Oh dear, yet another ill-informed rant about literature. Is it time to wheel out Mrs Schofield's GCSE again?
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare's Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt's death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.
As Carol Ann Duffy points out, literature has dealt with such issues forever. Donnie - you could go back further than Chaucer and bring in Aristophanes' Lysistrata in which the women of Greece go on a sex strike in an attempt to convince their husbands to negotiate a peace treaty during the Peloponnesian war. The stage directions and dialogue indicate that the men have erections in some scenes.