“Last year,” a “Stand Up Men” public service announcement by Progress Texas points out, “100 percent of pregnancies were caused by men.”
It takes two to tango, as the saying goes, whether that tango is done on the dance floor or in the bedroom. This reality is often lost in the smoke and mirrors of political debate. But in calling for this week’s No Access Sex Strike, the women’s rights group Liberal Ladies Who Lunch offers a reminder that both genders enjoy the freedoms enabled by reproductive rights, and so both bear responsibility.
“The sex strike is a symbolic gesture,” their website (noaccesssexstrike.org) reads, “designed to demonstrate that when a woman’s right to contraception is taken away, everybody suffers, since the unprotected woman has no option but to say no to intercourse, and responsible men who don’t want children will have to say no as well.”
The strike is being launched this Saturday, April 28, in conjunction with nationwide actions planned by Unite Against the War on Women, and will continue for one week, ending May 5.
“The only reason that American men can enjoy their customary free, regular and safe sex with women,” Liberal Ladies Who Lunch continue, “is because those women have access to the contraceptives of their choice.”
The strike comes on the heels of several creative actions across the country designed to highlight the absurdity of male politicians dictating what women can and can’t do with their own bodies.
From bills mandating rectal exams and cardiac tests in order to obtain Viagra to bombarding the Facebook page of Virginia state senator and transvaginal ultra-sound supporter Ryan McDougle seeking advice on menstrual cycles, tactics both legislative and activist are being used.
A bill offered by Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson, Salon.com reports, proposes that “[A]ny action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”
And Johnson’s colleague, state senator Judy Eason McIntyre, attended the protest of a recent Personhood measure in Oklahoma City with a sign reading, “If I wanted the government in my womb I’d fuck a senator.”
All of which gives momentum to this week’s Sex Strike.
“We don’t see a sex strike… as a weapon,” explain the strike’s organizers, “but if it is a weapon, the far right has weaponized it.”
Maybe Monty Python was right after all. Maybe every sperm is sacred.
