Sounds good to me.
Why is everyone assuming that Alyssa is referring to women in committed relationships? I read her suggestion as primarily applying to single women in the dating scene.
Having a majority of the cut women you date say “Your really sweet, and thanks for dinner and all but until they repeal HR XYZ, I’m afraid that this evenings activities will be literally restricted to Netflix and chill.” might convince some men who are not particularly politically active consider writing their legislator. On the other hand it could just swell the numbers of the Incel set.
Speaking just for myself as someone on the dating scene if I met someone who tied the chance for sex to any type of political cause I would write them off a being a complete loon and move on. Writing a legislator wouldn’t enter my mind.
More likely, it would lead the men to wonder what other sort of bargaining and negotiation lies ahead. I mean, “need to do chores in order to have sex” is an age-old trope, but this takes it to new extents. “No sex until Schumer gets the votes or McConnell stops his filibuster, dear”.
For me as well. How much of what we do will have these external conditions attached to it?
The obvious response to which is: “So, a blow job’s fine, then, since you wouldn’t be risking pregnancy unless you’re a very modern kind of Mother Mary?”
It might still be a good way of drawing attention to the offending law although it further lowers the level of discourse which can be expected from the GOP but I was hoping it wouldn’t spread too much on my side.
Well, if you’d ever had other people’s political causes severely impacting the potential consequences that sex could have for your life, you might not be so dismissive about it.
I mean, I get it that it would be weird for a date to say that you personally should be deprived of sex until you manage to get some law or other changed. But it’s not at all weird for a woman to think that sex in general just seems a lot less worth the risk when the chance of unwanted consequences increases drastically. Worrying about what could happen if you got an STD or got pregnant, and realizing that your government is openly hostile towards your reproductive autonomy, is really not a sexy feeling.
It is kind of weird that so many male posters in this thread seem to be focusing so much on what they see as the unfairness of men being deprived of sex, and not empathizing at all with the outrage and fear that’s causing women even to consider the prospect of renouncing sex.
A sex strike is doomed from the start. History is filled with stories of sex that should not have happened because of societal principals, and society is full of people who are here because of that. Sex happens, despite the best and worst intentions, thus children happen, and life goes on.
I’m pretty sure I hate the Georgia bill; It’s a Georgia bill about abortion. It’s part of the same dishonest tactics the nastiest part of the US has been pulling ever since Jim Crow: They want to assert power, control and superiority over others, pick a less powerful group and start making up bullshit rules to confuse, belittle, ostracize, intimidate and disempower them. You saw the same tactic deployed to suppress the black vote by having testing requirements for voting which are, on their face, reasonable but are deliberately, calculatedly designed to discriminate.
I’m still not sure that Milano’s way of bringing attention to that will be more good than bad. It may be. At this point, I’m really not sure.
Legalizing prostitution would be fast tracked.
See what I mean? The response is strategic: How would men undertake to circumvent this unjust attempt by women to deprive them of sex?
The thought Why are women upset enough about this legislation to consider giving up sex over it? doesn’t even seem to make it onto the radar.
Well, you’re talking to an octopus. I’ve learned from my Japanese readings that they tend to be pretty focused on sex.
Can all the men in the thread raise their hands to show Kimstu that we’re aware that the Georgia law and Alabama bill are reprehensible?
What I found most odd was her inference that abstinence is possible. We’ve been told for decades that people are going to have sex and here’s Milano trying to get women to stop en masse. She’s kinda stepping on the talking points.
Why would someone give power to a threat by allowing it to work instead of neutralizing it? Quite a bit of life is figuring out what the unintended consequences to a decision are or would be.
And you make the assumption that women are a monolithic group. They are not. And if time with with some women is unpleasant due to political realities find other women. Furthermore, the idea that women’s only leverage in politics comes from the use of a vagina instead of the use of a rational mind that is capable of advocating a winning strategy should be anachronistic.
Milano is basically saying all women are prostitutes. Give me X or you won’t get sex.
In fact why not extend the sex strike to a universal basic income for all women? Or free healthcare for all women? Or free college education for all women? These are important issues as well.
Projection is a helluva drug.
I have been reading about this news story on various news sites and blogs all day, and — seriously — the Straight Dope is the first place I’ve seen anyone cite Aristophanes.
Yay us.
Aristophanes was just mentioned on Tucker Carlson’s show by Mark Steyn.
no there’s an oblique quote in there that reminds women they can have the same sexual gratification without males involved aka who needs men when you have a Hitachi magic wand and a 12 pack od c batteries?
It isn’t a matter of unfairness, it’s a matter of having a fucked up mentality. If you think that sex is a bargaining chip, and something you sell to your SO in exchange for good behavior, then clearly you are interested neither in having sex with him nor in having a constructive relationship with him. You’re an outer. There are women out there who will offer a much more straightforward and honest deal (like sex in exchange for $ 200) if sex is to be just a commodity. I’d take that any day over this “no sex if you don’t do X” nonsense.
This reminds me of years ago when some straight people were refusing to get married because gays were not allowed to. This was frustrating because one partner (say the woman) wanted a ring but her fiancee said no because he wanted to show solidarity to his gay friends.