Alyssa Milano tries, she really does. She tries to be an activist and an ally. We need more celebrities like her who are willing to stick their necks out to do what’s right. She showed up at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, she sat there glaring and whispering spells and she usually does the right thing. She also champions for stricter gun legislation. Sometimes she gets it wrong though, like her latest move calling for a “sex strike” to protest the draconian anti-choice laws that are criminalizing abortion. In Georgia the governor just passed a law banning abortion after six weeks, before most women know they’re pregnant. It doesn’t go into effect until 2020 and will hopefully be shot down in court. An even worse bill has been proposed in Alabama. Of course the end game for these horrible people is to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. So over the weekend Alyssa proposed a “sex strike” where women, who are the gatekeepers of sex apparently, will deny it to their CIS male partners in protest. This is of course an idea not originated by Alyssa which dates back to the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata.
Please stop feeding the narrative that women are providers and men are consumers of sex. Bribing men for equal rights with access to our bodies is not how feminism works.
— feminist next door (@emrazz) May 11, 2019
I enjoy sex, it’s not a transaction or a chore, and I’m not going to stop having it because the guy who stole the election from Stacey Abrams hates women. This makes no sense on a lot of levels and there are better ways to be an activist. So many other people explain their issues with this sex strike better than I can though. This action ignores the LGBTQ community while playing right into conservatives’ hands. They don’t want us to have sex for non-procreation purposes, which is why they want to outlaw both birth control and abortion. In fact a lot of maga idiots are thanking Alyssa in the responses to this tweet, while many activists are thoughtfully pointing out the ways she gets this wrong. This also plays into sexist stereotypes that women don’t enjoy sex and that we use it as a negotiation tool.
Doesn't the idea of a sex strike feed the awful trope that heterosexual sex is desired by libidinous men and permitted by tolerant women?
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) May 11, 2019
I feel like the #SexStrike is a subtle confession by straight white liberal women that they are having sex with the absolute worst men
— Eris (@ErisofEliza) May 11, 2019
It still kind of reeks of lesbian and bi erasure though. And as mentioned, it makes it sound like women don't really like sex, and we just think of the flowers to get through it to make the partners in our lives happy. It's gross.
— Sy "Scab of a Nation Driven Insane" Borg (@Human_Sloth) May 11, 2019
I know she’s not going to dial it back, but it would be nice if she issued a clarification saying that this ignores a lot of people’s circumstances. She doesn’t want to admit she’s wrong though or the other side will have a field day, I get it. At least she got more people talking about it, and she got more attention for our cause. She knows this too and retweeted this article about it.
Actress Alyssa Milano ignites social media with a tweet calling for women to join her in a sex strike to protest strict abortion bans passed by GOP-controlled legislatures. https://t.co/vh9y2DyZLt
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 11, 2019
Also kudos to all the filmmakers, producers, writers and actors pledging to boycott Georgia, which has some of the most generous tax deductions in the industry. I know this is not an easy solution when there are entire crews depending on paychecks. Others who don’t want to force their crews to move are making generous donations to the cause.
This is how to use your celebrity – Support organizations taking on the Georgia anti-abortion law. Thank you @JordanPeele & @jjabrams for your allyship. They will fund @ACLUofGA & @fairfightaction. https://t.co/GJK93k1VFu
— Women's March (@womensmarch) May 11, 2019
Where is the outrage against the Georgia forced pregnancy law? Remember HB2 in North Carolina? Where are you @netflix? Where are you @NBA? Where are you @DisneyStudios? It explicitly violates your Standards of Business Conduct. Why the silence? WTF? #boycottgeorgia
— Bradley Whitford (@WhitfordBradley) May 11, 2019
Directors & Producers need to REFUSE to work in films/television shot in Georgia.@ava @AWD_Directors @bergopolis @alliecine @abigaildisney @cassianelwes @TheMaryLambert @diversencannes @FilmFatalesOrg @IssaRae @PattyJenks @lakebell @reedmorano @paulfeig #BoycottGeorgia https://t.co/g7yfSKwdBP
— WomenOccupyHollywood (@WomenOccupyHwd) May 9, 2019
photos credit: WENN
Nope nope nope.
Also it really is tonedeaf to the fact that women are raped every single day.
Couldn’t quite put my finger on why it grossed me out and you’re exactly right, that’s why. Checked her twitter, seems weird how she doubled down on this stance after the backlash, as opposed to maybe acknowledging all of the women who find this… distasteful, to put it lightly.
