Real Women, Real Sex, Real Awesome

Still riding high from the excitement of seeing Sebastian Junger, I went to East 92nd Street the following night after a tutoring appointment to see a panel called "Real Women Talk About Real Sex." Though the topic sounded, obviously, titillating on at least some levels, the real draw for me was not the discussion itself but the fact that my revered Eve Ensler would be speaking. Eve Ensler!

Eve Ensler is most famous for writing The Vagina Monologues, a play comprised of a series of (duh) monologues in which women talk in a startlingly frank way about, well, you can probably imagine. Ensler did hundreds of interviews with all kinds of women, and although the monologues are mostly fictional, they are very much inspired by what she learned along the way. Of course, what's so fascinating about the play is that it's not really about vaginas but about the experience of being a woman. Some of the monologues are hysterically funny, some are heartbreaking, and some are so true you wonder whether she's been watching you with a cleverly hidden surveillance camera. It was terribly scandalous when it was first performed, but now it's been translated into something like 48 languages and is performed in hundreds of countries. Pretty incredible stuff. I first saw it at Vanderbilt, where it was performed every year on Valentine's Day. Ensler has since become a huge proponent of women's rights, starting foundations and raising money to help disadvantaged women around the world have more opportunities. Not only did I both read and see The Vagina Monologues, I've listened to several interviews with Ensler, read her newest play I am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Lives of Girls, and listened to an audiobook of her play The Good Body, in which she travels around the world and interviews women about body image. I couldn't believe we were about to be in the same room!

 The 92nd Street Y has a beautiful theater, and it was filled, to my surprise, with an older crowd. The average age in the room was probably 60, and that was after accounting for the quarter or so of the audience that was around my age. Everyone else was white-haired and did not look like the sort of people an event like this would draw. Perusing the program before the panel began, I checked out the other kinds of events hosted by the Y and got my answer: lots of bird watching and museum expeditions and Singles Nights for ages 45 and up.

At last, a woman came to the podium and introduced the speakers. The panel would be moderated by Erika Jong, author of lots of books I'd never heard of. Also on the panel was her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, author of The Social Climber's Handbook which is about a serial killer attempting to maintain her high class position by bumping off the opposition (or something). Ensler, as I may have already mentioned, would also be there, as well as two other women: Dominique Merkin, frequent contributor to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and every other prestigious publication you've ever heard of, and Ann Roiphe, who managed to write 19 books without my ever knowing she existed.

Ensler sported a short, spiky haircut and a busily-patterned, brightly-colored top. She was wearing wild African-style jewelry which included a silver necklace with lots of little beads that tinkled like a wind chime every time she made a vehement point, which was a lot. I thought the topic and the commentary about it was interesting, but it seemed odd to me that they didn't have a younger, single woman present to represent her viewpoint. Ensler has an adult son but has eschewed marriage, and everyone else was very much pro-marriage (so much so that some of them did it several times!) and seemed set on the idea of a nuclear family. Jong-Fast, the youngest panel member, was pretty traditional in her views, fitting in more with the older women than with most of my peers. She seemed to think she was quite funny although no one else did. She and her mother were, in my opinion, the weakest members of the panel. Roiphe made some fascinating comparisons between 2011 and women's situation when she was growing up in the early '50s. At one point she turned to Ensler and exclaimed, "You're a miracle! That someone like you could even exist, someone who shapes her own sexuality and life, was totally inconceivable when I was a teenager." A woman next to me murmured, "Isn't that the truth."

It seems safe to say that no conclusions were reached. Merkin summed it up nicely by quoting the end of her own piece which ran in the Times recently: "What do women want? Try asking them one by one." Still, interesting points were made about how patriarchy is restrictive to both women and to men and how sometimes what is best for the mental health of an individual may not be best for the welfare of society. Ensler said that she has long wrestled with how to honor one's self and still exist productively in society at the same time. And Jong chirped up that she will know women have finished evolving when they wear comfortable shoes.

"Beth - To your emotional creature!"

As with the Junger reading, I had my copy of I am an Emotional Creature along, just in case there was a book signing. I was actually first in line but had to wait a while for the panelists to come to the table. Ensler beamed at me and thanked me when I told her how much I'd enjoyed her books, and that, having worked in both a high school and a middle school, I am an Emotional Creature really rang true to me. I tripped giddily into the night, signed book clutched in one hand, and waited at the bus stop with several clusters of women chattering excitedly about their views on the issues raised by the panel. I didn't talk to them, but it somehow felt like a bonding experience anyway.

Anne Roiphe, my neighbor

The next morning, I was about to descend the subway stairs to head to work when, to my surprise, I saw someone who looked just like Ann Roiphe walking out of Gristedes supermarket. I hesitated a second, then threw caution to the wind and tapped her on the shoulder. She confirmed that she had indeed been part of last night's panel, thanked me for coming, and said she was glad I enjoyed it. Encounters like this make me wonder just how many interesting, influential people I pass each day without knowing it. If I hadn't happened to attend the panel discussion just the night before, I'd have walked right by her without a second glance. New York is full of very visible celebrities, but it's the ones who aren't so visible that fascinate me.