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The Right to Sex

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2022

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The Right to Sex

By: Amia Srinivasan
Narrated by: Andia Winslow
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Bloomsbury presents The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, read by Andia Winslow.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
BLACKWELL'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2022

Essential lessons on the world we live in, from one of our greatest young thinkers – a guide to what everybody is talking about today

‘Unparalleled and extraordinary . . . A bracing revivification of a crucial lineage in feminist writing’ JIA TOLENTINO

‘I believe Amia Srinivasan’s work will change the world’ KATHERINE RUNDELL

‘Rigorously researched, but written with such spark and verve. The best non-fiction book I have read this year’ PANDORA SYKES

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How should we talk 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.

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 need to interrogate the fraught relationships between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation. We need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon.

Searching, trenchant and extraordinarily original, The Right to Sex is a landmark examination of the politics and ethics of sex in this world, animated by the hope of a different one.©2021 Amia Srinivasan (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Abuse Gender Studies Philosophy Relationships Sexual Abuse & Harassment Social Sciences Discrimination Social justice Socialism Capitalism
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Critic reviews

The best book I’ve read recently … Incredible (Emily Ratajkowski)
Quietly dazzling … A brilliant, rigorous book. [Srinivasan] coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order
I’ve thoroughly audited why anyone should skip The Right to Sex, and I couldn’t think of any reasons. Srinavasan’s work is too interesting to be perfect. It’s superb (Naoise Dolan)
A daring feminist collection . . . Srinivasan accomplishes what she sets out to do: deliver a treatise both ambivalent and discomfiting, one which reveals the inadequacies in what we had imagined to be solutions
Sex has always been a minefield, but surely never more than now. In The Right to Sex, Srinivasan shows us mines I barely knew existed
To say that Srinivasan’s challenging, complex, and – for some – controversial essays are a must-read is a colossal understatement
With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone
Srinivasan demonstrates how the feminist philosopher can emancipate our basic ethical concepts from the stranglehold of patriarchy, capitalism, and state racism – and this is a remarkable and promising effort (Judith Butler, New Statesman)
[This] ambitious, magisterial work stands out in the ongoing tide of dull, girl boss feminism arguing for personal empowerment over collective liberation . . . In a world of easy, one-dimensional answers, [Srinivasan] is unquestionably the real deal
Amia Srinivasan is the most brilliant feminist theorist writing today. Each essay in The Right to Sex is a masterpiece on its own; taken together, they show how learning to think carefully and precisely about the politics of desire is the preeminent ethical project of our time (Merve Emre)
The Right to Sex is absolutely extraordinary. Read it! (Ash Sarkar)
Laser-cut writing and a stunning intellect. If only every writer made this much beautiful sense (Lisa Taddeo, bestselling author of 'Three Women')
Amia Srinivasan’s magnificent first book announces itself as a classic (Professor Samuel Moyn)
Amia Srinivasan reveals both the material opportunities and dead-ends of a century-long conscious trajectory towards female empowerment. The Right to Sex reminds us of the foundational complexities to Women's Liberation ideas and why we are still grappling with them (Sarah Schulman)
Fascinating . . . Amia must be one of the leading thinkers around on the subject of sex and her work is both stimulating and challenging (Helena Kennedy)
All stars
Most relevant
An insightful account of why capitalism, patriarchy and racial injustice continue and why they need to be dismantled together.

Why patriarchy persists

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this is an amazing book, I totally recommend!! For someone new to gender studies, it can be a bit overwhelming. Yet you can take the references and learn more. It is a good starting point.
For people more educated on the matter, it will be easier to read and understand but clarifies very well the connection between gender, sexism, poverty, capitalism, etc. I will definitely buy a hard copy to have at home. Amazing work.

amazing book!

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I first came across Amia Srinivasan in the London Review of Books, in a truly remarkable analysis of the the “Incel” phenomenon, where her key insights included identifying traditional masculinity and its role in sustaining social hierarchy as the real enemy of the incels, as well as questioning the pre-political status accorded to sexual desire. This is repeated here, alongside many other key insights and points - backed up with real statistics and case studies.

Going far outside the usual stories in the press, from Hollywood and Washington, Srinivasan exposes the racial and class tensions in #BelieveHer, the way that even something that seems positive and simple can rebound to the advantage of those at the top of the social hierarchy. Myths, commonly believed but baseless, are exploded, including the classic trope about the false rape-accusing woman. Srinivasan correctly identifies the role of the state as the problem - the enemy of a man accused of rape is not the woman, it is police and prosecutorial misconduct, in the main.

Questions are asked about what we should demand, from the state, from employers, from each other, in a way that goes beyond the really boneheaded rubbish one sees in the press, both by so-called “feminists” or the blowhard micro-penis types one reads in the conservative press, throwing their dummies out of the pram because anyone dares question the privileges of wealthy, white, able-bodied men. For my money this book is a sensitive, nuanced book that everyone, regardless of their perspective, will get something out of.

A vital, necessary book for all

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Brilliant read. Srinivasan deals with highly complex subjects exploring them from all angles challenging you to question your own beliefs and reasoning - what more could you want from philosophy?

Challenging cover of complex subjects

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Such an amazing book. The themes covered in the book are well balanced, and translate completely to so many other areas of inequalities. Loved it!

Amazing

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