Don’t Republicans think women can’t get pregnant if they’re being raped? Withholding sex is as ultimately sickening and shockingly stupid as demanding rape sex. Too much? I’m sorry, I get really angry when anyone tells me how to behave sexually lol.
Um Milano is not a republican
Slightly OT, but a celebrity I follow on Twitter said that the women of Georgia should all leave the state and it pissed me off so much (probably more that it should). I replied that the women of Georgia should stay and fight and that people in blue states should fight for them. We’re all in this together! Not everyone can live in a blue state. I’m so fucking tired of out of touch celebrities saying shit like this, even though I know their hearts are in the right place. I live in Alabama. I’ve had an abortion. I’m fighting too. End of rant.
Same here. To all points. Mobile, AL.
Same here. To all points, also. Moss Point, MS. (right next door).
Hi Phat Girl, you’re about 12 miles due west of my house. It gets tiresome when some act like all Southerners are brain dead, gun toting right wingers. Some of us stay here to fight the good fight.
YES. This thread, too: https://twitter.com/pinkrocktopus/status/1126213300537241603
Also, what’s up, fellow I-10 Gulf Coasters?
Thanks for the link-Angela Mayfield has it right. And all of us MS, AL, FL posters need to gear up for 2020. You’ve got that asshat Matt Gaetz, we’ve got pedo Roy Moore talking about running again. I’m not UTD on MS’s pols, but I’m sure they’re equally awful. Also 🤞🏻🤞🏻 for a quiet hurricane season.
Hey Girl!
I live in Alabama too. Lord help us. At least once a day I think the world we be better off if the whole state was just blown right off the map. But I’m still here trying to maintain some semblance of sanity.
The other problem with Alyssa’s sex boycott is that it assumes there are no men that are allies and we know that isn’t true. Did you see Bobby Singleton on the state senate floor when they tried to remove the rape/incest exception? For those of you who didn’t, google him. He went absolutely apesh$t. They had to table the vote until next week. There are a lot of men that stand with us, and I think it’s important to honor that.
It’s really awesome to see so many southerners here.
Any of y’all Bitter Southerners?
This was stupid.
But I’m also not holding JJ Abrams and Jordan Peele up as doing this ‘right’. They shouldn’t be filming there. Hit them where it hurts (the pockets) and THAT’S when you’ll see the biggest change. Sadly, human rights don’t mean nearly as much as money does.
Well, someone read LYSISTRATA in high school & that inspired this. (If you’ve never read it, take a look…Pretty feminist for a 2,400 year-old play.)
That said, it is a ridiculous, impractical idea right now and won’t help.
There is a ton of production & business in Georgia. Boycotting the state will help.
Alabama is about to follow, but it doesn’t have the business profile that GA does.
We have to be focused, smart and unified.
Don’t want to trash Alyssa. I think she means well. But she’s not thinking strategically and we don’t have time for theoretic solutions or symbolism against these increasingly Handmaid’s Tale policies.
p.s. in the 2020 election if somebody tries to tell you “[MY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE] or nobody,” remind them that Trump is packing the states courts every day with people who are all for these policies. And there will be more openings on SCOTUS.
I’m torn about to movie industry boycott, because so many people in production are also against this bill. I wish there was a boycott that would focus on more conservative industries in the state. For instance GA is one of US’s biggest blueberry producers in addition to better know crops such as peaches, peanuts and pecans. There is a Kia plant in west GA. It sucks that a boycott will likely hit Dem. voters harder.
Excellent points. Thank you
If and when America survives the fascist GOP assault, I want every single Republican appointed judge of the last thirty years recalled. I want disbarment for all who bought their way on there or had their way bough (cough KAVANAUGH cough). I want people tried and punished to the fullest extent of the law. I want public embarrassment. I want (figurative) blood. We let the dirty traitors come back to the US with no punishment after the Civil War and with, what, four years of dwindling protections for former enslaved people? No. I want the retribution for law breaking this time to have claws and fangs.
Additionally her comment is tone death to Georgians because the men who support that bill are often married to women who support it to. I’m angry about it, but so is my hubs. I don’t think either one of us should be punished. How would her suggestion help anything? In addition to signing that bill into law, Gov. Kemp just vetoed a bi-partisan law guaranteeing at least 30 min. of recess. He’s only interested with children in utero. Georgian has one of the highest maternal mortality rate in the US, but our state government is making no attempt to combat that.
So basically a bunch of super liberal SoCal men are going to not get to have sex for a while?
