Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Aristophanes wrote fiction

It is simply incredible how often women refer to Lysistrata as if it is actual Greek history, rather than something more akin to the Wonder Woman comic from Marvel.  It's as if men were to seriously argue that the legal system should be modified according to criminal justice in Star Trek:
Most of the women I spoke to have resigned themselves to the fact that the hook-up culture is here to stay. They don't see the social and cultural landscape of college campuses changing anytime soon.

One friend tells me that the girls on campus would prefer a culture of dating to one of hooking up, but they would never admit it or ask for it. If girls demanded dating before hooking up, guys would be unmoved, she explained. "There are always going to be other girls for them to hook up with so we'll just get left behind."

These women are looking at the problem the wrong way, I think. They need to realize that, in spite of campus sex ratios and prevailing cultural trends, they hold the power when it comes to the hook up culture. They hold the power when it comes to sex.

This was the insight of Lysistrata, the shrewd heroine of Aristophanes' marvelous play by the same name. Lysistrata was able to diagnose a problem in her society and to take actions and overcome obstacles to solve it.

In the heat of the Peloponnesian War, Lysistrata gathered the women of various Greek city-states at a meeting and proposed that they withhold sex from their husbands until these men end the war. The women, though reluctant at first, agree. Throughout the play, though they desire sex just like the men do, they resist the temptation to break their oath with Lysistrata. The Athenian and Spartan men eventually become so desperate for sex that they begin peace talks. The women's strategy works.

Lysistrata, a tough and independent woman, understood how the sexual marketplace works, and harnessed that knowledge to get what she wanted. Many men want sex with women. As Lysistrata knew, women have the power to say yes—or no (assuming men respect their wishes, of course. There are far too many examples of times men disregard women's "no"s). They set and execute the terms to which the men surrender.
Just to be clear, the Peloponnesian War didn't end with peace talks between Athenian and Spartan men brought about by a sex strike.  One would have to be astonishingly ignorant of Greek culture to imagine that a sex strike by women could have brought the ephebophiles of either Athens or Sparta to its knees.  The war actually ended following a long siege of Athens by Sparta, which ended with Athens having its walls torn down, its navy destroyed, and its empire dismantled.

Ironically, Lysistrata was published only two years after the loss of thirty thousand sailors and ten thousand hoplites at Syracuse, which was the real cause of the Athenian defeat.

As for the hookup culture, feminists are entirely to blame.  The excess supply of women on college campuses and the corresponding increase in male value is a direct and obvious consequence of the decades-long campaign to encourage more women to pursue academic credentials.  Game theory, economics, and cartel history all suffice to explain that although women collectively hold the power when it comes to sex, individual women will never refrain from making themselves sexually available to men in female-majority scenarios.

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