I was quoted recently in an Iowa State Daily article about a Web site started up by Columbia University graduates that is asking young people to agree to not have sex on Nov. 2 with anyone who has not voted in that election.

I’ve gotten many e-mails and a bunch of phone calls including some by people who felt strongly that I should have condemned this initiative because it will lead to “frivolous” sex and it “demeans” the election process.

One college student wrote that this sounds just like “Lysistrata,” Aristophanes’ pacifist play, which was written 21 years into the Peloponnesian Wars. The play had a similar theme of the women of Athens getting tired of losing their sons on the battlefield against Sparta and conspiring to deny their husbands sex until they made peace.

My response on sex and voting has been consistent: Many young people have casual sex, and connecting sex to voting is probably not going to result in a single new person having casual sex.

On the matter of frivolous activity demeaning elections: This year over 30 percent of Americans will vote by absentee ballots mailed to them.

Hundreds of thousands will have “voting parties” where they will consume beverages, eat shrimp, popcorn, burgers and then sit around as a group and vote.

In some cases, people apparently will try to talk others into voting “their way” much like in the Iowa caucuses. That’s more weird than sex and voting because voting is supposed to be a confidential and private act and absentee ballots in some poor neighborhoods will probably result in votes being sold to agents of the politicians running. Also over $1 billion spent for the 2004 presidential election is truly obscene!

We are living in a difficult and strange time when it comes to politics! Voting and sex is a gimmick intended to call attention to the need to vote.

Steffen Schmidt

University Professor

Political Science