Darling, Can You Do Something for Kenya?

An attempt to exchange sex for democratic reform. Women’s groups in Kenya hope a seven-day sex strike will end the political impasse between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. (Kibaki and Odinga formed an uneasy leadership coalition in February 2008, following disputed elections that catalyzed widespreadviolence across the country. Many fear the current political deadlock will provoke further violence.)

As the BBC reported, campaign organizers hope that their sex strike will focus (male) minds on the need for political cooperation, and that the effects of enforced chastity will be felt in the bedrooms of power:

The Women’s Development Organisation coalition imposed the sex boycott on Wednesday and urged Mrs Odinga and Mrs Kibaki to join them.

Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

“Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: ‘Darling can you do something for Kenya?’”

Reporting for CNN, Faith Karimi noted that Mrs Odinga had pledged “100% support” for the campaign:

“I will not get into what my husband thinks,” she said, chuckling, “but I will say leaders need to focus on the things that affect our people, and I hope the publicity from this campaign will raise awareness on those issues.”

Unsurprisingly, the campaign has proved controversial – not least because public discussion of sex has long been taboo in Kenya. Furthermore, it has been intimated that some women have been beaten by their husbands for denying them their conjugal rights.

(As Susan Anyangu noted in The Standard, Kenya’s sex boycott has recent, and historic, precedents. In March 2003, thousands of actresses across the world protested against the invasion of Iraq by staging readings from Aristophanes’ anti-war play, “Lysistrata,” and adopting the peace-keeping tactics of the play’s heroines – vowing to forgo sex. In December 2008, hundreds of women in Naples promised to withhold sexual favors if their menfolk persisted in letting off dangerous fireworks.)