By Gina Tomaine
How long are you willing to go without sex? What if it were for world peace?
The women of Kenya can answer that question. Last month, they banded together to protest for peace in their country by refusing to have sex.
Some in the West might frown upon the use of sex as a serious political tool. But let's not forget that sex was enough to impeach a president of the United States. It has been making our political headlines for decades and will be for decades to come. So why not harness its massive attention-grabbing power to stop a war?
Though it may have seemed inappropriate to some in the Western world, this unlikely protest was entirely legitimate in Kenya, where women have not enjoyed the rights and privileges we take for granted.
Rape has been a weapon of war for years in Kenya. Conflicts are as likely to mean sexual violations of women as they are to involve physical assaults on men.
Meanwhile, the tenuous power-sharing agreement between the country's president, Mwai Kibaki, and its prime minister, Raila Odinga, has been accompanied by massive civilian unrest and ethnic and political violence. As long as this continues, random warfare will continue to be a part of women's lives.
In these circumstances, the Women's Development Organization of Kenya called on all women to participate - by their non-participation - in the sex boycott for one week. It even reached out to sex workers, who received financial compensation during the protest from the organization's many activist groups.
Interestingly, a similar protest is the subject of Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata. The play's women climb to the top of the Acropolis in Athens and refuse to come down until Greek men cease waging the Peloponnesian War, denying the men sexual satisfaction while simultaneously tempting them by sending out the most gorgeous women as peace emissaries.
Facing this unbearable ultimatum, the men resolve their political differences and declare peace by Act III.
Kenya's modern-day bedroom ban was probably more successful as a publicity stunt than as an actual means of negotiating terms as in Lysistrata. It allowed women to spotlight their plight rather than directly coercing men to act.
The protest was unconventional, but that does not mean it was illegitimate. In addition to bringing a sharp female voice to the struggle for peace in Kenya, it did something perhaps even more vital for a country in times of political division: It united the people.
By making a common appeal to all women, from sex workers to the wives of the prime minister and president, the protest crossed both social class and deep ethnic divisions. Even Ida Odinga, the wife of the prime minister, stoutly promised CNN that she was "100 percent" supportive of the protest.
In America, a hope movement worked to break down boundaries. Kenya's no-sex movement, though unconventional, was no less positive and valuable.
Gina Tomaine is a senior majoring in English and economics at St. Joseph's University and a member of The Inquirer's Off Campus board of contributors.
She can be contacted at gina.tomaine@gmail.com.
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