SEX is an extremely powerful negotiating tool. Ever since Salome strutted her funky stuff for a plateful of chops (those would be the rather bristly chops of John the Baptist), women have recognised the power they possess in their pants.

And none more so than the wonderful women of Sirt, a small southern Turkish village, who have banished their husbands from the bedroom until the men provide running water for the thirsty settlement.

The old water system dates back to 1974 and, not unlike the male population of the village, has always been notoriously unreliable, finally giving up all pretence of usefulness at the beginning of this year. Since then the women of Sirt have been forced to queue up in front of a tepid trickling fountain (for "fountain", read "intermittent drip") to fill large unwieldy containers full of water for all their family's bathing, drinking and cooking needs before, in many cases, undertaking a long and tiring trek back home.

Why the men haven't been rolling up their sleeves and doing their bit is not entirely clear. Presumably they have been doing other more manly tasks like drinking beer and scratching their backsides while their wives have been sweating blood doing piffling little things like maintaining the household's essential water supply.

But did the good women of Sirt hold this against their menfolk? You bet they did. After seven months of backbreaking slog they decided enough was enough and - en masse - firmly slammed the bedroom door in their pitiful partners' faces.

"They won't be able to get into our bedrooms until the water runs through the taps," villager Fatma Koru was reported as saying, while grandmother Ayse Sari added: "We are tired of carrying the water. Those who have donkeys are lucky."

No water, no sex was their message and for once in their lives the men didn't need to be told twice. They immediately descended on local officials begging them to fix their broken-down water system or give them the materials to build a new one.

The local bureaucrats passed their plea on to the national bureaucrats - nice to see that red tape is not just a UK problem - and before the desperate Sirt males could say "bring on the donkeys" the dusty wheels of government began to turn in their favour.

Now, a month after their wives laid down the bonking ban, village leader Ibrahim Sari has been told that the powers-that-be have agreed to give the men enough pipes to build a five-mile system connecting their settlement, near the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, to a new water source.

The news was presumably met with much cheering and the unnerving sight of trousers being thrown into the air with glee. Unfortunately, however, the men's triumph was, shall we say, a little premature.

If you remember, the women stipulated that there would be no nookie "until the water runs through the taps" so the men will have to keep it zipped and adhere to the ban with a stiff upper lip (if nothing else) until the work is complete in about a month's time.

Do I feel sorry for them? Not for a second. If only the men had sorted out their village water crisis promptly, they wouldn't now be suffering what looks like being at least two months without so much as a glimpse of their own pillow, never mind any duvet disco dancing. But men are men the world over, which makes it even more vital that the sisters of Sirt decided to do it for themselves - as it were.

So there you have it, a stunning victory, I am sure you will agree, for pants power. But if I might make just a small suggestion: you've got the running water now girls, so why not go for the dishwasher, the Jacuzzi - hell, let's throw caution to the wind ladies and go for the whole darn swimming pool.