Women's sex-strike ends civil war (sex vs violence)

Women in Mindanao, Philippines ended a violent, armed, intervillage fight by going on a "sex-strike" until their husbands stopped killing each other, as confirmed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Women's 'sex strike' ends fighting in Mindanao villages - UNHCR

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: philippines • Sex • violence • war

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http://www.facebook.com/dathanasakis Dimitrios Athanasakis

Can you say Lysistrata? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
- Guest
  
  Yep… lol
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Floyd-Brigdon/1051473258 Floyd Brigdon
  
  That exact comment was on the tip of my typing fingers…. LOL
http://twitter.com/Threedonia Threedonia

So blue balls were part of the Spartan kit?
Guest

Ya gotta kinda wonder if a global sex-strike would end all the war and strife on the planet.
- Ryan Kittleson
  
  except rape. I’m sure rape would get worse as a result.
  - Guest
    
    :/
    
    What does that even mean? As if it isn’t bad enough already…
  - Guest
    
    Perhaps. But I think an accord would quickly be reached. Afterall, women would also be doing without, and while the ‘fair sex’ are reputed sexual camels, we too like a good snog now and then, for the intimacy as much as the satisfaction. Would negotiations drag on and on, do you think?
- Guest
  
  Or, we could put more women in positions of power- power not based upon sex or the withholding thereof- and see how that works.
  - Guest
    
    I would prefer to see more people in power, who work for the taxpaying voters they represent and not their corporate minders, and I could care less what gender they are.
    - Gulliver
      
      I would prefer to see more people in power who work for the taxpaying voters they represent, and not their corporate minders, and I could care less what gender they are.
      
      As the good doctress says, THIS x 1 million.
- efemmeral
  
  Sure a sex strike would end global war and strife because we all know how relaxed, complacent, and docile sex-starved men are.
  - Guest
    
    Doesn’t seem to make a difference either way- ‘sex-starved’, HAH! As if that’s even a legitimate thing. Men will just keep killing and subjugating… and taking what they want. http://FTP...
    - efemmeral
      
      Perhaps, doctor, you can find a way to relieve men of their testosterone? Perhaps you’re working on a way to enlarge their amygdala? I think you must be the same doctor who has been advising Michelle Backman . . .
      - bmcraec
        
        Doctor Who is advising Michelle Bachmann? Boy, have things gone bad with the writing since Russell Davies left the show!
    - EvilSpirit
      
      I suppose it’s possible you’re using the word “legitimate” in some way I don’t understand. I’ve always had the impression that there was a fairly powerful drive for sex in most adults, here on my own home planet.
      - Guest
        
        Uh huh, OK. Thanks for that ‘splaination. lol
        
        It is not fatal to not have sex for long periods of time (or never have sex at all). So, I find ‘sex-starved’ to be an exaggeration, to say the least. It is not a legitimate complaint. Nobody is entitled to sex with another person.
  - Guest
    
    Men who were being ’well serviced’ were going to a neighboring village to make war and kill other men. Offered an ultimatum, they chose sex over killing. Their wives didn’t ask for ‘relaxed, complacent, and docile’ (and wouldn’t have wanted it). They asked for peace and the end of the killing, and got it.
    
    I feel certain an agreement would be reached long before ‘starvation’ set in.
nanuq

Aristophanes makes everything better…
Shai_Hulud

So Beyonce’s right- girls run the world… at least in that situation in Mindanao.
Michael Leddy

There’s a name for it: Lysistratic nonaction. This post has several links describing its use in Colombia:

http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2011/08/lysistratic-nonaction.html
http://riverlaw.myopenid.com/ riverlaw

This post was in perfect time for my ethics class. We were reviewing Aristotle’s virtues of care and justice. Thanks for the post!
fraac

I always said if brothels were provided by the NHS it would eliminate a lot of crime. Sex strike makes sense too. Would need a close-knit community of the kind we don’t have in the ‘developed’ world.
- Guest
  
  Wow. No.
- CharredBarn
  
  If the there were government-provided brothels in Mindanao, Philippines, those guys would have had little reason to stop fighting.
http://twitter.com/rastaXsica Jessica Cash

I like how the only thing that the husband got out of it was that he now wants 2 wifes.
herrnichte

I’d like to think this indicates we share a few more genes with the Bonobo than the (“common”) Chimpanzee.
nosehat

A strike against the “Make Love, Not War” hypothesis?

