Unleashing the Power of Sexual Abstinence

Speaking from little experience, I can imagine that sometimes the headache and time-of-the-month excuses just don’t work. This seems to be a reflection of the obsessive world around us--sex is everywhere and influences everything. Birds do it, bees do it, and then TV talk-show hosts talk about it, so why not? Sex sex sex. Is the noble cause of celibacy extinct?

The answer may be no, as Anne O’Faulk’s refreshingly sex-free yet sexy novel, “Holding Out” (Simon & Schuster), demonstrates.

When the wife of a Supreme Court justice commits suicide to end years of spousal abuse, closet feminist Lauren Fontaine is saddened. When Congress refuses to impeach the justice or even bring him to trial, the successful corporate executive is outraged. Fontaine urges the women of America to protest, asking for them to go on strike. Not from their jobs and in the workplace, but at home and in the bedroom. Fontaine invokes the idea first presented by Lysistrata in the ancient Greek play by Aristophanes, asking for a simple abstention from what our entire society, culture and almost all commercial industries thrive upon: nooky.

A hard-working, high-rolling trader accustomed to both the gambling excitement of Wall Street and the chauvinistic ways of her male co-workers, Fontaine had further ascended the ranks of financial success by becoming a managing partner of a large firm inAtlanta. A sharp-witted, outgoing but completely unknown single mother of one, Fontaine becomes the sudden and surprising leader of the feminist movement. She courageously claws her nicely manicured nails into the stodgy sexist necks attached to the heads of the judicial and legislative branches. Fontaine comes to define the term “overnight sensation,” catapulted into the haphazard world of the rightfully bitchy and unintentionally famous.

Also familiar with the corporate world and herself a mother of one, O’Faulk creates a protagonist who reflects both her own wit and striking appearance (check out the book cover). “Holding Out” is unrestrained in its female bravado, reaffirming sisterhood in a quick, entertaining read that flows with the snap and dramatic flair of a movie.

Fontaine calls for the women of America to don a figurative and political chastity belt, refusing to give men the key until the horrid Supreme Court justice is impeached. Does her cause succeed? Is sex really a tool of power?

Read O’Faulk’s novel and find out. Here’s a hint: Fontaine’s cause does drive the male half of the country crazy, forcing men on their knees in desperation. Proof positive that if you’ve ever wanted to assert dominance in the bedroom, you don’t need a meat cleaver to do so. Or an interview with Ed Bradley.