Kenyan women use sex as a political weapon

Kenyan women, fed up with a feud over who controls the government and wary of violent protests that have claimed 1,500 lives, are turning to a secret weapon: sex, or the lack therefore. A women’s organization in the country has vowed to boycott sex until the coalition government has resolved its differences. They’ve sent emissaries to the wives of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime MInister Raila Odinga, imploring them to take part. And, with the support of NGOs, the women’s group said it will pay prostitutes—estimated at 7,000 in Nairobi’s business district alone—not to offer their services. There’s precedent here, albeit fictional and ancient. In 411 BC Greek playwright’s Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata, a comedy about a sex boycott staged by Athenian women to end the Peloponnesian war.

Financial Times