UCSB’s allegedly liberal-minded student body could use a good, hard kick to the cunt, and three professional Vagina Monologists have arrived with their boots on.

A theater phenomenon turned worldwide activist rallying post, “The Vagina Monologues” – playing at Campbell Hall through Sunday – is two hours of cunt empowerment and education doubling as hilarious and poignant entertainment. Nationally touring actresses Amy J. Carle and Michele Shay join celebrity actress Maria Conchita Alonso to embrace a spectrum of vaginal sentiment using spoken word vignettes that confront everything from the shame of getting wet to the type of clothing one’s vagina would prefer.

Playwright Eve Ensler’s collection of stories based on personal interviews dealing with all things vagina was a smash hit when it opened off-Broadway in 1999 and catalyzed the creation of V-Day, which has raised over $7 million to stop violence against women and girls. For the last two years UCSB students performed the “Monologues” as part of V-Day and though this performance will be the first to use professionally touring monologists, funds continue to go the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center and national/worldwide female safety causes.

Staging for the “Monologues” is simple, featuring few props and relying on the strength of the narratives presented by the three diverse actresses. Ensler’s vignettes stare the subjects of rape, incest and female abuse square in the face, yet do not narrow the field of vision to a mere activist’s platform. Much of the show deals with women’s own experiences – or lack thereof – with their culturally neglected nether-regions, and lighter vignettes include a vocalization of the different female orgasms, as well as a list of the various smells associated with the ubiquitous poontang.

Shay said in a reception at the Women’s Center Wednesday that there is always a question of how such risqu