Women on sex strike in Colombian village

In my endless wanderings through the dense forests of internet content, I stumbled upon a rather amusing story coming out of Colombia.

Heard of Lysistrata? She’s a woman from Greek literature that effectively ended a war by convincing the women of Ancient Greece to deprive their lovers of sex. The play, named after its eponymous hero and written by Aristophanes, is notable for its use of sexual innuendos and is essentially a comedy. This is not, however, how it has been read by the women of Barbacoas.

Nope, in Barbacoas, near the Pacific Coast of our beloved Colombia, hundreds of women have taken inspiration from the Ancient Greek play and gone on a sex strike. The aim of the strike, far from merely ending a war, is to encourage the men of the village to lobby the local council into fixing a road that connects Barbaboas to the rest of the country. Right now a journey of just 30 miles can take over 10 hours for residents, making communications hard. Difficulties have been compounded recently by El Niño, the infamous rain season that has swept much of Colombia and left the already-precarious dirt-track as something more closely resembling a swamp.

In 2006, in Pereira, a city in Colombia’s Coffee Triangle, a group of women also participated in a sex strike in order to convince their men to participate in a local disarmament program. Looks like Ancient Greek mythology is very popular amongst the female townspeople of Colombia.

On the one hand, I wonder if it works; on the other, I hope I never have to find out.

Paul