That’s kind of a shame, because I always thought the hippies were on to something good there!
- nukespike
  
  It’s actually the opposite! It fully endorses Make Love, Not War… They had been Making Love AND War. The women gave the men were a choice of which they wanted more and they chose to Make Love, Not War.
  - Guest
    
    And, to that I again say HOORAY! Love is SO SO good, and there is not even close to enough of it. FUCK war, forever.
    - Gulliver
      
      And, to that I again say HOORAY! Love is SO SO good, and there is not even close to enough of it. FUCK war, forever.
      
      I always thought it odd that love is so often regarded as the opposite of war. Love is wonderful, but surely it is not required to stop war. People hate one another frequently without going to war over it. Nor does going to war necessarily imply hate. If slaves revolt for freedom, it is not because they fail to love.
- http://rabbit.org parisiansnowflake
  
  What are you talking about; that’s exactly what this is! See now, they’re making love, NOT war.
  - nosehat
    
    As I understand it, the general idea behind “Make Love, Not War” was that war and aggression were a result of sexual repression and general uptightness. If the advocates of war just relaxed and got laid, they would be happier, more at peace with themselves, and less likely to cause aggression. Hence “Free Love”, “Make Love, Not War,” etc. Having sex reduces aggression.
    
    So this is the direct opposite: Not getting laid is causing these guys to reduce their aggression. (So they can get laid.)
    - floraldeoderant
      
      Hrmmm. Idk if I agree with you that that’s the concept behind ML,NW. But, since I wasn’t alive then, it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong. I mean, the idea that soldiers and politicians don’t have the opportunity to fck things is easily (even in the 60s, much less 70s) disproven. Now, I’m not accusing hippie sloganeering efforts of being hugely savvy or educated, but… daaaaamn they would have to be oblivious. I always thought it was a bigger concept of love. A cute little inversion– the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s war! And then the ‘make love’ got paired down in common usage so that teenage and 20-something hippies could get laid.In defense of the hippies (mainly because I think it would be cool for hippies to win a battle, accidentally, after most of them have grown up into suburban deskwarmers), maybe the idea was a time issue. “If you’re making war, you can’t be making love. And which would you rather be doing? Make love, not war!”
      - Gulliver
        
        A cute little inversion– the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s war!
        
        So here is a question. Let’s say person A (let’s call him John Germany) decides to invade the home of person B (let’s call her Jane Poland), execute Jane’s grandmother and conscript Jane’s children into his army, and Jane fights back. They are both clearly at war. Does that then mean that they are both acting out of hate?
      - nosehat
        
        Well, you might be right. I’m no expert on this either.
        
        Now, I’m not accusing hippie sloganeering efforts of being hugely savvy or educated, but… daaaaamn they would have to be oblivious.
        
        Actually, I think interpreting ML,NW as “Making love will make it harder to make war” is far from oblivious.Think of it this way: When you make love, you enter a relationship where the “Other”, the person who is not you, is seen as desirable, precious, beloved. Making love freely (in the hippie sense) opens you up to the habit of seeing the Other in this way. War, on the other hand, is predicated on a world view that sees the Other as detestable, worthless, hated (the exact opposite of how you see other people when you make love). So the logic here is, once you get in the habit of making love, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to see “the Other” in the objectifying way you need to to make war on them.This is Utopian thinking, sure, but it’s still a pretty beautiful thought. That’s why I’m kind of disappointed that the opposite seems to be true in this example: Not making love resulted in not making war. To be clear, I’m certainly not disappointed that this Lysistratic strategy worked in this case! I just wish the hippie Utopian ideal had tested out better.
      - disillusion
        