Haven’t conservatives been preaching abstinence for years? LOL! She sounds exactly like a republican. Come on Alyssa! Stupid.
I’m baffled. Ohio passed the same exact “heartbeat bill” before Georgia did, where is the national outrage?
And let’s add in Alabama, who almost passed an identical law last week.
Or a similar debate in South Carolina: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article230258089.html
Name a television show or movie that is being produced in Ohio right now. They are hitting with the pocketbook as that is what matters.
The Georgia bill goes MUCH further, from what I have read.
It allows interrogation/prosecution of women who have had miscarriages and makes it a crime to go out-of-state to get an abortion.
If those are included in other bills, I am unaware.
I’m actually a little surprised by how annoyed people are. It’s gotten (or kept) people talking about this horrible law. I think people are taking it too literally; it’s not meant to be seen as a policy proposal. Don’t have sex with people who don’t support reproductive rights!
I was raised in the Bible Belt (the Florida panhandle). I’m married to a Kansan. The women she thinks she’s talking to? The evangelical Protestant women who voted a straight Republican ticket? They’re not listening. This isn’t Lysistrata. (Also, who’s to say their husbands would even notice?)
Frankly, if you have to withhold sex from yourself and your partner as a means of bartering, that says a lot about your relationship.
I think it was more of a rhetorical suggestion. Not every tweet has to be carefully curated to address every issue that exists. I get her point and doubt she thinks it is a real possibility. I’ve got far more important things to be outraged about.
Last week in Ottawa, I was walking past parliament and there was a big anti-choice (I refuse to say pro-life) rally. It took all my strength not to yell at them. I hate that this is still an issue, but I swear if we elect Trump of the North (Andrew Scheer) in October, I will not stop fighting.
I am also from Canada and agree with everything you said. Andrew Scheer is the MP for my riding in Saskatchewan and I really hope he door knocks for this election like he did the last time, I have several things I would like to say.
Alyssa was also firmly team Olivia Munn when she posted about the Fug Girls. Her activism can be amazing but us humans are definitely flawed as well.
I’m completely over her. Yuck.
Her tweets about “I’m trans. I’m a person of color” on International Women’s Day did it for me. ‘Cause, really? No, you freaking aren’t. You’re a white, sheltered, priveledged, wealthy cis woman. You have no idea what women of colour or trans people go through every day.
Whinging on Twitter doesn’t make you a warrior.
You aren’t being an ally when you pretend to understand.
You aren’t being a friend when you talk instead of listen.
The “sex strike” comment is just the cherry on top of her ice cream Sundae of out-of-touch, tone deaf, thoughtless statements.
Frankly, I think her idea has merit.
Hear me out.
It won’t work. But it could and should put people into the mindset that we are in crisis, and we ALL need to step up and do things to change the course of events. We cannot just sit back and live our comfortable lives–we need to sacrifice stuff, or we will lose everything. Of course, the reason it worked in Lysistrata was because all the women were on board, and let me repeat: it worked. They stopped a war! Why? Because women were united in their purpose and took action–even if they themselves didn’t like it or their own partners were already on their side–because unity creates action. Collective bargaining. It isn’t always pretty, but it is an effective tool.
Should women have to do anything to have rights? No. Of course not. But that is not the world we live in. Should women use sex to get what they want? No, but that is also not what this is or could be. The idea of throwing out the old rules–that have obviously not worked–and trying some radical new (and yet ancient) idea is an interesting one, really. Harnessing what little power women currently have to fight the flood of fascism and misogyny is her goal. And, in all fairness, most men, even those who support women, have been pretty quiet in this abortion fight, leaving women to try to fight it alone, and we cannot do it. Men MUST start fighting en masse for women’s rights, and how do we compel them to do that on a grand scale? Make it matter to them. Give them a reason to care, a real reason beyond philosophy or politics. Make it matter to their lives as much as it matters to women. AM is suggesting that this fight will not end unless women take it seriously and take action against it–personal action that will inspire men to take action, too. Voting every couple of years is not going to do it. Tweeting about it is not going to cut it, either. If we keep thinking that anything is too extreme and continue to refuse to even entertain taking steps to protect our rights, they will be lost. It really is that simple.
It would be great if men and women could work *together* to fight fascism and misogyny, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, yet. AM suggests a way to compel men to care. It isn’t the right way, perhaps, but can we find something else that will work, something better? The GOP has set men against women, and in response, we all hop on Alyssa Milano for suggesting we fight fire with fire. Our anger is misplaced.
I think you make some genuinely fair points in your discussion.
