Cassiopea asbl

The Incomparable Mating Value of Male Creativity
Setting Boundaries and Self-Esteem
How to Feel More Confident About Your Looks
Your Secret Weapon of Attraction
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Major Decisions
Understanding the Nature of Male Attraction

But it wasn’t ancient Greece or South America or a recent sex strike in the Philippines that inspired the Togolese pro-democracy activists. It was the amazing story of Liberia that gave them cause for optimism.

In 2003, the Liberian people had endured 14 years of a brutal civil war that had torn the country apart. The leaders of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace organized a series of nonviolent actions, including a sex strike, demanding an end to the war. The group’s leader, Leymah Gbowe, later won the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, another Liberian woman who was about to make history.

Again, nobody knows just how important a role the no-sex portion of the protests played. But before the year was over, the parties to the conflict signed a peace deal ending the war and laying the groundwork for democratic elections.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/29/opinion/ghitis-sex-strikes/index.html

The reason monogamy prevails is that in a polygynous system men without women rise up. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that women can barter successfully with their vaginas.

112Esau November 9, 2012 at 9:25 am
Susan: In The Quiet Man, Maureen O’Hara refuses to have sex with John Wayne after the wedding until he has stood up to her brother and demanded her dowry. … her plan works, and seeing him dominate her brother drives her wild with desire for him.

Is this an example of the famous phrase, “Let’s you and him fight”? I admit I never really understood the term, but this certainly sounds like it.

I don’t remember if the brother character is also married; but if so, one wonders what effect the fight had on her feelings for him. Male-on-male dominance is, pretty much by definition, a zero-sum game, and every man’s dominant triumph is his opponent’s humiliating retreat. But, then, only losers bother to think about what happens to other losers (cf Charlie Brown).

If I remember the film correctly — back in the broadcast TV days it used to be a St. Patrick’s day staple, and may have single-handedly popularized the cable-knit sweater in America — the John Wayne character is reluctant to fight, not because he is a coward but because he once accidentally killed a man in a boxing match and has since forsworn hitting people. So there can be pretty legitimate reasons for reticence besides cowardice, even if no one bothers to consider them. But, in the end of the story masculinity is restored in the only way that the audience can understand it and all is right with the world.

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