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This essay was featured in our Conscious Citizens Dispatch #31. Click here to read the full newsletter!
The idea of using sex as a political tool is not new; it actually goes back to ancient times. In Aristophanes' 411 BCE play "Lysistrata," Athenian women withhold sex from their husbands to force an end to the Peloponnesian War. But this tactic from a fictional play has been deployed in real-world conflicts around the world, and with great effect. In Colombia, women in Pereira organized a sex strike in 2006 to demand an end to gang violence, reducing murder rates by 25% by 2010. In another Colombian town in 2016, women refused to have sex with their partners until a road was repaired - it got fixed. Similar stories are found in Kenya, the Philippines, United States, and Italy.
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