Fredericton — If you’re an Atlantic Canadian man between the ages of 18-24, you’re at a dangerously elevated risk of being dragged by a friend or girlfriend to see The Vagina Monologues, according to a new report commissioned by University of New Brunswick sociology researchers.
“The good news is, if you can make it through your 20s without seeing it, you’re pretty much in the clear,” said Tony Cullin, 31, who headed up the report because The Vagina Monologues attendance rate is something that has impacted him on a deeply personal level. He still has not seen it despite all three of his former girlfriends attempting to lure him into a dark auditorium where it was being put on, but many of his friends have fallen victim to the yearly event.
Alex Anderson, 23, bought tickets to see an upcoming performance with his girlfriend.
“She really wants to go, and it is for a good cause,” he rationalized, “so yeah, we’re gonna go. But I do wish I could just donate the money to the sexual assault centre rather than paying to waste two hours of my life on heavy-handed political theatre. Cut out the middle-man, I say.”
Men whose significant others are actually in the play have only a three percent chance of avoiding it, according to the report.
“Sandra is one of the main actors and she’s been practising her monologue nonstop,” said 21-year-old Oliver LeBlanc. “She even asked me to read the book so I know what’s going on. She gave it to me for Valentine’s Day…geez.
“I told her my grandmother died to get out of it, but she knew I was full of it because both my grandmas are already dead.”
Women aren’t safe from the cringeworthy production either, according to STU grad Laura Chiasson, 24, whose much-older boyfriend took her last year to see The Vagina Monologues as a way of convincing her how open-minded and progressive and committed to women’s issues he was, and thereby increasing his own chances of getting laid.
“I hate plays, no matter what the subject,” she told us, “but when we were dating, James kept getting tickets to all these horrible student productions, and then I’d have to sit through it and endure his ‘witty’ observations about the actors’ performances during and afterward. Needless to say we’re no longer together. I think he’s going out with someone even younger now…someone more naïve about his motives.
“I’m sure she has to go see it this year, poor thing.”