You make good points.
I think it’s funny. It’s the plot of “Lysistrata.”
She’s been problematic way too many times, and this is just the latest. (But not too long since her “I am trans” tweet that she refused to apologize for) It’s like I’m torn between wanting to pat her head and say “bless your heart” because at least she’s trying and wanting to throw something at her for the dangerous mixed signals she keeps unintentionally sending.
I’m a Georgian. Telling people to leave the state or to boycott won’t change the laws. Staying here and fighting with us is what will change things. Kemp stole the election from Stacey Abrams and even then he only managed to win by a few percentage points. Telling people to leave when they could stay and establish residency and vote is asinine. We need all the support we can get. I’m not even going to touch on the sex strike. It’s ridiculous and reduces women to sex bots. This issue goes beyond sexual pleasure and ignores victims of rape/incest, transgenders and lesbians.
1. I like sex, a lot. More so than my husband. 2. Plenty of men oppose this too, so why deny them. Or are you lumping all men together and punishing them all because of their gender. In this case you are no better than misogynists who make these laws.
3. Its the 21st century. Women dont have to use sex as a bargaining tool. We have the right to vote, we have jobs and economic freedom, there are better ways to get your point across.
Her statement represents so many of stereotypes and circumstances of women all around the world. I grew up in a culture where the dominant approach to relationships was that a man has to choose you, a woman. And it still is very much alive in Western culture, just look at any rom com. And hence there is this view that a woman is there to pleasure a man and she has to derive pleasure from being chosen by a man, including sexually. The anatomy of the women’s sexual pleasure was never a part of a public conversation it only begins to be included. Men have to work for it and this is usually left out of the conversation. So there are a lot of women who do view sex only as a manipulation tool not something to enjoy themselves. Also there is a persisting view that if man gets the pleasure of of the sex act the woman automatically does too is also very much alive. This ofcourse is not true and most men never bothered to think about sex this way because they never were exposed to this information because women are not allowed to talk about sex and prioritize their own pleasure instead of viewing sex as a tool. And so for women who never do enjoy sex because they are with some ignorant man or someone raised on these kind of stereotypes, I can see how to them it would make sense to withhold sex. Sad, bit probably this explains why she or any other woman would say such a stupid thing. She needs to talk to who ever she is sleeping with and show him a few tricks on how to get her more excited about sex.
AM — ditto to you. In movies and TV, you can recognize when the earth moves for him, but not really for her. Why doesn’t her lover ask her?
Clueless?
Lysistrata is a drama in which women refuse sex to their husbands until the latter decide to make smarter decisions (no war).
If all women would refuse sex to their partners today until those anti-choice laws will be abolished they would be abolished in no time.
A good idea in theory. Men should be made to understand that anti-choice affects them as much as women. Well, it should affect them as much.
Unfortunately too many women are complicit and don’t get this.
Lysistrata is a comedy.
Complicit? My husband is a feminist. Our children are being raised feminist. Denying my husband sex when he demonstrates that he’s my ally and partner everyday doesn’t accomplish much other than to wreck the important intimacy of my healthy relationship.
Please rethink your use of that word, and perhaps your understanding of Lysistrata.
It isn’t just men who want these anti-abortion laws. MANY women are pro life whack jobs.
And there are lots of men who are pro-choice and feminists.
She’s totally riding the social activism PR train.
I can understand why she’d suggest a sex strike as for far too many men we have value only as an object to f**k or a human incubator. It is maddening.
We-e-ell, I do agree, it was stupid. But she’s helping keep the abortion laws in the headlines, right? Since she isn’t the face of a movement or anything, I don’t think her comments can do much damage. I’m okay with her generating a little more discussion, even if I think her post was misguided.
Yeah, that’s a stupid thing, but she’s right that we’re going to have to do something and some of those things are going to have to be far more dramatic than what we’ve been doing. We’re going to have to get college age women voting in higher numbers, and we’re going to have to get word out to how effing draconian these laws are, that CORPSES will have more rights than pregnant women. Planned Parenthood should start naming and shaming forced birthers who have gotten their unwanted pregnancies safely ended. Obstetricians should begin refusing to treat anti choice patients. Etc.
Many somethings need to stop before we’re in full on, no one can pretend otherwise fascism.
Just wanted to update and mention that the Washington Post has a fawning article titled, “Alyssa Milano’s improbable journey from child star to A-list activist” today.
Telling women what to do with their bodies (sex strike) and tweeting about how you’re down with the struggle makes you an A-list activist, apparently.