Actress Alyssa Milano, who can’t fulfill her threat to boycott Georgia since her TV show contract isn’t up, is trying another strategy to get the state to backtrack its abortion ban. The celebrity activist tweeted on Friday evening that she’s encouraging a sex strike.
“Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy. JOIN ME by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back,” she wrote. “I’m calling for a #SexStrike. Pass it on.”
Our reproductive rights are being erased.
Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy.
JOIN ME by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back.
I’m calling for a #SexStrike. Pass it on. pic.twitter.com/uOgN4FKwpg
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) May 11, 2019
Never mind that her husband, Dave Bugliari, is not one of the Georgia lawmakers for which Milano has so much disdain. The #sexstrike is trending, but Bugliari appears to admit that it’s just a hoax.
hmm..trending #1 and got people talking about the issue? Working just fine. But, you may have missed the point. It’s about women, and their right to make choices about their own health, lives & bodies. Thx 4 checking in @davidwebbshow https://t.co/OjKiWm3JtM
— David Bugliari (@dbugliari) May 11, 2019
Even feminist author Jessica Valenti opposed Milano’s stunt, writing that it’s retrogressive to see a sex strike as a punishment for men, but not for women.
The idea of a #SexStrike – where sex is something men seek and women withhold – is the same regressive model of sexuality that Republican men use to legislate! No thanks.
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) May 11, 2019
The idea of a sex strike dates back thousands of years. In 411 BC, comic playwright Aristophanes put on the first performance of “Lysistrata,” a comedy about women’s scheme to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex. The thirsty men end up caving, and embattled Greek city states find peace.
The message of the play carries because it’s humorous — unlike Milano’s angry and reactionary stunt. It’s absurd to call for a sex strike that no one will participate in. But it’s also dishonest to imply that men only want to ban abortion because they have some power complex about women’s bodies. In fact, polling has consistently indicated for decades that men and women have substantially the same opinions on abortion. In reality, there is no gender gap on abortion. (Women are usually more pro-life, as in that Pew poll, but within the margin of error.)
Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion law, which was signed last week and bans abortion around six weeks into pregnancy, is not about perpetuating the patriarchy. It’s about protecting unborn lives.
Abortion advocates, knowing that they couldn’t stop the law from passing, have searched for increasingly absurd responses to it. One Georgia state representative proposed a “testicular bill of rights” so men could have their “bodies and choice” regulated like women.
None of these antics will change the law, but they make one thing clear: as prenatal science advances, pro-abortion activists are running out of arguments. This latest sophomoric stunt may be the best they can do.
