Spike Lee’s latest movie takes place in my old neighborhood of South Chicago. The girlfriend of a gang leader persuades other women to abstain from sex until their men agree to end the senseless cycle of violence. Not a new idea of course, it is based on the classical Greek comedy Lysistrata where women withhold physical affection from their husbands who have been fighting a long war. They may have phrased it differently than “no peace – no piece’ but the sentiment was the same.

In my latest book, Sex, Lies & Negotiation Techniques, I mention a number of times in history where women employed this negotiation technique:

Liberia in 2003
Columbia in 2006, called “La Huelga de las piernas Cruzadas (the strike of the crossed legs)
Kenya in 2009
In Naples in 2009 for New Years Eve, hundreds of women pledged to have their husbands sleep on the sofa unless action was taken to stop the injuries resulting from fireworks (You can make your own joke about the fireworks 🙂
Women in rural Mindinao in the Philippines staged a strike of several weeks, trying to stop the violence between two village
In Togo in 2012, women used the technique to motivate men for political action

Perhaps you are curious about the same strikes by men that lasted longer than 6 hours? Here is a list:

That’s right men, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.