Happy Banned Books Week!
To celebrate, I've been reading Lysistrata, a comedy written by Aristophanes around 410 B.C. In this play, the women of Greece are tired of sleeping alone while their men are off fighting the Pelopennesian War. To secure peace, Lysistrata convinces the women of Athens that they should withhold their favors from the men until they stop the war. After much titilation and frustration, presumably a peace agreement is reached and the rest, as they say, is history.
I'm not so sure that sex is a viable weapon to secure an end to today's wars. Sometimes it seems like the interests behind current conflicts get their jollies more by figuratively screwing with people (and the planet), and so have little interest in making love, not war. Then again, there are those who would have us declare war on sex itself.
Sometimes it's awfully hard to believe in evolution.
(Illustration: Lysistrata Defending the Acropolis,
by Aubrey Beardsley)
by Aubrey Beardsley)
Posts
Seems to me the biggest flaw in that strategy today is the number of women waging war, figuratively and literally. Certainly not meant to let men off the hook. Love the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteIn the 21st Century, profit motive trumps physical pleasure, methinks.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I didn't finish that thought. Add: And profit is what war is really about...in this country, at least.
ReplyDeleteIt must be Aubrey Beardsley week or something.
ReplyDeleteRobin Williams said that if women ruled the world there would be no more wars, just heavy negotiations every 28 days.
ReplyDeleteBusiness-wise, sex doesn't sell like it used to, so I would guess that it would not be much of an incentive to halt a war, either.
Mr. C, I agree that there are multiple reasons why Lysistrata's strategy wouldn't work today. I guess, too, that quitting war is like quitting smoking -- you have to really want to do it.
ReplyDeleteJaded, are you saying that the capitalists have even ruined sex for us all?
Brett, why not? (Hmmm...I'd rather look @ Beardsley's art than his own portait!).
Doug, I'd be interested to hear why you say sex doesn't sell like it used to. Seems otherwise.
iw - Indeed & dare I say it, but he does look a little jaded.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't anything left to the imagination, and free porn on the internet has destroyed a lot of the porn business (according to an article in Canadian Business.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/strategy/article.jsp?content=20100927_10019_10019