It is extremely aggravating to see deeply conservative (and not in a good sense) people dress up as Liberals and make every progressive cause look ridiculous as a result. Here is the most recent case of such annoying trickery:
A group that supports health care coverage of contraception is calling for women to withhold sex from their partners between April 28 and May 5.
“This will help people understand that contraception is for women and men, because men enjoy the benefit of women making their own choices about when and if they want to get pregnant,” Liberal Ladies who Lunch says on its website.
These people are deeply convinced that women only engage in sex to please men. It does not even occur to them that having sex is only normal, healthy and acceptable when it’s something you want to do for yourself and not to please somebody else. For these weird folks who cannot even imagine a woman as a subject, rather than an object, of sexual activity, sex is something women only engage in to get things they want out of men:
“Once congress and insurance agencies agree to cover contraception, we will then resume having sex. Until then men will have to be content with their left hand.”
Women, you see, are normally content with getting something they need in exchange for sexual services they provide. They don’t actually need sex. I’ve got to wonder why, according to this warped logic, women need contraceptives at all. To enable them to engage in an activity they are physiologically incapable of enjoying?
Clarissa's Blog 
The problem with pulling a Lysistrata on this issue is that they are trying to punish people who don’t want women to have sex by… not having sex.
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Good point.
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Umm… the article doesn’t say anything at all about women not enjoying sex. Do you think it’s implied since the proponents of this idea didn’t mention if it would be easy or difficult for women to follow through with this threat?
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If these people say that women use sex as reward or punishment for men, then it’s obvious that they suggest that women have no physiological need for it.
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Any partner, male or female, who would respond positively to such a political request basically does not love his/her partner. To withdraw an important element in any personal relationship for reasons that are unrelated to that relationship, in my judgment, constitutes abusive behavior. Surely, I would not want to be associated with any such person, and I would do my best to unravel myself from anyone who played such political games.
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I agree, doing such a thing is a textbook case of abusive behaviour in a relationship. Not only do you arbitrarily withhold sex from your partner, you tell him that is his fault, even though it is in response to an act he had no direct control over.
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It doesn’t even make any sense. Unless these women are partnered with men who want to prevent women from using birth control, what on earth does a private decision to not have sex have to do with a public issue like political maneuvering over birth control? Do they think that the politicians who want to control women’s sexuality will be shamed by these women and men not getting to have any nookie? It seems to me that the reverse situation would occur: these politicians would be thrilled that they’ve caused women to stop having sex, because you should only have sex to make a baby.
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” It seems to me that the reverse situation would occur: these politicians would be thrilled that they’ve caused women to stop having sex, because you should only have sex to make a baby.”
– Exactly. I have no idea what their logic is here and why they think this will be effective. For now, this protest only makes them look very weird.
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The funny thing about Lysistrata is that the ancient Greeks as a culture believed women had the higher sex drive.
It’s stupid because it assumes that most men would burdened by not having sex for a week and that the only way to have sex is PIV.
Although if I were to say my libido is dampened by all these god bothering panty sniffers’ lawmaking frenzy, it’s entirely accurate. It would also be accurate to say I’m just not interested in sex with men who don’t think this is a problem.
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“It would also be accurate to say I’m just not interested in sex with men who don’t think this is a problem.”
– Hear, hear! But the thing is that people who hold the views that sex is dirty and horrible and should only be used for procreation are so messed up that they actually believe all that stuff on an intimate level and hate their own sexuality. So this will not be a problem for them.
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What intrigues me is this statement : “Until then men will have to be content with their left hand.”
Why only the left hand or is the author showing some further cultural bias? Surley using the dominant hand is most common?
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Good question. 🙂 I’m not a man, of course, but I do keep hearing how the left hand is better for those purposes. I’m mystified by that, too. 🙂
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Looks like I have a small research project to conduct.
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My blog brings happiness to the world. 🙂
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The issue is that hatred of women does not come from anywhere rational, logical or emotionally coherent. Liberals generally, if not always, make the mistake of thinking that communication of some sort can bridge the gap between irrationally held beliefs and reality. Withholding sex is a potential attempt to communicate, but it will have no meaning to those whose deep hatred for women has its compulsive origin in some kind of childhood trauma, or in resentment towards the boss and/or life in general.
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That’s so hard for me to believe! I really feel like education – at all times in life – can alleviate irrational beliefs. For example, in a movie I was watching with my mom, i think it was called ‘public enemies’ and during one scene a woman has been kidnapped and is being tortured for information. Then someone comes in and says ‘We don’t treat women that way here!’ And I found out later that apparently this is my mom’s favorite scene. And I said jokingly ‘sexism to the rescue, yay!” but then she flew into a fit or rage about it!
I’m still planning on giving her the talk haha about how mistreating women isn’t worse than men, women aren’t victims blahblah. Maybe it’s futile! 😦
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I don’t think telling women to abstain from sex = saying women don’t like sex and only have sex for the sake of men. In a traditional strike, nobody says, “Well, the workers must be on strike because they don’t like making money and were only making money for the sake of their bosses!” I’m sure most strikers are really upset about the temporary pay cut they undergo while they’re on strike. But they agree to undergo a certain amount of suffering themselves because they think the good their efforts will produce outweigh the sacrifices.
Now, whether a sex strike would be effective or not is another issue. But if a woman thinks it might be, her withholding from sex for that reason (or for *any* reason) doesn’t automatically mean she doesn’t like sex.
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I think Hegel’s Lordship and bondage dialectic is instructive. The bondsman fears death more than bondage and thus submits to the lord. The lord is fearless of death, thus submits to nobody (except, ultimately, death).
I don’t think sex really enters very much into the equation, since it does not invoke sensations of the fear of death. This is really where the struggle for power takes place.
The worker on strike partially overcomes his or her fear of death through starvation by going on strike.
The girlfriend withholding sex is not yet engaged in any sort of existential struggle for power.
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Do you notice that you just compared sex to work provided for remuneration and male sexual partners to bosses?
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I don’t see how one can avoid comparing–AND contrasting–sex to work provided for remuneration in the context of an article about *striking* which is traditionally *done* by people who work for remuneration.
The only point I was trying to make is that going on a traditional strike does not imply one doesn’t enjoy and/or benefit from the activity one is striking from, therefore if a woman were to go on a sex strike, why would that imply women don’t enjoy sex. That’s all.
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