Review of ‘The Right to Sex’

78 replies

LukewarmCustard · 26/08/2021 20:06

This is a glorious review of the uber-woke book, The Right to Sex, by Amira Srinivasan.
unherd.com/2021/08/what-moden-feminism-is-hiding/

“ If you were a greengrocer in Soviet Czechoslovakia, it would be prudent to display, in your window, a poster proclaiming: “Workers of the world, unite.” This is the famous example Vaclav Havel used, in The Power of the Powerless (1978), to illustrate mass conformity to Communist dogma. Havel’s greengrocer probably never thinks about that slogan, let alone believes it; he puts it obediently in his window to signal compliance with the regime. As Havel puts it: “If he were to refuse, there could be trouble.” I was reminded of Havel’s greengrocer when reading The Right To Sex, a much-lauded new book on women and feminism by Amia Srinivasan”

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allmywhat · 01/09/2021 08:00

I thought that review extremely odd.

But then I read the essay the book is based on, and that too is extremely odd. And now I think the review is on to something. The essay is meandering and incoherent despite the author’s obvious intelligence. The conclusions are woolly.

And there’s an abrupt tone shift when she changes from discussing Eliot Roger and “incels” to discussing the “cotton ceiling” - which she takes seriously in the text as a real problem that lesbians should solve by examining their desires or whatever. But after reading that review I wonder if the abrupt shift in tone is distracting the reader from the smooth transition in topic.

There’s also a bit where she deftly points out the contradiction that transwomen’s sexual desires/identity must never be questioned (and she acknowledges that desire and “identity” aren’t separate!) and yet transwomen expect everyone else to question and interrogate their own desires.

Yet she still mouths all the correct woke orthodoxies. If it’s done on purpose it’s fucking brilliant.

Essay link here

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 26/08/2021 20:19

As much as I disagree with her arguments, Amia Srinivasan does put up a coherent defence of her work when she's interviewed about the book.

She raises some thought-provoking issues (mentioned on other threads).

I'm grateful Srinivasan has created a set of hypotheses and ideas that can form the basis of a discussion. Helen Joyce and others have lamented the lack of a decent argument to deconstruct - in a somewhat tangential and occasionally overlapping sphere, Srinivasan has put forth some ideas and arguments.

Franca123 · 26/08/2021 20:18

Biology, children, love.

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