For many women, Valentine’s Day is a day not for wine and roses, but for helping to end sexual violence.

This is just the message advanced in the annual Women’s Coordinating Council’s presentation of “The Vagina Monologues,” a provocative and edgy play by anti-violence activist Eve Ensler.

The play, extracted from Ensler’s equally risqué book, is performed each year at The University of Tennessee on Feb. 13-14 as part of the Ensler’s nationwide campaign, V-Day.

V-Day began in 1998, and it is a global movement that demands an end to violence against women and girls.

“V-Day is an amazing organization that empowers women and helps them,” director Renee Hickman said in her introduction. “[It strives] to end violence locally and globally.”

As part of that initiative, 90 percent of the proceeds from the two nights’ performances will go to the Safe Haven Crisis and Recovery Center Sexual Assault, and the other 10 percent will go to the 2006 V-Day Spotlight: the Global Campaign for Justice to “Comfort Women.”

“Comfort Women” were sexual captives of the Japanese army during World War II. In the early 1990s, the play explained, several of these women broke their silence and began demanding apologies from the Japanese government for the atrocities committed against them during the war. Victims emerged from China, Malaysia, Korea, the Netherlands and virtually all countries in Southeast Asia.

The play told of the rapes, sometimes up to “50 soldiers a day,” and of the women being unable to wear underwear or wash themselves.

Recently, the stories of the so-called “Comfort Women” were removed from Japanese history textbooks. The women, now between the ages of 70 and 90, are pleading for reparations before their stories die with them.

The play itself is a series of monologues, told by nameless characters, concerning their experiences with their vaginas. All monologues are based on the more than 200 interviews Ensler conducted with real women across the globe.

The topics varied from first lesbian experiences to first orgasms, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, living under a burqa in Afghanistan, prostitution, birth and the visit to every woman’s favorite doctor.

A monologue on a vagina workshop told of a woman’s fascination with discovering herself.

“I just wanted to lay on my mat with my legs spread examining my vagina forever,” she said.

“I Was 12. My Mother Slapped Me,” focused on menstruation and told the stories of women’s first experiences with their monthly cycles, and how one woman’s mother “said ‘No tampons.’ You couldn’t put anything in your sugar dish.”

The piece on Afghani women was added after Ensler’s initial publication. The lights were turned off and the entire theatre went completely dark as the entire cast delivered a monologue about women who had no choice but to cover their entire bodies.

“You stopped trying to kill yourself,” they said, “because it would be redundant.”

Perhaps the funniest monologue was “My Angry Vagina,” about all the things that can make vaginas upset.

“Stop shoving things up me!” the performer screamed, later asking of the gynecologist visit, “Why the flashlight all up there like Nancy Drew?”

Videos of UT students answering questions like “What would your vagina say?” were also shown. Some answers included “Find me!” and “You have to be six foot or higher to ride the ride.”

The stories of rape from both a teenager’s and a Bosnian girl’s perspective were both heartwarming and heartwrenching. The audience heard how a soldier raped the latter with rifles, brooms and bottles, and how the former’s father shot her rapist while he was still inside her.

Implementing every possible euphemism for vagina, the play embraces controversy, and its power feeds on both its shock value and its ability to evoke raw emotion from its viewers.

The general consensus among viewers and those involved is that the play is a celebration of women and their sexuality, and it is both empowering and liberating.

“‘The Vagina Monologues’ is performed every year to challenge the notions of acceptable behavior … and to support women and girls in being proud of who and what they are,” Sarah Peacock, chair of the WCC, said.

Hickman said that everyone can take something away from the show.

“I think it is incredibly empowering and speaks to women as they are: Individuals, diverse and unique. There is a moment in the show for everyone. … It is for everyone, not every woman.”

Lauren Houston, senior in theatre, also performed in the play while studying abroad in Wales. She said the play was so powerful that she could not wait to do it again.

“Performing in Wales was an amazing experience. … When I returned to UT, I kept my ear peeled for auditions and went for it.”

She added that she feels “the piece challenges people but at the same time comforts them.

“It is like your mother,” Houston said. “Your mother wants to teach you, touch you so that when you leave you are better prepared for the world. … That is the desire of the show.”

The reactions from the audience were varied. Some cried, some cheered and some sat blushing with dropped jaws, especially during the piece entitled “Reclaiming Cunt.”

“Seeing this play helped me to see the strength and courage inside of each woman, regardless of how she may appear to the public,” Sara Bliss, senior in nutrition pre-pharmacy, said.

For more information on V-Day or how to get involved, visit http://www.vday.org.