Sex Strike?
By: W. Island
Tags: Abortion, Womens Rights

Alyssa Milano drags women back

Let me first give Alyssa Milano credit for using her fame and fortune to help those who do not have her wealth or her platform. She has been at the forefront of the #MeToo movement, fighting against the nomination of Kavenaugh to the SCOTUS, environmental issues and reproductive rights. When Alabama and Georgia passed their anti-abortion bills, Alyssa was right there to call out the absurdity of the old men who make up the majority of these state houses making decisions regarding the reproductive rights of women. She has rightfully called out the men who crafted these bills for their lack of knowledge about women, reproduction, biology, and just about everything. These bills would eliminate all abortions in Alabama and sentence women in Georgia who get abortions after six weeks with long prison sentences and even the death penalty. Georgia goes so far as to charge women with felonies if they go to another state that has abortion clinics for an abortion when they return to Georgia. Both states look to investigate miscarriages to ensure that the women didn’t cause them. If it sounds like an episode of the Handmaid’s Tale, it’s because it is. If these bills included a provision to make women wear red capes and white hats, I wouldn’t be surprised.

So yes, Alyssa Milano, deserves a standing ovation for not sitting back and letting this country turn into Gilead. But her latest hashtag movement is all kind of wrong. Alyssa has started the #SexStrike movement. She has called on women to not have sex until we regain full control over our bodies. She tweets that “Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy.”

Ironically, it was Spike Lee that also called for a sex strike in his movie “Chiraq”. In Lee’s movie, the women of Chicago withheld sex until the men stopped the gang wars that were responsible for many deaths in the community including an 11-year-old girl who was killed in the crossfire. In this movie, the rallying cry for the woman to join the movement was “No Peace, No Pussy.” Not exactly Shakespeare, but you get the picture.

So I’m not sure if Alyssa was channeling Spike Lee with this hashtag movement, but I am sure she came to this discussion with the best interests of women at heart. But the entire premise that denying sex to men to make then do the right thing is based on two fallacies:

1. That men need sex

2. That women provide sex and have no need for sex themselves.

Just think about that. Alyssa is calling on women to fight for body autonomy by using our bodies as a bargain chip to coerce men. Despite what republicans and sadly Alyssa Milano think, vaginas are not these all powerful machines. Nor are they mystical like Infinity Stones. Women can’t run into the bathroom, change into lingerie and come out as Super VaJayJay. It’s sex, not a meeting of the Avengers. And women also enjoy sex. We should not deny ourselves the intimacy of sex with our partners because most of our partners are already allies. I’m not sure if Alyssa Milano has a partner but I’m sure if he is with Alyssa he fully supports reproductive rights for women. If he didn’t, she wouldn’t be with him. Seems like the only people who would be hurt by this movement would be feminist women and their partners.

Seriously, does Alyssa really think the men who came up with these laws can be coerced by withholding sex? This is the group of men who call their wives “Mother”; that think you should make lemonade out of the lemons of being raped; that think after a rape a woman’s body just shuts down so she won’t get pregnant; and who calls the women that their leader had affairs with whores but give him a pass for cheating on all of his wives and girlfriends. Does anyone think these people can be forced to do anything right when it concerns women?

Look, if we really want to help women, let’s stop the stereotype that women don’t enjoy sex and the women that do are sluts and whores. Then stop the notion that sex is something women just go through instead of actively participating in. We don’t need to withhold sex to stop these men from making regressive policies. We need to organize voter registration drives, raise money for candidates that will put our reproductive issues at the forefront instead of calling them “identity politics”. We need to elect more women on every level of government from the school board to Congress to the White House. We need to get more women judges on the benches so that these draconian laws will be overturned. We need to fight back at the ballot box. We need to protest, right letters, and advocate for real body autonomy for women. We can do that.

I get what Alyssa Milano was trying to do but she went in the wrong direction. Women need to have more sex, not less. And we need to ensure that we and we alone, make the decisions for what happens to our bodies when we do.