Win-Sie Tow has spent a good portion of her Northwestern career talking about vaginas. The Communication junior — who was featured in last year’s “Vagina Monologues” and publicized the show her freshman year — has devoted the past month and a half to coordinating the Vagina Carnival, an event returning to campus after a two-year absence.
PLAY: So what exactly is the Vagina Carnival?
Win-Sie Tow: The Vagina Carnival is a supplement to the “Vagina Monologues” show. We’re gonna have a combination of fun, educational and risque tables and booths that are all vagina related.
PLAY: What are some of the fun things you’re planning?
WT: We’re going to have a pin the clit on the vagina blindfold game, like pin the tail on the donkey. There’s also Va-Jeopardy, which has trivia questions about vaginas. And vagina oragami. It’s really cool. You can make a vagina out of a dollar bill. It will hopefully be a different experience. However, the carnival is not just meant to be humorous. It’s an educational and accessible way to learn about and promote vagina awareness.
PLAY: What do you mean by vagina awareness?
WT: There is such a taboo surrounding the word. But the carnival allows people to celebrate female sexuality by providing a forum, a place to talk about vaginas. A huge reason for the carnival is to facilitate discussion.
PLAY: How?
WT: I put up posters in all the major dorms asking people their opinions about the sex trade. We’re hanging their responses around the carnival and juxtaposing them with the responses of the members of the Young Women’s Empowerment Project to the same questions.
PLAY: What is the Young Women’s Empowerment Project?
WT: It’s our charity supporting women in the sex trade. The proceeds benefit this project, where women in sex trade come together in a nonjudgmental atmosphere and have discussions.
PLAY: And how does the Vagina Carnival address the charity?
WT: We’re hanging these posters because we want people to rethink their notions of the sex trade. We can see what some members of NU think and what the actual women in the sex trade think of it. If you go into where we’ll have posters and have an open mind, then you’ll hopefully redefine your preconceptions and get a more humanized and grounded perception of it.
PLAY: What are some of the questions you asked on the posters?
WT: We have questions like “why do girls go into the sex trade?” Or “why do younger girls date older men?” Their answers are so raw and depressing because these women know what they’re talking about because they’ve lived through it.
PLAY: And what were some of their answers as to why they became involved in the sex trade?
WT: Abusive families, lack of education, a way to feel accepted by someone, basic feelings of loneliness and insecurity. A lot of us can relate to them because it’s not like they’re otherworldly feelings. It’s just that these specific women turned to the sex trade to get what they felt they were missing. They don’t have the support or friends that we do. It’s really sad that this has to happen, but we can’t judge them.
PLAY: When will the Vagina Carnival be held?
WT: It will be held an hour and a half before each show. So for the 8 p.m. shows, it wil begin at 6:30 p.m. And for the 2 p.m. matinee, it will begin at 12:30. It’s in the Purdue Room and hallway leading up to McCormick Auditorium. We’re totally man-friendly. You don’t have to have a vagina to come.
