The Right to Sex

May 1, 2021

Features editor and a tech reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek, Chafkin tells the story of The Contrarian, that is, billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who has significantly influenced the course of Silicon Valley. Columbia history/journalism professor Cobb and New Yorker editor Remnick illuminate The Matter of Black Lives in pieces collected from the magazine, starting with Rebecca West's account of a lynching trial and James Baldwin's "Letter from a Region in My Mind" and moving on to embrace works by Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Zadie Smith, Hilton Als, Jamaica Kincaid, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., among others (100,000-copy first printing). Having left behind her hometown in England's declining coal-mining region when her father declared There's Nothing for You Here, Brookings senior fellow Hill--now an American citizen and a former member of the National Security Council--draws on her extensive national intelligence work in Russia to warn that America's rocky situation today mirrors circumstances that led to Russia's socioeconomic decline (100,000-copy first printing). Rejecting the view that humans are irredeemably off-the-wall in their thinking (we have elucidated the laws of nature, for instance), two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Pinker argues in Rationality that we don't avail ourselves of logic in many everyday situations because we don't really need to. But we can learn how to think more logically, even as we recognize that some rational acts (he cites self-interest) can lead to damaging irrationality for society. Oxford professor Srinivasan's The Right to Sex talks about talking about sex in the #MeToo era, stating, for instance, that we need to deepen the prevailing concept of consent into something more nuanced (50,000-copy first printing). Award-winning journalist Streep's Brothers on Three revisit the players, families, and community that celebrated when the Arlee Warriors brought home the high school basketball state championship title to the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana (75,000-copy first printing).

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Starred review from July 5, 2021
Philosopher Srinivasan debuts with a fascinating collection of essays on issues facing the feminist movement today. Calling on feminism to be “relentlessly truth-telling, not least about itself,” Srinivasan discusses consent, intersectionality, misogyny, and gendered violence, among other topics. In “The Conspiracy Against Men,” she points out that false rape accusations are more often made by law enforcement officials (in an attempt to convict the wrong suspect for an actual crime) than by women, and describes the slogan “Believe women” as both a “corrective norm” to a legal system that skews in favor of wealthy white men and a “blunt tool” that obscures how race, class, religion, and other factors affect the handling of sexual assault allegations. In “Talking to My Students About Porn,” Srinivasan revisits the anti-porn/pro-sex debates of the 1980s and early ’90s in light of how digital pornography has become a “built-in feature” of her students’ lives. Throughout, Srinivasan returns to the question of who has power, and how it is wielded to protect the status quo, rather than to remake the world as a fairer and more equitable place. Marked by lucid prose, innovative thinking, and a penchant for resisting easy answers, this is a must-read. Agent: Amelia Atlas, ICM Partners.

August 1, 2021
Potent, thought-provoking ruminations on feminism as a political movement capable of eradicating the subordination of women. Responding primarily to situations in the U.S. and the U.K., Srinivasan, a professor of social and political theory at Oxford, presents a series of essays with titles like "Coda: The Politics of Desire," "On Not Sleeping With Your Students," and the titular "The Right to Sex," a version of which first appeared in the London Review of Books. "There is no right to sex," writes the author early on. "To think otherwise is to think like a rapist." In "The Conspiracy Against Men," she continues, "there is no general conspiracy against men. But there is a conspiracy against certain classes of men." This collection contains a staggering amount of research; the notes and bibliography sections span nearly 100 pages, and each essay contains citations from numerous scholars and writers: Ida B. Wells, Kimberl� Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Ellen Willis, Andrea Long Chu, Audre Lorde, Catharine A. MacKinnon, and dozens more. Srinivasan addresses pornography, delineating its role in anti- and pro-sex feminist debates as well as sharing her experience of asking her undergraduate students if porn bears "responsibility for the objectification of women, for the marginalisation of women, for sexual violence against women." (Their emphatic answer is yes.) The author twice quotes Robin Morgan's declaration that "pornography is the theory, and rape the practice." Of the unilateral injunction to believe women ("a blunt tool"), Srinivasan argues that "when factors other than gender--race, class, religion, immigration, status, sexuality--come into play, it is far from clear to whom we owe a gesture of epistemic solidarity." Throughout, Srinivasan considers significant, pressing questions: "Can a working-class movement afford not to be anti-racist?" "Where does morality end and moralising begin?" "Whom, exactly...did the sexual revolution set free?" Featuring excellent criticism of subjects such as carceral solutions and sex education, this is a vital, compelling collection.

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Starred review from August 1, 2021
"Feminism must be relentlessly truth-telling, not least about itself," writes Srinivasan, Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford, in her first book-length collection of essays. Approaching each of her topics, Srinivasan orients readers with care, nuance, and intersectionality. Her approach is itself a political act, eschewing any feminism showcasing commonality, as such broad-stroke painting is always at the painful expense of some women, which is not the work of twenty-first century feminism. She considers the "problem" of false rape accusations and what pornography reveals about the construction of desire. She offers careful readings of the pseudo-apologies of some men, accurately exposed by #MeToo, claiming that the real problem is not their behavior but the--supposedly--outsized consequences applied to their behavior. Why, she asks, does the clarity regarding the prohibition on therapists having sex with patients not overlay onto professors having sex with students? To accompany Srinivasan on her thought-work into unpacking, questioning, considering, contextualizing, and deepening contemporary feminist issues is to be stretched into new shapes that the world needs. Srinivasan's powerful thinking is matched by her powerful language, often striking like an electric revelation at the core of an issue. This is required reading.

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August 1, 2021

In this sharp and thoughtful collection of essays about attitudes towards sex, philosopher Srinivasan (social and political theory, Oxford Univ.) takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture regarding how these attitudes are formed and how they affect people's lives. She draws on her experience, as a professor and an observer of feminist movements over time, to cover topics as wide-ranging as consent, incels, pornography, online dating, racial bias in dating preferences, punishment of sex crimes, and student-teacher relationships. Srinivasan doesn't back away from uncomfortable moments and offers a reasoned, multifaceted analysis that may change the simplistic ways we sometimes view such issues. The attitudes she discusses are mostly rooted in Western mores, but she connects sex crimes, cultural norms, and gender violence to broader general systems of oppression. Ideas from other scholars, activists, and journalists are expertly woven into her essays, making for a rich and balanced narrative that is fascinating to read. VERDICT This exceptionally well-written collection is among the most insightful works yet about sex in modern culture. It effectively merges academic analysis with lived experience in an accessible read that will interest readers from diverse professional and personal backgrounds.--Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell

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