Have you guys heard of the “No Access” Strike?. Basically, the idea is that feminist women country wide will abstain from sex for one whole, terrible week in order to bring awareness to the fact that conservative law-makers have increased their anti-abortion work like they do every election year.
So, several feminists, probably the ones with a poor concept of cause and effect, are going to stop having sex with whomever they have sex with for a week. This is likely to average out to about 1 person per feminist, if I’m being generous with the numbers. Which means that if 10 feminists participate, at the end of the strike, 20 people will know that it sucks to be a lady in anti-abortion America. And why does it suck? “Because my girlfriend won’t have sex with me this week because that would be pro-anti-abortion and we believe in choices.” Good job everyone, another win for womankind!
You know how my boyfriend knows about the struggles of women in America? I talked to him about them. And if he was so dense that he wouldn’t “get” it unless I had to stop fucking him until he told me he agreed with me, then he wouldn’t have been my boyfriend for very long. Firstly because I don’t date morons (since high school anyway) and secondly because I don’t date people I can’t have a conversation with (also since high school).
And I know you guys that know me are saying to yourselves, “that stupid girl has been dating the same guy since 2003 of course she can say what ‘type’ of guy she dates, it hasn’t changed!” Well, maybe he’s been with me since 2003 because I don’t do weird shit like randomly stop sleeping with him because somebody somewhere is having a hard time getting the morning after pill. Instead, I donate to Planned Parenthood, so they can deal with legislation and I can fuck whenever I want. Although after 8 years, I have news: a week isn’t really that long to wait you guys. A week between sessions is an average for me, not a strike. Yeah, this is your future, college-age feminist. Behold my 7 day dry-spell and despair! I hear it gets even worse if you have kids.
As for the future of activism, where does this weird, inverted quid pro quo stop? Millions of illegal immigrants come from Mexico to America, where they are mistreated and underpaid by greedy employers who are helping to tank the economy by hiring illegals at a fraction of the cost of an American worker. In order to get here, some illegals hike through the desert, a treacherous journey where they must deal with the elements, the animals and the boarder patrol, who can be kind or cruel, depending on their mood. I’m a Mexican American, does that mean that I should abstain from hiking, because the American Government and the Boarder patrol are trying to keep my illegal brothers and sisters from their hike? No, that would be ridiculous.
At first, I was going to use a dishwashing metaphor for that last paragraph, except that not many legislators are actually trying to stop illegals from washing dishes for shitty pay, and I don’t enjoy dishwashing, I consider it a chore. So I had to think of something that I like to do, that other people are currently trying to stop people like me from doing, while not directly affecting me or my life.
I want the “No Access” Strike to be a joke, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t and I feel sad about that. I think a well constructed satire along these lines would probably be more interesting and garner more news coverage than this serious attempt will get. If we had organized all the prostitutes in Washington DC to claim that they would stop having sex with their conservative politico Johns, or if we pretended to be prostitutes and made that claim ourselves, it would be funny, and probably get in the news. But this is just slacktivism to the highest degree. Not only are we not going to do anything useful to help preserve our reproductive rights, we’re not even going to fuck instead. Way to go, guys.
It basically seems like the same old shit where the only power women are acknowledged to have is sexual power over men. It’s old. Like, literally Greek play old. And even in Lysistrata, the women exerted financial pressure as well.