John Coopey

HEY THERE VAGINA

Tuesday 6th February 2018 11:11 am

(There are so many posts on the BBC website extolling the virtues of women that I thought I had better add my re-post tribute to femininininity. I can spell it - I just don't know when to stop)

Hey there, Vagina! In my teens I spent my wages

Buying dirty mags with photos of you on those sticky pages,

Some air-brushed

While others were magnificently bushed

On the tush.

Hey there, Vagina! To my mates I lied with laughter

Well enough to win a BAFTA about all the girls I’d shafted;

There was Jean

And Jill and Jacqueline and Josephine

(I was 14).

Oh, what you do to me! The lure of your anatomy!

Oh, what you do to me you’ve done since my puberty

What you do to me.

Hey there, Vagina, you’re so perfumed, pink and pretty

But you need to point out to me that there thing they call a clitty.

God forbid!

I couldn’t point it out for twenty quid

And where it’s hid.

Hey there, Vagina, please forgive my lame excusing

But your geography’s confusing I get lost when I’ve been boozing;

All these bits!

I know their name; the problem for me it’s

Where stuff fits.

Oh it’s what you do to me. Oh it’s what you do to me

Oh it’s what you do to me. (These are just tautologies

From Plain White T’s.)

I’d really like to think I am a liberated, modern man

(I sometimes pick my socks up off the floor)

When Tottenham lost I swear I wept, I know where our Bex Bissell’s kept

It’s just when I’ve been boozing that I snore;

This provenance and history though pales before the mystery

Of those confusing flaps and folds of skin;

Where to begin?

Hey there, Vagina; she knows I love and adore her

With her labia majora and her labia minora

And G-spot

And clitoris which Fatima had not

No longer got.

Hey there, Vagina, all these terms I’ve learned to say ‘em,

Like the vulva, perineum, to the girls before I lay ‘em;

But it’s true

I cannot tell the difference on their flue;

I’ve not a clue.

Oh, what you do to me is all gynaecology

Oh, it’s all just Greek to me, this gynaecology

This gynecology.

◄ JUST ONE TOUCH

THE GODS OF COMEDY ►

Comments

John Coopey

Thu 8th Feb 2018 17:36

Thanks, Marc.

Marc Hawkins

Thu 8th Feb 2018 17:30

TYPE III
Colonial history will still dictate how the men around here
Practice love through hate
For aesthetic purposes; an ethnic marker
Gender controlled by husband...son...father
Against my will.

I can let nature take its course, the uneasiness in how I pass
Bears nothing to your immoral force with which you open me up
Your gateway to a selfish pleasure
And I once believed that being loved
Was close to being treasured
I am as trapped as a bird in a cage
Modified and made ugly by your commission
Disfigured by tradition and religion and holy wars
And chained by the fear that renders me yours
Against my will

My sisterhood grows, from northeast Africa
To the sub-Sahara
Young and joyless and bound by doctrines
No pursuit of happiness. No pleasure to come
No great expectations. Nothing foretold
Nothing that has been or gone
Objects more of control than desire
My eyes that once shone with innocent love
Now burn with hate fuelled fire…and all because...
You denied me a fall from grace, you denied me self discovery
No different to putting scars on my face
Or is that too much a public recovery?
You denied me womanhood. You denied me choice
I censor my thoughts and silence my voice
And I think of our mothers and their mothers
And of the honour and pride they felt
When this exact same fate to them was dealt
And why did they not feel humiliated? Abused?
Mutilated? Used?
Maybe when we live in a world without light
We relinquish our strengths and fall prey to our plights
Enlightenment and knowledge, I was lead to believe,
Are the roads to freedom
Our mothers learned nothing other than to serve and to please
And here am I, enlightened but sedated
Imprisoned, captive, segregated
Dysmorphic now, a victim still
And all of this against my will

M.C. Newberry

Wed 7th Feb 2018 19:01

JC - I note your point about "enforced circumcision in infants" having religious causes but it is not equitable
with the effects of FGM in my view - for reasons previously shown.
But now I must get my supper and close my own contributions to this particular blog and the cause of
free speech (e.g. aka the right to give offence).
Please accept my nomination for the "Mel Brooks Award"
for bad taste. Oh vey!

John Coopey

Wed 7th Feb 2018 17:42

I have to go now, Laura. I've looked out the window and there's life outside. I'm going to join them.

Laura Taylor

Wed 7th Feb 2018 15:24

Nope. I've definitely not misunderstood you.

John Coopey

Wed 7th Feb 2018 14:41

Thanks,each.
I'm not sure enforced circumcision of infants in some religions meets with your model,MC.
Laura. I think you have misunderstood my thread.I am not presuming to tell you what to think. I am telling you what I think which, I am sure you will agree, is within my ownership.

M.C. Newberry

Wed 7th Feb 2018 13:37

To associate male circumcision with FGM is not wholly appropriate.
The former is a process in medicine intended to avoid the
possibility of infection and related difficulties and as a
non-Jewish circumcised male this was an operation that
was completed when I was an infant. I have never had
any cause to concern myself about any lack of choice
that might now be argued over in these more aware but
often less informed times.
Satire - use of irony, sarcasm, humour to expose folly etc
- surely including the act under discussion since it is
sanctioned by a certain social,religious and sexual section
of human society as somehow acceptable whilst minus any medical
justification in any shape or form.
Not to mention its occurrence is hardly contributing to
ensuring its continued presence in the public consciousness and the likelihood of any change for the
better.
That said, I'll reiterate my belief that the freedom to
give offence should never be subjugated into silent servitude by the fear of giving offence.

