Three Des Moines women journeyed to Ames Thursday night in search of open discussion of women’s issues. What they found were nicknames for the vagina such as twat, cooter, wee-wee and nappy dug-out, stories of first periods, and discussions of serious topics such as rape and genital mutilation.CJ Matthews and Lorri Nelson, teachers at the Walnut Creek campus of West Des Moines Community School, and Deanna Overton, nurse at a Des Moines Planned Parenthood, were three of the 700 people that crowded the Memorial Union to see “The Vagina Monologues.””You know, vagina is still considered kind of a dirty word,” Nelson said.All three have read some or all of the book and were interested in the issues because they work with women, know women and are women.The program began with eight women taking the stage, all dressed in black and seated at stools with microphones in front of them. The crowd quickly became comfortable with the topic of vaginas by saying the word, both rapidly and loudly. The monologues are taken from over 200 interviews done by Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues.”Ensler interviewed a variety of women, ranging from a six-year-old girl to women in their 70’s, including a variety of races and professions — even European sex workers.During the performance, one of the actresses would state a question Ensler asked during her interviews, and the other women would recite some of the interviewees’ answers.The crowd let their laughter flow at times and shook their head with disgust at others, responding to the sad stories of misunderstanding and mistreatment.One monologue told the story of a 72-year-old woman who had never had an orgasm. After some encouragement from her therapist, she went home, “lit some candles, put on some jazzy music and got down with herself.” Fern Kupfer, associate professor of English, played a woman who learned about her own “unique, beautiful, fabulous vagina” at a vagina workshop.Her character tells how she first thought of her vagina as a “random anatomical vacuum” and compared searching for it to early astronomers looking at a night sky.The workshop encouraged women to discover their sexuality and led this women to “vaginal splendor” that was “better than the Grand Canyon.”.”The clitoris is perfect,” said Abby Hansen, junior in liberal studies, during her performance in “Monologues.” “It is the only organ in the body created purely for pleasure.” She went on to say the vagina has twice the number of nerve endings as a penis, which riled the crowd into laughter, yells and applause.The actresses also talked about menstruation. Some girls had joyous stories of acceptance and understanding, while others were led astray by false beliefs. “I associated my period with inexplicable phenomenon,” one of the actresses said.The audience went from laughs during a monologue about pelvic exams to holding their hands over their mouths and shaking their heads during a monologue about rape and abuse. One character, a Bosnian woman, talks about six men sexually abusing her with glass bottles and a gun. Another told about having a piece of her vagina fall off in her hand after being cut with glass during a genital mutilation ceremony.The eight actresses then introduced the audience to the word “cunt” by saying it, chanting it, and giving a loud birth to it on stage.”Cunt” wasn’t the only thing being shouted on stage — Sine Anahita, graduate assistant in sociology, performed her monologue describing various types of moans.Anahita performed the clit moan, vaginal moan, combo moan, right-on-it moan, semi-religious moan, mountain-top moan, birthday moan, twisted-toe moan, and the grandiose triple-orgasm moan which left her exhausted, slouching in her chair while members of the audience bent over laughing.A description of child birth again changed the tone of the room. The monologue was told in such a way that the audience was again dead silent — they had been transferred to the room of the birth. The program ended dramatically with the lights suddenly taken away and the audience left in darkness with the emotion of the program. Before the lights lifted the crowd was already rising to their feet in applause.”The women were incredible,” Nelson said. “It made me want to know all of them.”The women from Des Moines described the production as liberating because it helped them speak more freely about their womanhood and other issues the monologues covered.”There is something really freeing about hearing the stories,” Matthews said.