Yes, dear

"The Vagina Monologues" continues to cause problems despite having been around for so long. The Unite States Bishops Committee on Doctrine moved a seminar from Notre Dame in protest of performances of the play on campus:

Bishop John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend issued a statement describing the action as a direct response to the planned Monologues performance at Notre Dame on March 26-28. In previous years, D'Arcy publicly stated the play is "offensive to women" and "antithetical to Catholic teaching."

And yesterday morning, NBC apologized after Jane Fonda, on the "Today" show to talk about her appearance  in the play on its 10th anniversary, uttered the C-word. That's right up there with the F-word as a broadcast no-no and right up there with the N-word in vulgar disrespect.

I accompanied a friend to see the play when it came to Fort Wayne a few years ago because she wanted to see it and, naturally, had to drag a man along -- that's the whole point, you see, to drag a man along as a polite way to browbeat him over women being oppressed and all. With all due respect to Bishop D'Arcy, the play is meant to be offensive to men, not women. The play is usually described as "frank in its talk about sexuality." The whole thing seemed pretty juvenile to me -- raising awareness of women's sexuality by talking dirty. Tackling serious social issues by being fixated on body parts.

But I should be careful. I swear, every prominent woman in Fort Wayne went to see that play -- I mean, Democrats and Republicans, all up and down the social strata -- and they all laughed uproariously in all the right places. All the men looked approrpriately uncomfortable. "Yes, dear, we've been beasts. So sorry."