        Except not all war is done out of hate, but rather envy. Let’s look at WW2 for example. Japan didn’t particularly attack the Chinese out of hate for them as much as they needed resources, and China had those resources. Yes, there was a lot of tension between the two before, but the attack was not out of sheer hate. That said, there were some wars that started out from grudges, but most wars in history stem from person B having what person A wants, not because person A thinks person B should die. That’s why even long ago people were kept as slaves rather than just killed off. If the victor “hated” the enemy, there would have been no survivors.
      - Gulliver
        
        If the victor “hated” the enemy, there would have been no survivors.
        
        This is where I suspect it would be useful to distinguish two different uses of the word hate. Like love, it can refer to an emotion and/or action(s) – actions which can be complimentary and/or cooperative (in the case of love), or derogatory and/or coercive (in the case of hate). So, in the broader sense, engaging in war out of envy could be considered an example of hate. But there are other reasons, like self-defense and defense of loved ones, for which people may go to war. That’s where the utopian ideal breaks down. It only works if everyone chooses love, and freewill* tends to put a kinker in that plan. This extends to all examples of coercion; crime would be nonexistent if no one committed crimes.
        
        *used here in the sense of others making choices beyond one’s own influence, as opposed to in the fuzzier metaphysical sense ;)
http://www.epinardscaramel.com TokenFrenchDude

Wouldn’t work on all conflicts; the terrorists hate sex. Or so they claim…
GIFtheory

Sex: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
- Guest
  
  I thought it was beer.
Brainspore

An old strategy but a good one.

Also, I would like to state for the benefit of any readers who may be my wife that I am a lifelong pacifist.
Soliloquy

No peace? No piece.
we_the_people324

make fuck, not kill

-George Carlin
ackpht

So if women have the power to make the world a better place… why haven’t they?
- Guest
  
  Thousands and thousands of years of subjugation, abuse and rape, lack of access to education, lack of personhood (even according to ‘Justice’ Scalia, women are not people under the U.S. Constitution!), being barred from political processes, etc. etc. etc…?http://finallyfeminism101.word… ‘However, despite other circles of superordination, society is still structured along patriarchal lines of subordination in nearly all forms of organisations, to the great benefit of those at the top. The male elites, the magnates (currently white, but who knows what the next century will bring?), continue to wield disproportionate influence and power over the situations of other men and especially women.’ “Patriarchy is a violently tyrannical but nearly invisible social order based on an oppressive paradigm of class and status fetishizing dominance and submission. Patriarchy’s benefits are accrued according to a rigid hierarchy at the top of which are rich honky males and at the bottom of which are poor women of color.” [Twisty Faster (I Blame the Patriarchy): Patriarchy-Blaming the Twisty Way]Yeah, don’t you worry- we’re working on it.
  - http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
    
    There have been several female rulers of countries over the past few centuries including of countries that were the most powerful in the world at the time. They didn’t shy away from war anymore than their male counterpoints. Power corrupts women as easily as men.
    - bmcraec
      
      But you could certainly argue that a woman who rises to the top position of an entrenched hierarchy would have to become just as patriarchal in outlook as any man in the same position, but with slightly different perspectives due to the constant comparison of why she had to work harder to get where she was. She does have a few different tools at her disposal to make up for the height, muscle, and lower vocal range.
      - Guest
        
        I don’t think ‘patriarchal’ means what you think it does. A woman in power does not magically become ‘masculine’ or ‘patriarchal in outlook’. That is because she would still be a woman. Power should not, and does not equal masculinity.
        
        ‘Tools’. Wow, what would those be? /s
      - http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
        
        Sure, that might make sense for elected officials, but Queens don’t rise to the top. They are born there. Several of them in history had absolute power and using violence to keep their throne is just a small part of what they did.
        
