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The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
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About This Book
"Laser-cut writing and a stunning intellect. If only every writer made this much beautiful sense." ―Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women "Amia Srinivasan is an unparalleled and extraordinary writer―no one X-rays an argument, a desire, a contradiction, a defense mechanism quite like her. In stripping the new politics of sex and power down to its fundamental and sometimes clashing principles, The Right to Sex is a bracing revivification of a crucial lineage in feminist Srinivasan is daring, compassionate, and in relentless search of a new frame." ―Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Reflections on Self Delusion Thrilling, sharp, and deeply humane, philosopher Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Feminism in the Twenty-First Century upends the way we discuss―or avoid discussing―the problems and politics of sex. How should we think about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart. How should we talk about sex? Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity ― its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power ― we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted. We do not know the future of sex―but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan's stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships―between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation. The Right to Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.
Reviews
"However one goes about it, urging others to change their desires risks accusations of moralizing."
"On any given page, Srinivasan will leave you feeling convinced she has found a way out, only to pull the rug out from under you; whenever she says 'but,' one wants to duck."
"And not only as an object of romantic or sexual desire, but as a refutation of the horror and disgust that whiteness and patriarchy instruct us to feel about Black people, fat people, and ourselves ..."
"In 'The Right to Sex,' Srinivasan is temperate and scholarly, treading lightly as she builds her argument."
"Titillating chapter titles such as 'On Not Sleeping With Your Students' seem unnecessarily performative."
"The Right to Sex...engages with some of the most complex hot-button cultural issues to emerge around sex and consent in the 21st century."
"Featuring excellent criticism of subjects such as carceral solutions and sex education, this is a vital, compelling collection."
"The Right to Sex is an exciting example of new thinking in feminist political theory as well as a work of feminist intellectual history—a project of recovery and preservation, like so many feminist projects before it ..."
"She is at her strongest when demystifying it as a framework that attacks the system rather than 'men' as a group."
"I also found the treatment of LGBT+ activism woven a little too neatly into a general narrative of feminist achievement ..."
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