New Orleans
Each of us had his own reason for coming to the Superdome on April 11-12. Renamed "Super Love," the stadium that became a national symbol for violence and neglect during Katrina was now hosting the 10-year anniversary extravaganza of V-Day, the annual vagina-themed observance to end abuse against women, the capstone of which features Eve Ensler's ubiquitous play, The Vagina Monologues.

Some of us probably came after we heard the ruckus that resulted when Monologues regular Jane Fonda dropped the c-bomb while publicizing the event on the Today Show. -Others might have been drawn by Mayor Ray Nagin, ever game to embarrass his city, who welcomed Ensler and company by christening himself a "vagina-friendly mayor. I am in!" Still others just wanted to see Oprah, even if Oprah ended up bagging the event, leaving attendees settling for Oprah's best friend, Gayle.

But if there's one reason we all came, it was to celebrate our vaginas. Not me, necessarily. I don't have one, strictly speaking. But I know a lot of people who do. And I came to celebrate theirs.

While The Vagina Monologues and all its attendant hoopla is nominally about eradicating violence against women (a worthy cause, even if there's not a lot of pushback from interest groups espousing violence against women), its stated macropurpose is to reclaim the word "vagina." From whom is anyone's guess. The cult of The Vagina Monologues congratulates itself for erasing taboos, though anybody who's watched television in the last 15 years might fairly assume that