        The fallacy that if women ruled the world there would be no war is a very strange phenomenon and I’m not sure where it came from. The idea that Margaret Thatcher or hell, Michelle Bachmann or Hilary Clinton, isn’t as ruthless as any man is quite frankly, ridiculous.
      - Guest
        
        ‘The fallacy that if women ruled the world there would be no war is a
        very strange phenomenon and I’m not sure where it came from. The idea
        that Margaret Thatcher or hell, Michelle Bachmann or Hilary Clinton,
        isn’t as ruthless as any man is quite frankly, ridiculous. ‘
        
        Did anyone here say that?
    - Guest
      
      Oh, ‘several’. Well that’s good enough for me, then! Guess we don’t live in a patriarchy anymore, hooray! /s
      
      Thanks for the ‘splaination about power corrupting, too. /s x2
      
      Links, citations? I’m curious- what’ve you got? And, recent female rulers (like that last 50 years), please. TIA!
      - cmdrfire
        
        Just a note (and given that she was PM when I was a child), Margaret Thatcher was a powerful female ruler, fairly recent (see note about me being a child at the time – late eighties, early nineties), she declared war on at least one occasion (see the to-do regarding the Falklands), and was terrifyingly ruthless in government (“The Lady will not be turned” and all that).
      - TimRowledge
        
        Thatcher, Clark, Jagan, Tymoshenko, Meir, Gandhi, Brundtland, Aquino, Robertson, Sirleaf, Cresson, … About 80 or so I think.
        Still a pathetic percentage but at least definitely non-zero.
  - ackpht
    
    You’ll never get there if you believe that other people define you.
http://www.facebook.com/beth.george2 Beth Rich George

Not better, just different – we’re equal.
- Guest
  
  If only it were true.
http://www.facebook.com/pansee.atta Pansee Atta

Wouldn’t it be great if these women were allowed any power BESIDES having a vagina that they could have wielded? Because this kinda further entrenches the idea that sex is a thing that women give and men take, not a thing that peole do together ’cause they wanna.

Not criticising them, since y’know, they DID end a civil war and all, but still.
- Guest
  
  THIS x 1 million.
- Gulliver
  
  Wouldn’t it be great if these women were allowed any power BESIDES having a vagina that they could have wielded? Because this kinda further entrenches the idea that sex is a thing that women give and men take, not a thing that peole do together ’cause they wanna.
  
  Indeed. I’d argue the world divides into two outlooks on sex, that it is a transaction and that it is an interaction. Even among individuals who regard it as an interaction, though, it could still be used for leverage. Call it Mutually Assured Celibacy.
- http://twitter.com/anaeonian Aeone
  
  Well to be fair they were clearly misrepresented. They didn’t end the war with their vagina, this war was ended with all the proper organs: brains and heart. The women were actually allowed the power outside of their genitalia by their husband it was just misrepresented by the people making the video. So they did end a civil war, and they did it well, the only thing is whoever made the video didn’t understand that it wasn’t through withholding sex, it was through the women making an ultimatum and the men respecting the women’s opinion.
mat catastrophe

My wife must know about this. I wonder what she wants?
gedsudski

Thats the power of the pootie-tang!!
journey46

Adds new meaning to War Is Over (If You Want It)

John and Yoko. 1971
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

I don’t think it’s fair to cite the odd female ruler as examples of a matriarchal system; I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been any such thing in the developed world, despite the occasional gender divergence of rulers in what has been almost exclusively a patriarchal array of civilisations.

It’s not a question of an entirely all-male leadership defining patriarchy, but of the values and assumptions that define a civilisation’s power stucture. Thus the occasional female ruler’s failure to distinguish themselves from male rulers proves nothing, since they’re operating under the same conditions and have very little scope to enact a matriarchal style of management over the top of a patriarchal system.

You should be able to recognise a matriarchal society quite readily; I imagine people wouldn’t be locked up for punishment but actual rehabilitation, for example. A matriarchal society would have a radically different approach to very many aspects of the regulation of that society, enabling far less adversarial interactions than those a patriarchal mindset feels necessary. In short, such a society would value cooperation over competition and have as many nurturing aspects as we’re used to seeing punitive ones.

