I tried to hand the book to Mary Kate, but she crossed her arms and refused to touch it. So I passed it to Sarah (or Sophia?) instead.

‘The Vagina Monologues is a totally ground-breaking play,’ I explained. ‘Eve Ensler wrote it in the nineties. All the monologues are these stories about girls, and women, and sex, and giving birth told from the point of view of their actual vaginas. Eve Ensler gave voices to vaginas, so women would finally be heard.’

Robbie Schmidt was blushing bright red. Mary Kate was still glaring daggers at me.

‘I know The Vagina Monologues,’ said Claudia loftily. She was examining her eyebrows with her phone on selfie mode. ‘But I don’t think the idea is very modern. I mean, wasn’t The Vagina Monologues on HBO, like, ten years ago?’

Claudia is not my favorite person on campus. Mary Kate hates her because she uses pretentious words like meta and problematic in their advanced English class. I hate her because she grew up in New York, and is therefore my main rival for coastal coolness on our Midwestern campus.

‘We live in rural Minnesota, Claudia. We’re always behind on pop culture,’ I snapped.

Until now, I’d been standing at the head of the table. With everyone’s eyes still on me, I sat down and leaned towards the other club members.

‘Last night,’ I told them, ‘I was ridiculed by a bunch of hockey players for buying TAMPONS. A necessary feminine hygiene product. And, even worse, they thought the word vagina was a punchline. Seriously, it’s time to grow up! We need to start talking about this stuff. We need to open up a dialogue about sexual health and taking ownership of our bodies.’

Robbie Schmidt looked like he was about to Schmidt his pants in terror, which told me I was really on to something.

‘What does everyone think?’ I asked. ‘Sarah? Sophia?’

The two girls were still paging through my pink paperback copy of the play. They had tried to pass it to Robbie Schmidt, but he had juggled it like a hot potato and given it back to them.

‘Um …’ S1 began, while her friend looked at her. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t read the whole thing obviously, but it just seems like they use … that word … a lot.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Uh … vagina?’

‘It’s on, like, every page,’ S2 said.

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘So?’

‘It’s just kind of … intense,’ S1 explained. ‘It’s really intense to actually, like, say it that much.’

‘Maybe we could do the play, like, without the word?’ S2 suggested.

‘Do The Vagina Monologues and not say vagina?’ I said.

Around the table, there were a few thoughtful nods and murmurs of agreement.

‘Um, it’s the name of the play,’ I reminded them. ‘Plus, it’s an actual anatomical term!’

‘We could say vajayjay,’ suggested S1.