A landmark book on sexual politics from Amia Srinivasan, the leading young intellectual behind the viral London Review of Books essay 'Does anyone have the right to sex?'

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER BLACKWELL'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 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 ------------------------- 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. 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 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. SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE 2022

"Quietly dazzling … A brilliant, rigorous book. [Srinivasan] coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order" - New York Times

"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" - Irish Times

"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" - Guardian

"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" - Sunday Times

"To say that Srinivasan’s challenging, complex, and – for some – controversial essays are a must-read is a colossal understatement" - DAZED

"With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone" - Observer

"[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" - Vogue