It’d be a whole other ballgame. But I’m afraid it’d require some unlikely intellectual revolutions…
- disillusion
  
  So how do you know for a fact that such a society would be considered “matriarchal?” All I’m gettting from what you want what would be considered a “true” communist society, as we have never really had one in existence, and in that case it would be neither a matriarchy or a patriarchy, as a true communist society has no one placed above anyone else. There’s a reason this has never happened, and it’s called human nature. Some people are born with the will and charisma to lead, while others can only or only wish to follow. In a society of leaders and followers, there will always be someone above the rest, and while you’ll sometimes get benevolent rulers, most rulers become corrupted by their power, be they male or female.
- Gulliver
  
  It’d be a whole other ballgame. But I’m afraid it’d require some unlikely intellectual revolutions…
  
  Regarding the matriarchal versus patriarchal debate, it seems to me we have a chicken an egg question. Which came first, testosterone or aggression? My inexpert hypothesis is that a civilization rooted in millennia of matriarchy would be different, but I’m highly skeptical that it would be particularly more peaceful. I doubt aggression among our species is uniquely caused by male biology, i.e. that even an all-female human civilization (provided such were biologically feasible) would be devoid of coercion/resistance. I wonder what our post-human descendants will make of all this…
Sofia Ortiz

Heh. All’s fair in love and war.
blehtastic

This seems a perfect time to call upon that wonderful little mantra we all know so well.

Correlation does not prove causation.
http://twitter.com/anaeonian Aeone

This was not a “SEX STRIKE” the women threw their husbands out. They told their husbands, if you fight you will not be able to come back home. If you fight you will not have a family. They probably called it a “sex strike” in jest.

Here’s the literal translation of what the people said.
Kandatu: We said to each other, we should tell our husbands do not go there and get yourself involved if you are not a part of it. If you want to go sure, go ahead, go there. It’s your own choice but you will not be able to go home. I will not accept you.
Kandatu’s Husband: She said, if you do wrong then so be it, we’re going to separate.
Kamanza: If you do not agree with me, you will get none of my salary.

This was not a “sex strike.” This was a group of women banding together to knock some sense into their husbands not using their powers of seduction but their powers of logic and reasoning. They did not withhold sex, they exercised their authority and told their husbands that their home, their life, their family, their money, will not tolerate their continued fighting. They gave them an ultimatum.

It’s almost like they couldn’t accept that these women just put their foot down and bared their teeth, but they had to tell the rest of the world that seduction was the most powerful intent that drove the point home to these men. The women used their own authority and the men respected it. If that’s so hard to understand from a general worldwide perspective, then it’s damn sad.

If women did that and men respected their opinion enough to listen, then yes I firmly believe wars would end.
- Gulliver
  
  Very easy to understand. Thank you for the correct translation.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MLAKC2J76NFB64XLSLUKEHF4J4 Daniel
  
  Thank you for the clarification, that’s a really important distinction
ill lich

Ha, they are some sneaky fuckers. . . uhhhh . . . “non-fuckers.”
Douglas Stuart

Madeleine Albright says of women diplomats, “I think we’re better about
putting ourselves in the other guy’s shoes.” But she also debunks the
idea that all problems would be solved if women ran the world: “If you
think that, you’ve forgotten high school.”

Or, you could go to a typical playground, where “women rule the roost.” Plenty of selfishness, greed, aggression, and occasionally violence… on the part of the “grown ups.”

The thing about *human* nature, is that it’s not defined by gender.
Lobster

Shame this sort of thing is included in long-distance combat.

And Aeone, you’re right but look at the situation here. History is crediting women with stopping a war without any hint of violence. Even if their weapon of choice was different, isn’t it a step in the right direction that this is even codified? Besides, once you take the element of femininity out of it and turn it into a pair of completely equal and genderless entities, you run into one problem with the story:

“No, YOU get out of MY house.”
agthorn

The pen may be mightier than the sword…but the inkwell is even mightier than the pen.