Yet only organiser Tony Pitman and Andrew Sinclair rose to the challenge. They were later joined by a man called Al, clad in underwear, and a Rottweiler called Ziggy.

1/20/03:11:23:37 PM PST    comment

This reminds me of the story of Lysistrata by way of women who refuse their men sex in order to stop a war. Of course, if this young politician has very nice breasts there may very well be a deluge of fighting in the Chilean capital along politicians of all stripes.

The plot is about as simple as it gets: Athenian women, fed up with the Peloponnesian War, barricade themselves in the Acropolis and go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace with Sparta.

Interestingly Aristophane's Congresswomen has the wives of congressmen take over the assembly to save Athens from corrupt politicians. I guess even then, 2,414 years ago, the politicians were as corrupt as today.

Wives of the Loo and Jekani tribes in Sudan have formed a similar pact. They number in the thousands, according to Pravda. Peter Jones writes, in reference to the professor who has organized these Sudanese women, Good luck to Mrs Ahmed, but to end the civil war in Sudan will require more than a comic sex-strike (which can hardly work anyway if the men are away all the time fighting a war). On the other hand, if she could gain control of Sudan's finances...

Surely he is correct. The folks involved in this war she's trying to stop are led by a man named Joseph Koney of the Lord's Resistance Army who is said to abduct children to be used as sex slaves. So if the men at war can not be swayed by the lack of sex from their wives they can apparently have sex with their children courtesy of Mr. Koney. I would hope that Mrs. Ahmed understands her effort is just one of many which must be deployed to bring men like Joseph to heel.

The Lystrata Project is a worldwide reading of Aristophane's play. The event, to be held on March 3rd, 2003, is intended as a show of disagreement with a preemptive war, or so I understand. I would hope that such an event would involve nudity. Nudity is always nice with protest.

Did I mention I want to be a porn politician?

1/20/03:9:51:58 PM PST    comment