Vaginas = Purses Part II

Apparently, the suggestion that a woman’s purse = her vagina struck a chord with some women (and a couple men) because I heard much musing upon the subject, including a long list of women wondering what their purses said about them:

Question: What does it mean that I’ve just bought a semi-distressed brown leather bag?
Answer: That you’ve just given birth and you’re probably semi-distressed down there.

Question: What does it mean that I’ve had the same purse for a decade and it was made by Indonesian garbage pickers from found materials?
Answer: Totally a phoenix from the ashes thing, your sexuality made up of the gems of your history carried into the present. Or maybe that your global, green self is awesome.

Question: What does it mean when you’re a woman and you only carry a wallet?
Answer: Folded up neat and tidy in the back pocket of a pair of Levi 501s? Tucked away, inaccessible, “don’t you be peeking at my stuff”. Not a woman who needs to fluff her goods in public.

Question: What if my purse is covered with zippers? Is this a Freudian thing?
Answer: Freud is defunct. Think Fear of Flying instead, and Erica Jong’s desire for the zipless f**k. There were zippers on those dudes she was doing, and your prosthetic, um… public privates only have to open when you want them to.

I’m the one who made this illogical leap and threw out this theory, and I’m filled with questions, too, like when does a young girl’s purple plastic purse become her “ahem” accessory? And those man-bags guys have been asking me about, why do they need to ask? Is this vulva envy? There’s nothing symbolic about the man bag; portable pockets plain and simple. And what does it mean that my current purse is a "lift the flap"?

And what about those days when you’ve had a “really good time” the night before (or that morning maybe) and you feel like you’re a walking vagina? When it feels like 90% of your body is pink engorged tissue, held together by a mere 10% of supportive masse—surely a purse is superfluous and downright redundant?

So to summarize, purses = vaginas because we choose and cherish them, carry them with us everywhere, and take care what we allow inside. Not that we have to be entirely discriminating about the contents of our “purse.” As the divine Miss Candye Kane sings: “Put it all in there” if you want to, a lyric that has very little symbolism about it. Not discreet, not subtle, go ahead and fill up that soft, fleshy purse any way you want to. It’s your purse, baby.