I’m translating, of course: the actual title is “Ladies, It’s Time for a Sex Strike against the GOP.” Which is of course futile – the antiwar movement tried this bit of nonsense like this back at the beginning of the GWOT, to precisely zero effect. That’s mostly because it’s, well, a nitwit idea; Lysistrata is (with the right translation) a thoroughly enjoyable filthy play, but as an actual policy strategy… um. No. Aside from everything else: aren’t we supposed to stop thinking of a woman’s worth primarily in terms of access to her vagina? I’m pretty sure that we were supposed to stop doing that.
But that’s not the point I want to illustrate, anyway: the point that I want to illustrate is that there are assumptions behind a sex-withholding strategy. The primary one? That you’re already having sex with the person that you’re planning to withhold it from in the future. If you’re not having sex with that person already, then there’s really not much of a threat involved there, is there? I mean, the world is full of people already who are not going to have sex with any one particular person; and most people kind of are used to that fact.
So for this strategy to be taken seriously – and Slate presumably paid money for the article, which is one of my working definitions of ‘being taken seriously’ – it first requires that we stipulate that there are a lot of Democratic pro-choice women out there already who are having sex with Republican men. Lots of Democratic women. Having lots of sex with Republican men. Even though they hate us*. Because we’re just that awesome, apparently.
Which means, by the way, that the people who should really be upset by this are Democratic men. Because this was a pretty comprehensive dismissal of them…
Via @snarkandboobs.
Moe Lane
*”Us” being meant in a generic fashion; being a happily married father of two, it has been many years since I would have been able to mean it in any other way.