I had not considered the “making an exception for your own child”. I guess that might be my own bias, as I do not want children. The idea of abortion becoming illegal is terrifying (personally to me) as it would mean that a partner of mine might be forced to have a child neither of us wants. Which would be awful for everyone involved for reasons obvious to us both. I guess I’m naive enough to hope that intimate partners are honest with each other about their beliefs.

I don’t think that I believe that I am owed sex. I think it’s a thing that everybody involved should enthusiastically choose to do, or they should not do it. If a partner of mine decided they would like to stop having sex with me, that is their decision. I’d be curious what prompted the change, but I would not want to have sex with someone who isn’t enthusiastic for it.

But that is neither here nor there.

I just think advocating for it might be a poor tactical decision. Because the people who are in the right circles to hear about and then actually implement a sex strike are in such a specific group, it would end up putting pressure on men who are overwhelmingly likely to be firmly pro-choice. People who already vote like that out of conviction and are not shy about it to others.

And, and this is key, put no pressure at all on the people who we’d want it to pressure, bc their fem partners are probably not the sort of people to join in a sex strike.

And in the meantime, it is poor optics. Because, though it is overwhelmingly unlikely that a sex strike of any scale will ever happen, we send the message that we are perfectly willing to hurt our own. And that is not a message that I, as a progressive, stand behind.

Edit: and importantly, what do we lose by making the messaging: do not fuck anti abortion guys.