* AlternateAesopInterpretation: The stated aesop in ''Lysistrata'' might be interpreted as stating that if Athens and Sparta teamed up instead of fighting each other, they would be unstoppable and have the rest of Greece at their mercy. In modern times, the play is generally considered to have a pacifist and/or feminist message. These are justified in so far as the play does portray the war as hurting both sides and acknowledges (albeit in a humorous way) that war has a toll on female civilians. However, given [[ValuesDissonance the Ancient Greek opinions of women]], it seems that his message was more like, "Even women are smart enough to know this war is bad."
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: Pretty much the entire play. The lengths that the men go to to end the war so that their wives will have sex with them again is hysterical.
** Midway through, the Athenian women start breaking ranks and [[INeedToGoIronMyDog pleading various excuses]] to go home to their husbands. One of them stuffs Athena's brass helmet under her clothes and insists that she's pregnant.
--->'''Lysistrata:''' ''(tapping her 'baby bump')'' There's something hard here.\\
'''Woman:''' I'm going to have a boy.
** Myrrhine drives her husband nearly to distraction by agreeing to have sex with him -- once they have a bed... [[HurricaneOfExcuses and a mattress... and a pillow... and a sheet... and some lotion... and some oil...]] anything she can think of. Then she scampers off anyway when she runs out of items to suggest and clothing to take off.
** The entire scene with Reconciliation, where the pent-up Athenians and Spartans manage to negotiate a settlement ''very'' quickly with a naked woman to serve as their map. For a bonus, there are a lot of jokes about Spartans preferring to play the "back nine".
* HarsherInHindsight: The same year the play came out, people displeased with the management of the Peloponnesian War actually did seize power in Athens--but rather than the city's womenfolk, they were noblemen, and their plan to fix things involved [[DemocracyIsBad ending Athenian democracy]]. Fortunately, [[DystopiaIsHard it was restored a few months later]], but the idea of Lysistrata seizing control of the acropolis probably wouldn't have gotten as many laughs if it had been performed a year later. However...
* HilariousInHindsight: The leader of the real coup was [[ReallyGetsAround the least likely]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades person in Ancient Greece]] to perform a LysistrataGambit.
* {{Squick}}: Some of the... ''detailed'' descriptions of the effect the men's sexual frustration was having on their private parts.
* ValuesDissonance: A lot of modern readers interpret the play as being feminist and/or pacifist, but it was definitely not the former and only partially the latter. The play was funny (at the time) because the following things were absurd in Aristophanes' day: 1) women being out in public at all, let alone taking a hand in civic affairs; 2) women being able to abstain from sex; and 3) men -- who had access to boys, slaves, and prostitutes -- being driven mad by not being able to have sex with their ''wives''. Further, while ''Lysistrata'' does portray the end of the Peloponnesian War as the main goal, it's because the war has been protracted and mismanaged, not because peace is good in and of itself.
* ValuesResonance:
** The play became popular during the Iraq War for the emphasis on peace being stopped by corrupt politicians.
** Lysistrata's speech about how women pay the cost of war -- wives may lose their husbands, mothers may lose their sons, and girls may lose any chance to get married at all -- remains timeless no matter what wars are being fought and what they're being fought with.
* {{Woolseyism}}: The decision of one translator of ''Lysistrata'' to call the organization of Obstructive Bureaucrats the "Committee of Public Safety", historically the name of the French Revolution government better known as "The Terror". As obviously anachronistic as this may be, given that Athens's government was somewhat similar to Robespierre's and that the modern reader would be unlikely to know much about the real organization, the translated name seems appropriate.
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