mildly. Out of curiosity, I once started watching a performance of it shown on HBO. I tuned out after about ten minutes.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:14 am
– Lying as a suitable means for achieving a desired goal,
– Truthfulness as the necessary means for maintaining personal integrity.
Stop saying “should,” and live in this world for ten minutes. These ARE the incompatible values our schools are teaching and have always taught.
Every kindergartner knows the answers better than any of you poor deluded souls who have nothing to offer but a self-absorbed recitation of your freshman Ethics 101 lecture.
In fact, you are so in love with lying that you are now capable of lying to yourself, and then, without a diagnosis of schizophrenia as far as I can tell, also believing yourself:
Why pick on Bush, Mark? Because you think there has ever been a president whose attainment of high office wasn’t based on his skilled mendacity?
Name him.
And while you’re at it, name me one Fortune CEO, for that matter.
Know why you won’t answer the question? Because there are none. Never have been. And that reality threatens your precious little candy land (see links to that pleasantly sleepy world, above.)
But, look. that might too harsh. You all have very delicate sensibilities. I wouldn’t want to break anyone’s metaphorical fingernails, or place any figurative peas under anyone’s stack of mattresses, not even of the most effeminately delicate of men among you.
So I take it all back. You all have the God-given right to screw up your kids’ lives any way you see fit. Please teach them that there is such a thing as The Truth. Teach them it is inviolable. Teach them to shut up and not ask questions. Teach them that authority comes from God, and they are not entitled to any. Who are they to question authority? Just little atoms of insignificant serfdom. Teach them that.
After all, where is my kid going to find enough mindlessly loyal campaign volunteers if you were to actually acknowledge your delusions? And what about her cabinet? And her staff?
Yes. You are right. You are all exactly right.
March 18th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Hi Folks,
I’ve never commented here before but have found this dialogue fascinating. Before I go too far, let me say that I’m an ordained minister, so you may find what I have to say surprising.
What I see here are two different issues. Lying is the first issue. Yes, if the girls lied they need to pay the consequences.
But the really interesting thing is the use of vagina. I find it a bit humorous and ironic, as someone else mentioned, that a proper anatomical term is seen as such a lewd thing. I remember as a child being told to call my pubic area my “pee pee”. Are we still in such a puritanical mentality that we take something so normal and naturally a part of us and make it something we have to call childish names?
The five-year old daughter of a friend of mine went horseback riding with her parents and made the comment: “This tickles my vagina!” I laughed at first and then cheered that this little girl actually had been educated about her body and also felt safe enough to call it what it was and not be chastised for speaking it aloud.
It seems that we have all acquired a sense of shame about body parts that have to do with sexuality. I could write on and on about this. But the bottom line is that it’s time to stop acting like little Adam and Eve’s running out of the Garden of Eden in shame covering, and not speaking about, our marvelous and divinely created bodies. (Now don’t misinterpret this; I’m not saying that we should walk around naked in public) We should be proud of our bodies and be able to call a vagina a vagina. (it’s not a four-letter word, except of course when the other term is used which is not the anatomical term)
As far as the Monologues, haven’t seen it so can’t comment.
Enjoy the day everyone!
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Carla’s book, Nobody’s Perfect: One Woman’s Journey From Playboy to Pulpit, is online at her Web site.
March 18th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Mr. Mark D and The Reverend Ms. Golden,
Thank you so much for both of your perspectives! I originally came back to respond to Mr. Mark D. Mr. Mark D your perspective is thought provoking and refreshing. It’s the kind of commentary that remains, long after the page is turned.
AND THEN-
Reverend Golden, your comment blew me away because of your unique perspective. Wonderful.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:01 am
The girls’ suspension has been rescinded.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:56 am
“The girls’ suspension has been rescinded.”
Like that’s a surprise? Name a time in the last 20 years when any child has been held responsible for their actions by our impotent school system short of gunning down fellow students. Somehow they’re able to muddle through the latter moral dilemma with no problem, bless their hearts.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
why this is not a trivial issue, nor an isolated incident, nor, as some would have it, a partisan sorting device. It is a matter of whether we want the game we have (lie to get what you want) to remain veiled, so it can be controlled by those willing to engage in it without naming it, or acknowledged (see my bb gun post above) so that our kids can benefit from our honest guidance regarding its ethics.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Lying ethics is an oxymoron.
Mark D… excellent, intelligent post. I commend you and admire the way you think. Thank you for that refreshing splash in my face.
I agree that we should call body parts what they are and forget the childish nicknames. But, I do not, nor ever will believe that an open, school assembly is the proper place to talk about those body parts regardless of what they are. There is a proper place and time for that discussion. Open Assembly is not one of them.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Again, my apologies. I didn’t realize that I was commenting to an audience of devout Buddhists (or Sikhs, or Hindus, or whichever of the dharmic faiths you each practice). The above close-reasoning which ends with an invocation of Karma as the highest intellectual rationale in our debate has changed my mind. I’m off to join my local Temple, so I can get in touch with my Tariki. Maybe that will help during the Supreme Court hearings.
