In a previous American Literature class that I took we had to read this story about how the Athenian women used sex to strike against a war. I loved this story because it was really funny and lust driven. This story is one of the eleven surviving plays written by Aristophanes.
The Athenian women wanted to end the Peloponnesian war so they had a planned meeting to discuss how they were going to end it. Lysistrata insisted that the women use sex against their husbands so they would give in and sign a treaty for peace. In the play there are two choruses, one of old men of Athens and one of old women of Athens. Through out the play they sign back and forth funny versus fighting for and rebelling against sex. The men of Athens all carrying wood plan on smoking out the women of Athens but they are carrying pitchers of water to put out their flames. This was one of the comical parts of the story. They used wood and fire to represent the men's burning desire to have sex with their wives and the old women of Athens used water to represent their way of putting out their burning desire to have sex.
After the lack of sex starts to take over the men, Kinesias approaches his wife wanting to have intercourse, his wife Myrrhine sets and visits with her husband but is trying to avoid his many attempts to have intercourse. She constantly leaves pretending she has to go and get something to make them more comfortable. It's funny because he is laying on the cot and she constantly is leaving to get something. First it was a cot, then it was a mattress, a pillow and cologne. The whole time her husband is laying on the cot begging for her to stop bringing him things and just to come and lay down.
In the end the women of Athens win the war and the men beg for a treaty. Spartan claims it is needed for his desperate countrymen. Lysistrata even manages to get another peace for the states of Greece.
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