"It's funny, you know, you spend nine months trying to get out and the rest of your life trying to get back in."  ("Look Who's Talking")

What should we men have gained from The Vagina Monologues? After all, we don't have vaginas, how can we relate? More importantly, do we have grounds for encouraging other men to go to next year's performance?

As human beings, each of us is born of a woman; we owe our lives to the vagina. Each of us depends on women as mothers, sisters, friends and lovers. To deny the importance of their experience would be to deny our own humanity.

Conversely, we cannot deny the roles we play, both positively and negatively, in the lives and experiences of women. The Vagina Monologues presented these experiences, ranging from the uplifting to the traumatic. Men were presented on the whole spectrum-from perpetrator to loving companion. These stories not only gave insight into the experiences of women but also a more complete insight into our own experiences as men. So whether here at Amherst, another school or even Madison Square Garden, we encourage all men to attend the Monologues next year.

Each of us here is, or has the potential to be, a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a confidant, a lover. Let us aspire to bear another title-ally.

Thank you for your support.

Brian Carty '02<br>W. Peter Beardsley '01<br>Kyle Legleiter '04<br>Michael Pages '01<br>Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect