I admit it. I was skeptical about The Vagina Monologues. The premise is promising-author Eve Ensler interviews over 200 women of all backgrounds about their vaginas, writing a series of monologues inspired by their stories-with the goal of removing that last taboo of openly discussing and even celebrating women's sexuality. However, I was still wary. Why? When I was trying to research the play, I came across an interview Ensler did with Women.com. When she was asked "Do you think all women's power is rooted in their sexuality?" Ensler responded, "Absolutely." She went on to say "Look, I'm not anti-intellectual. I'm not saying women don't need to think. But I am saying that you can think all you want to and have all the great ideas and theories, but nothing changes. I completely lived in my head for years and years and nothing changed. It was only when I began to live in my vagina that the world really changed." I wondered how such a reductive assumption of the power of women could hold up in an actual production. I still find these answers troubling, but after seeing the play, I think I better understand Ensler's intentions and what she meant about living in her vagina. There are some missteps. For instance, the "Wear and Say" piece for which she asked women what their vaginas would wear and what they would say was just insipid. The play was at its best when each individual monologue, performed by one or various performers, really breathed life into the text, enriching the dialogue so it could be experienced on a visceral and emotional level. The setting for this was ideal: simple costumes, a black stage and two screens on either side of the performers for close-ups of their faces.

Indeed, in the first half of the play, two pieces were particularly poignant. Shira Rubenstein's '13 performance of "The Flood" was subtle, understated and moving. She took on the voice of an elderly woman afraid for many years to explore her own sexuality after she was scarred by a profoundly embarrassing experience with her vagina in her teen years. The piece emphasized how much the emotion of shame has been tied to female sexuality in the past-not to say it isn't now, but part of the emotional impact of the piece came from the realization of how much the woman had missed over the years by relegating her vagina to the shut-out, secret cellar of her personhood. On a more uplifting note, Ashley Lynette's '13 performance of "Because He Liked to Look at It" offered an epiphany never given to the first woman. In this piece, perhaps the only one that depicted men in a positive light, a woman was finally able to accept her own vagina as beautiful after seeing her male lover do so. Both monologues dealt with the importance of sexual acceptance and self-acceptance of women.

However, Ensler is not content to make sure that affluent, neurotic women are okay with their bodies. She wants you to know that sexual violence is being committed against women around the world, that it is a serious matter and that horrific crimes occur. She attempts to transmit these facts to you through two pieces titled "My Vagina Was My Village" and "The Memory of Her Face." The first related the stories of Bosnian refugees who were brutally raped in war camps. Two performers on opposite sides of the stage, one representing the pre-war woman in a state of virginal innocence and the other representing that same woman after intense physical and sexual abuse by enemy soldiers, were drawn closer and closer together as the narrative pulled forward. The twin halves of her life finally collapsed in on each other as the two actresses embraced. This piece was bluntly powerful but painful to watch. I continued to be disturbed and confused by the following piece, "The Memory of Her Face," which related the stories of three women from Pakistan, Iraq and Mexico, all of whom were abused in harrowing manners: one disfigured by acid thrown on her face, one injured by enemy bombs, another raped and eventually mutilated by unnamed soldiers. I was confused by the switching among the three narrators, and I didn't understand why these events were occurring or what exactly was going on, except that terrible things were happening to these women. Instead of being told a story, the audience was emotionally pummeled by bits and pieces of tragedy with very little context.

I finally realized why I didn't find these two pieces as powerful as I should have when "Spotlight Monologue," a new monologue titled "A Teenage Girl's Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery," was performed. The piece related rules a young teenager from the Democratic Republic of Congo had built for herself in order to psychologically survive living as a sex slave. The writing was sharp and spot-on, capturing the teenage girl's carefree innocence then ripping it away to expose the survivor's soul beneath. But it also told you why it was happening-it told a coherent narrative that had a clear protagonist and provided a more complex perspective of the situation, offering the context that was absent in previous pieces.

The piece was wholly moving, coherent, eloquent and empowering. I finally understood what Ensler meant about not just living in her head but living in her vagina-she wanted women to reclaim their bodies, and she wanted to make it clear that vaginas, sexuality, femininity and agency were all inextricably tied. Okay, so the line "No one can take anything from you if you do not give it to them" is a bit of a rip-off of Eleanor Roosevelt's "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent," but the message is consistently powerful. It still works. And it certainly made me feel like I owned my body in a way I hadn't before.

Perhaps the other most memorable piece, and certainly the one best-received by the audience, was "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy," the story of an ex-lawyer turned dominatrix sex worker, as performed by Desiree Murphy '10. Murphy's interpretation of the character, in addition to her considerable personal charisma and ease, simply commanded the audience to sit up, pay attention and laugh really hard. The monologue required the actress to engage in extensive verbal, aural and physical comedy where one off note could tip the tone from outrageously hilarious to embarrassingly awkward. She managed this with aplomb.

Before dispensing with the rest of the praise, I must mention a certain section of "The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" that for me, lived up to its controversial reputation. In the narrative, a 16-year-old girl (13 in the original Monologues), is seduced by an older woman who introduces her to sex. She tells us it's a positive experience, a salvation. But imagine if the gender of that older woman had been changed: 24-year-old man plies 16-year-old girl with alcohol and introduces her to the joy of sex-how does that sound? Like statutory rape. The fact that the 24-year-old woman is excessively attractive and that it is homosexual sex, not heterosexual sex, does not make a difference. There is nothing inherently more virtuous in a homosexual relationship between women. I found the performance -played with giddy abandon and youthful laughter by Karen Lowe '10-creepy, and not at all the kind of love story its inspiration (two women meet at a homeless shelter, fall in love, leave shelter) seemed to intend.

But that's an aside-despite the pieces I found less successful, some of the monologues were so good they made the entire production worthwhile. Overall, The Vagina Monlogues overcame my initially skeptical perspective to imbue me with a definitive sense of empowerment, not exclusive to an additionally sober outlook on the seriousness and prevalence of violence against women. The Monologues have come a long way since they were written and first performed in 1996. They are lurid, dramatic, entertaining and moving. And they are still emotionally excruciating. But that's how you know they matter.

Editor's note: Associate Editor Shana Lebowitz '10 was Head Coordinator of The Vagina Monologues.