Laura Taylor

Wed 7th Feb 2018 11:41

None of which even come close to the savagery inflicted by FGM, with the exception of male circumcision, and even that does not come close to the huge volume of devastating effects.

I don’t often comment on your output, but this is something that most decent compassionate human beings find utterly abhorrent, and you have surprised me with the vehemence of your continued defence of it. Speaks volumes.

As for “What happens if you’re offended? Nothing. Nothing happens”, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, UNICEF, and many other organisations’ campaigns and legislation against FGM stand as clear evidence of what exactly can and does happen.

John Coopey

Wed 7th Feb 2018 10:55

Laura, I've parodied prostate cancer and circumcision. I've parodied Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn and Diane Abbott. I've parodied Theresa May, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. I've parodied men and I've parodied women, mysoginists and mysandrists. I've parodied Remainers and Brexiters. I've parodied national treasures and cause celebres. If there's an issue close to your heart I haven't yet parodied, it's because I will. If you're offended, be offended. You won't break out in buboils.

Laura Taylor

Wed 7th Feb 2018 09:47

“laboured”, John? It’s not exactly Paradise Lost now, is it?

It’s nothing like your analogy. It is precisely to do with making a joke about the horrific and terrifying mutilation of young girls that ruins the lives of countless women, and leads to infection and death in many cases, as well as denying them any sexual pleasure they might have been able to experience in later life.

Are you scared of losing face? The fact you are defending it as simply ‘poor taste’ and deflecting responsibility for it onto others – well, that’s the only conclusion I can draw.

MCN – this is not satire. Don’t be ridiculous.

John Coopey

Wed 7th Feb 2018 09:22

You’re right, el P. Or is it the timeless attraction of a vagina? (You’ll note even my fiercest critic “laboured” to the last verse before finding something with which to take issue - rather like complaining about the cake on the last mouthful).

elPintor

Wed 7th Feb 2018 01:46

A real testament to, "bad press is better than no press at all."

Rachel

John Coopey

Tue 6th Feb 2018 23:07

You are quite right, Ray. The line is in very poor taste, as is the rest of the poem. Of course, I never signed up to be tasteful.
And as Steve Hughes asks “What happens if you’re offended? Nothing. Nothing happens”.

raypool

Tue 6th Feb 2018 21:21

What we need is a "dislike" facility so as not to ruffle too many feathers without incurring the inevitable flak . There is humour but also bad taste may I say John. I've always found a complete lack of romance inherent in the revelation of reproductive organs.

Ray (with respect).

John Coopey

Tue 6th Feb 2018 18:01

Anyone else?

M.C. Newberry

Tue 6th Feb 2018 17:22

Laura/David
Except that men didn't adopt outrage and anger towards
women in general or even in particular for this overtly
sexist act of harm...and all the others that have been
inflicted upon men by women down the years. I blame
Delilah for this!! ?
The procedure you specify in JC's poem is an import
previously unknown in western societies and in my own
view should be prosecuted as "bodily harm" under UK
criminal law, especially if inflicted on those not able (in
law...by age) to agree with what is done to them.
But the fact it exists doesn't remove it from a satirical
swipe from whatever source. Irreverence of the "ouch"
variety is hardly an unknown characteristic in our
national character and long may it be so.

Laura Taylor

Tue 6th Feb 2018 16:50

Yes because that's exactly the same thing isn't it?

M.C. Newberry

Tue 6th Feb 2018 16:44

I seem to recall that when a certain Ms Bobbit decided to
remove her male companion's penis with a knife over in the Land of the Free - men managed to find a jest in
there somewhere. Ergo - the difference between the
sexes' attitude to such things. The freedom to give
offence is not to be driven into silent servitude by the fear
of giving offence.

Laura Taylor

Tue 6th Feb 2018 16:29

I'm disgusted that you would even think to joke about FGM. It completely overshadows any other humour in there.

Your timing is shit, too

http://www.un.org/en/events/femalegenitalmutilationday/

M.C. Newberry

Tue 6th Feb 2018 16:25

A hole in one - one might say!
Your range of inspiration defies the imagination. But your
posts are never less than entertaining (that rare and
increasingly absent term for poetry) and always cleverly
constructed.

John Coopey

Tue 6th Feb 2018 16:17

Indeed Laura. The whole poem is a joke.
So what did you think of the poem?
The tight rhyming structure given the shortness of the lines; the close shadowing of the original; the effectiveness or otherwise of the enjambment in "The problem for me it's/ where stuff fits": the weakness of the 2nd chorus? Can a poem have merit if its contents are offensive? Multum in parvo.
I am intrigued as to what you think.

Laura Taylor

Tue 6th Feb 2018 15:13

Do you not want to answer my question?

John Coopey

Tue 6th Feb 2018 14:12

What did you think of the poem, Laura?

Laura Taylor

Tue 6th Feb 2018 12:45

Are you actually making a joke about female genital mutilation with this, John? Really?

"And clitoris which Fatima had not
No longer got."

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