New Supreme Court Justice Alito, especially, should be moved by that argument.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:11 am
Dear Wicked One:
Cut humiliter opinor……
As a celibate groupie of her “witchness” I’m slightly dismayed that she has forsaken her publishing roots and amusing book banter in favor of “the genitalia of the week.” Scrotums here, vaginas there, what shall April bring us, clitorides and foreskins? Can you get this likeable and often informative blog back on track? Or, are Anna Nicole Smith’s departed breasts (boobs, titties, knockers) coming soon to the Publishing Contrarian?
And dear Lynne, have you hugged a book today?
Brother René
Advocatus Diaboli
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Aren’t we a little ornery today, Brother Rene? Too much Cribari alter wine…again? Eve Enser’s play constitutes a published work. There are publishing companies, such as Samuel French, Ltd, who specialize in publishing and leasing plays. So there. You are correct, however, that it’s enough already about the body parts!
March 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am
Q: What kind of principal would give the green light to put on a play called the Vagina Monologues, then try to censure its lines?
A: A well-meaning idiot
Q: What kind of teens would agree to do the play, (wanted to do it) tacitly agree to censure, only to renege and say the lines anyway?
A: Smart-ass, normal teens
As an adult, the principal should have either agreed to the whole play or forbidden it, but not condone censorship, which is abhorant. (and ridiculous in this case). The teens were just being teens. Don’t teens rebel as a matter of course? Thank goodness for youth and teens!
What I can’t understand is the media fuss surrounding this. Now that’s ridiculous.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Sam, thanks for stopping by. Again, the play The Vagina Monologues was not being presented. It was open-mic night at the high school and many students were stepping forward to participate. Some even recited Shakespeare according to one newspaper reporter.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:23 am
[…] I agree with Bill Peschel. Lynne Scanlon is really missing the point about the Vagina Monologues debacle. Besides, what were these girls supposed to do? Tell the principal that they would, in fact, say the word “vagina” and then have the show canceled? […]
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Um, Ed, actually Bill Peschel agreed with me that I was right in pointing out what everyone else missed (or ignored!)—that Hannah Levinson, Elan Stal and Megan Reback lied to the high school principal. And the show would not have been canceled. Recitation of lines from The Vagina Monologues was only one of the “acts” on open-mic night.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:27 am
I stand corrected - but I do think that the principal was at fault. Agreeing to a part of the monologues while trying to censure it was a mistake. He should have either given his complete accord or forbidden it outright.
As a former teen, I can sympathize with the girls. As the mother of three teens, I can sympathize with the principal. (But I believe he handled it wrongly.)
And as for lies - we seem to be living in a land where lies are rewarded. There is a president who lied repeatedly and yet he is still in office, and his shares in the oil and arms companies are making him obscene amounts of money. Seems silly to start pointing the finger at three teenage girls, doesn’t it?
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
It’s the principal’s fault? Actually, I thought he told them they could NOT participate in the open microphone night and read the lines in question. How unclear is that? I think a hair just got split.
Yes, we do seem to be living in a land where lies are rewarded. You get an appearance on The Today Show.
Vivian–Mother of Two Children
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
“Besides, what were these girls supposed to do? Tell the principal that they would, in fact, say the word “vagina” and then have the show canceled? […]”
No, they should have fought the principal’s ruling, if they thought it unreasonable, by some more above-board means: getting together a petition, say, or even approaching the media with it. But I think Lynne is right to fault them for lying about their intentions.
April 11th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
if anyone gets offended by something like “vagina” then that really sucks for them, i guess. if they can’t deal with a basic part of humanity’s anatomy and sexuality, then they need to evolve.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:08 am
First off…i am leaving a reply with the belief it will not be read since it seems the momentum of the string of posts has died some time ago.
I am not any of the following:
a
mega-blogger
writer and editor
director
ordained minister
playwright
newspaper reporter
freelance journalist
author
mother
feminist
I am an artist.
I am a human.
Since I have been living in asia for some time…some of my only access to the western world is thru the virtual one. A distorted version at that. Frankly…I am not sure I have the energy to say anything more on the VAGINA.
I teach english to kids who get beat because they’re hair is 1 cm too long.
…
THEY GET BEAT BECAUSE THEY’RE HAIR IS TOO LONG!!!!
…
alot of days….i wish my students had the will and confidence to stand up to their school system and their culture…..and I thank god that in my own country, kidz do. Even if it is over a “word”.
A word.
A hair.
In the end we all go back to the same friggin’ dust. THE END
January 17th, 2008 at 10:23 am
This is a great, trying to be the last poster - 7 months later is reasonably sneaky, I reckon. And I, too, have nothing better to do. So, a would-be Buddhist and two stand-up Christians in one short blogline… only in America. Where’s the Musulman in all of this?
Well, Artists, you’re a singular cove, eh?
LODB - stop shouting ‘Stop!’. If you lie by doing something that you said to someone in power you wouldn’t, then you are going to do some bird when that deed catches up with you. Doesn’t matter how trivial (or if you’re three teenage girls at an expensive American school) - it’s political, so left, right or centre, there are necessary consequences.
Shouting ‘Stop!’ at the deaf is just an amateur marcher’s delusion, putty in the hands of the skilfully mendacious at the tops of their trees. So join the professionals, darling! Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons, qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons! Onwards, to some lies we can call our own!