When Vagina met Viagra

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ballukhan:

Just to set the record straight, just in case you are not aware: Salim`s posts here have not been removed because of what he has said here. He violated no guidelines on this board, neither did I ask the Chowk editors to delete his responses or anyone else`s in the past. I have never felt the need to do so and can deal with people in a manner I deem fit, which may not go well with a certain feministic `ideal`. But that`s another matter...

PS:Do write to me at farzanavee@chowk.com

#47 by salim on December 19, 2004 10:00am PT

No more prizes for guessing what this small peckered tall boy called Salim Chauhan is going to do in his next nick...

Farzana

I finally read this piece of yours. No doubt you’re the best writer at Chowk.

However, as I said before, I cannot relate to any of this. I cannot defend Viagra or put Vagina down. I’m Viagra and know that without Vagina I’m incomplete. Vagina completes me. For me, the question of which is ``better`` or ``superior`` never arises and this debate is as useless and dead as the debate about the existense of God.

As to the Mars/Venus debate, yes, we’re very different. Our modes of thinking, feeling and instinct are planets apart. The nature did that on purpose, otherwise the monotony would’ve killed both of us long ago.

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salim:

Well, thank you for your appreciation and your heartwrenching admission of the possibility of your insecurities coming to the fore. We all have them, and those who deny it suffer from them the most.

If by being from Venus, you are granting that I am in fact a woman (!!), then yes...a small aspect of my feminism is that I would not permit anyone to say, ``She fights like a man``.

This brings me to a small grouse I have with your post.

[Believe me, as a semi gynecologist (I happen to be a professional in almost the same category); all vaginas are not the same. If they were, the adult entertainment industry would be in dire straits. How many people, except some Indians hooked on redundancy and the die-hard Humphrey Bogart fanatics, watch the same movie over and over again? Varieties of shapes, sizes, and protrusions save us from the ultimate insult - ``Seen one, seen `em all.``]

What I was conveying when I said that not all vaginas are not the same was that I object to a stratification based on body parts. You, on the other hand, are seeing it in terms of variety and redundancy. I would most certainly not see vaginas for their ``adult entertainment industry`` potential, which even pathbreaking plays like `VM dialogues` do become.

I do not hold a mandatory position on promiscuity -- male or female -- but I would not dignify it with a ``seen one, seen `em all``. I would like to believe that people are the sum of their parts.

I am glad you found this to be an ``entertaining dialogue``.

Reminds of another one I had quoted a long while ago...

A young lad went to Confession and told the priest about the lustful thoughts that had been assailing his mind of late.

The padre, in a soothing voice, asked, ``But son, did you entertain them?``

``No,`` said the boy, ``they entertained me.``

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Just read this ur ilog-nice jot. I think they were rite about Chennai tho. Let it flow....

thums up on the i-log

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nargileh:

[(By the way, the rating for my i-log just went down overnight after I commented favorably for your article (really I didn`t even post a new journal or anything) :) Now we both have 3 stars! Yes! Equality is good. But it also signals what happens to Chowkies after they start supporting those g-golly fem-uh-nists. Oops.) ]

I may not be bothered at all about such things, but all the same...it is such a pity that this happened, but why am I not surprised? I liked the fem-uh-nists bit for reasons that should seem obvious :)

More some other time.

Farzana said:
``I think people are rating their peers (and since there is a wide chasm between my mental and chronological ages, I have no peers…)``

I know what that`s like--having that ``chasm`` and not really having peers.


(By the way, the rating for my i-log just went down overnight after I commented favorably for your article (really I didn`t even post a new journal or anything) :) Now we both have 3 stars! Yes! Equality is good. But it also signals what happens to Chowkies after they start supporting those g-golly fem-uh-nists. Oops.)

Question: Do you write for any other publication other than Chowk? I`d love to see more of your writings. But if you`d like, you can just email me at barzamuslim@yahoo.com. instead of interacting here.

Aahh, Farzana. No, I`m not ``touchy`` about this. I don`t normally read ilogs `cause I can tell from the name what I`m about to read. So I skip them. But I did catch yours. I was amused by it. Figured, right or wrong, where you werer coming from. I did see it as a cheap shot, though, as someone desparate for attentioin. But then again, what do I know...just a pompous little interactor among the intellectual giants.

ps: I haven`t read this piece. You thinK I should?

Eh.

The ilog piece was somewhat on the money. Farzana, you may be profess to be blase about The Vagina Monologues, but I`m beg. to suspect you are no Third Wave Feminist. Even those who were not over the moon about the Vagina Monologues did give it credit for trying to contribute to a dialogue. The people who insist there is no need for a dialogue tend to be conservative men and well, you, FV.

I had an interesting discussion about Lucille Clifton`s poems ``Poem to My Uterus`` ``Menstruation`` ``Wishes for Sons`` and a couple of others. This group of first year student women moaned and groaned about the visitations of the ``Curse``, werent even interested in what Clifton is trying to achieve in these poems about the female body. It took two students: Filipina-American and Puerto Rican Jewish American women to point out how our learned health care industry has pathologized the natural functions of a woman`s body. So even while Clifton is challenging some very old gender stereotypes of what femininity is after hysterectomies, the paternal gyny, the period as a hassle, there are apparently young women who would rather buy into the silence and suffering than the beauty of their own bodies.

I also asked my class to think about what it means for a respected African American elderly woman poet to write about the female body. And Ms. Clifton is nobody`s fool. Perhaps even ``we`` could learn something from her. Well, those willing to listen, anyway.

godot:

NO, I do not expect you to read this...re. penis and vagina being done to death, though, well...lots of things have been spoken about several times in different ways. This is my choice here, so let`s skip any arguments over this.

The ilog was written in jest and so was the post addressed to you here. I did not imagine for a moment that you of all people would get touchy about it.

Peace...

Farzana

Do I really need to read this piece? Penis and vagina have been beaten to death for my taste. Can you come up with something new?