Add "vagina" to the list of words you can't say if you're a high school student.

At least that is the way officials at a public high school in Cross River, New York feel.

Three 16-year-old girls said the word "vagina" during a reading from the play The Vagina Monologues.

John Jay High School Principal Richard Leprine said the girls were punished because they disobeyed orders not to say the word "vagina," the AP reported.

Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, made a public statement saying the girls were right for "standing up for art and against censorship." Ensler called the school's position "a throwback to the Dark Ages."

Ensler also said she called the girls to show her support.

Honor students Megan Reback, Elan Stahl and Hannah Levinson, included the word because, as Levinson said, "we knew it was the right thing to do. Since we're comfortable saying it, we should make other people comfortable saying it."

Last Friday the girls read from the play at an event sponsored by night, among various readings at an non-school event sponsored by a literary magazine. The girls will all serve one-day, in-school suspensions Wednesday.

UPDATE, Tuesday, March 13: CNN has reported that Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, has accepted an invitation to speak at the school's theater, just before an upcoming Board meeting. The girls' suspensions are still on hold.

UPDATE, Wed., March 14: According to one of the girls, all three girls received letters from the school administration lifting the suspensions, the AP reported.

Art | Vagina | The Vagina Monologues | Sacred Fems | SacredFems.com

Labels: Elan Stahl, Eve Ensler, Hannah Levinson, Megan Reback, The Vagina Monologues, Vagina