Sex Strike/Huelga de Sexo

As a freshman university student I had to read Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata. The title character, the wife of a soldier and tired o the continuous wars, convinces the women of threee Greek cities to withhold sex from their husbands in order to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace. Wouldn’t it be great if that were to work today? Of course, we’d have to make sure that Laura was on board with the sex strike. Seriously.

En el primer año de mi carrera universitaria tuve que leer una de las comedias de Aristófanes titulada Lisístrata. El personaje principal de la obra es la esposa de un soldado que, cansada de las continuas guerras logra convencer a las mujeres de tres ciudades griegas a montar una huelga de sexo hasta que sus esposos firmen la paz. Imagínese que maravilloso si fuera tan fácil hoy en día terminar la guerra en Irak. Por su puesto, tendríamos que contar con Laura en la huelga. En serio.

Sex Education

Today I dropped of a couple bags of yarn at the thrift store. It felt great. I walked around to see what was new and came upon this book. I immediately recognized it as a book my parents had used to teach my brother about sex when he finally got around to asking questions.* I especially remember this illustration of the rooster and hen mating because I had seen my Tía Raquel’s hens and roosters doing the same thing when I visited her out in the country.

I couldn’t resist, I had to have it. Upon rereading it I realized that it is a surprisingly good book considering that it was published almost 30 years ago. The original price was $8.95, but I paid a whopping 27 cents for it.

The text that goes with this illustration is: To send the sperm into the hen's body, te rooster climbs onto her back and places his opening against hers. Then his sperm move into the opening in her body.

*He was seven or eight. I, on the other hand, asked when I was three. My mother said that when she said something like “When a mommy and a daddy love each other, their love makes a baby,” I looked at her and said, “Solo usted sabe eso.” The literal translation is “Only you know that,” which means something like “Yeah, right. Tell me another one.”