The folly of a sex strike
THE EDITOR, Madam:
IN THIS country, we seem to have an unfortunate predilection to think in the most simplistic, blinkered and proprietary way when dealing with complex social issues. This is so whether we are dealing with abortion, same-sex marriage, Patois in schools or boys that pose behavioural challenges.
Now the new ‘Band-Aid’ idea being bandied about is a sex strike to end violence against women. This idea is not new and has indeed been used in the past to efficacious effect. The idea originated in the ancient Greek play, Lysistrata. It has since been used elsewhere effectively: in 1600, Iroquois women withheld sex to stop unregulated warfare. In 2003, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Layman Gbowee, organised a sex strike to end Liberia’s brutal civil war.
It is quite all right to borrow ideas from time to time, from elsewhere to help deal with current situations but in doing so, we must not be unmindful of context; neither must we be unaware of the present context in which we wish to implement the borrowed idea(s).
Trinidad and Tobago writer and gender advocate Nazma Muller and Professor Opal Palmer Adisa, university director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies, Mona, according to yesterday’s Gleaner, are calling for a withholding of sexual privileges “in protest of gender-based violence here”. Here in Jamaica!
Are these women aware that most of the abuses, physical and psychological, meted out to women are a direct result of the withholding of ‘p**p**’ or the perception of it being shared?
ONLY TWO RESULTS
I have the greatest of respect for my wife and love to be intimate with her.
Why then should I be denied the nectar of her garden because of the action of some psychopaths?
There can only be two results of a sex strike in our Jamaican context:
1). The frustration of the good men. I am always grumpy for at least a week out of every month. I baulk at the idea of another three weeks, and I am an intelligent man.
2). More women at risk of further abuses and murder, bearing in mind that the preponderance of women that suffer abuses are financially dependent and lack community support.
I know these bright and intelligent women meant well but they seem to have allowed their disgust at what is happening to our women to cloud their minds.
A sex strike, in a Jamaican context, is definitely not the answer.
E. ELPEDIO ROBINSON