The Right to Sex

Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

By: Amia Srinivasan

Narrated by: Andia Winslow

Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

“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 writing: Srinivasan is daring, compassionate, and in relentless search of a new frame.” —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion

Thrilling, sharp, and deeply humane, philosopher Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex: 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 Sex: 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

©2021 Amia Srinivasan (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2021

National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, 2021

Boston Globe Best Books of the Year, 2021

Intriguing

Intriguing views on a widely (and heatedly) debated, but poorly analysed current phenomenon. Certainly worth hearing.

Fabulous

Fantastic set of essays on contemporary feminism. Highly recommend for anyone interested in a map of feminist debates and a set of subtle and careful arguments.

Great listen

This book is so intelligently written. It dwells in a lot of nuance, but nothing in the past couple of years has made me think as hard about my own views on feminism and how we all interact with our own spaces of gender and sexuality.

Provides great political history and current event examples of how our relationship to these issues is ever present.

Great narration is a bonus. This should be required reading for everyone.

mind blowing

this book really opened up my mind in terms of sexuality. quick listen, really thought provoking.

Well Worth the Read

A fascinating analysis that focuses on key points of feminist debate in the 21st century. An incredible read that truly grapples with the issues faced by modern women and other marginalized groups. I would recommend this book to almost anyone, although it will be a more difficult read for anyone not familiar with the basics of feminist theory and history. Performance is a little dry but that’s typical of nonfiction audio books.

1*

This book is not my thing, I don’t like someone tell me the way how I have to think or feel or act. Aggressive, feminine, negative.