Rita’s review of The Right to Sex > Likes and Comments
260 likes · Like
Penny wrote: "This line sums it up: "perhaps the issue is that this book is borne of academia, sensitive to but many levels detached from the very real material needs of the vulnerable people it discusses."
As ..."
I'm really sorry that this book/review brought up a lot of emotions for you, but I don't think this is a fair representation of Srinivasan's positions at all. I find it a bit odd that you chose to write this response to my review, since it's saying something very different to what I was saying. I'm happy for you to express your own opinions on the book, but in case anyone else comes across it on my profile, I just want to make it clear that I did not interpret it the way you did.
Hi Rita, thanks for writing the review, really gave a context to look at the book through. For someone like me just who is just beginning to engage with these topics what other books would you recommend ? Essays with personal involvement are some of fav style of writing as well.
@Penny…I wish more people could read what you wrote. I hope you are doing well ❤️
she isnt interested in this i dont think? i had a lot of issues with her dworkin assesment because i dont think it's rigorous in antogonizing white imaginations. i think your observations are great but as a diff perspective: it's a direct response to late capitalism/modernity/postmodern. (btw i recommend kadji amin for a queer theory kind of reivew on the postmdoern and then mariame kaba on carcerality if you havent!) but shes also a philosopher and i tried to read her work on cartesian stuff but it's hard for me to undesrtand. my point is that this is indeed feminism critique and thought and also philosophy but in her preface she says just this: questions to these things that many havent brought up before. and she's rigth unfortunately because the depth of this book alone is actaully little in comparison to the heaviness of postmodernity andthe callback to the 90s. i think it would be helpful to also engage with amin's work and people like guy davidson. i hate that it's actualyl really hard to find all this which i would love to see more critique of because the scholarly work has been fragmented. btw she mentions it in the book just on how hard it is to find this work since the liberation adn sex wars because it WAS in the feminist domain but post-willis it became more and more abstracted. i also think it' snecessary that she engages with it as detached so the idea is that she isnt moralizing. plus, the work shes engaging with does this very same. she published the right to sex in...i forgot and i reember seeing it for the first time back then but they arent personal essays just essays. i havent read morrison's work but. and in her book beacaue they are /essays/ she isnt doing this as a critique. on top of that i think the confusion is necessary because of the heaviness of the subject as a whole; she also does labor work IRL which is important majorly—i kinda wonder why we have to be emotional wrt this not because pain is absent but because women are accused of so much at once that her emotionality woudl be a cause for concern. ultimately the people she references that are in opposition to her are those that constructed the sex positivist or the liberationist (sex rev, gay lib, "queer theory") that prioritize male asociality, phallocentricism, androcentrism. they talk about their antisocial or utopic freedom and i think she's just more acerbic and biting anyway. her notes are funny and when she called rodgers a creep i laughed! anyway i am on the sleeping with professors and yea idk. i think it's great but i understand your ideas! at first i didnt realize they were essays liek that and was expecting a theory book (thank god it wasnt bc im already doing enough defining) so i was at first jarred by te easier flow of words but the lack of personal touch and i think these were scatters of her submissions into other journals as well or from dissertations etc and then previous work from her philosophy book! i love that you were thinking about this though bc i have been STRUGGLING with getting even a decent account of my anger when reading about sex and history formation eetc wrt everything esp as a BW that i felt fucking insane. in her preface she says "this may ease some of the way you feel but couldnt articulate" and i felt a breath of fresh air i think because even though I Knew what I Knew i was so terrified of doing the same anti sex work moralizing bullshit while saying it's in defense of the women i lvoe of my community. anyways!!!!!
Maybe you should read Virginie Despestes for sthg mind-blowing if you haven't yet ?
I likewise felt that most of Srinivasan’s conclusions were relatively unsurprising. She seems to admit as much herself. At the same time, I also admire her enormously and feel she courageously makes plain that the logic of patriarchy is self-sabotaging, absurd and arbitrary.
It’s worth appreciating the massively understated work that she’s doing in bringing the fight to men, especially the context in which she’s doing it: at Oxford of all places, historically a bastion of male domination! For so long it has been “logic” (or, rather the insinuation that challenging the logic inherent in the status quo was to commit to an irrational position) which kept many women from considering some of the views Srinivasan holds.
I like how you said you weren’t sure you were the target audience. I studied philosophy as an undergraduate and I was surprised to find myself wondering the same thing. But then I thought: is it more unsurprising that most women would already know these things, or that our male-dominant culture would prefer we continue to see sexism, racism, and classism as merely fixed parts of a static landscape.
That surprise should allude us so thoroughly in this way is, I think, at the heart of Amia's argument. We are so conditioned to accept the desires picked for us that we are largely unable to imagine new ones, ones that we can choose for ourselves.
I share your lamentation that Srinivasan does not offer solutions, and furthermore I agree that she does seem personally detached from several of the topics. But as someone who has experienced the culture of academic / professional philosophy, this is a mainstay feature of the field, especially historically. Philosophy students are often taught to be detached observers. It's thought that worthy insight can be gained only from such a position; that having "skin in the game" inevitably breeds bias and therefore a method which actively relies on attachment means that any conclusions drawn from it cannot be trusted.
It's a problem unto itself, because obviously some of the best conclusions require the appropriate corresponding experience! At the same time, awareness of bias means that philosophers must not be TOO close to the personal side of the material. It's a maddeningly stupid duality that I think Srinivasan is very aware of, and works hard to untangle in The Right to Sex.
I think she does have skin in the game so to speak—she’s Indian, I don’t think she is Dalit so she may be of a certain higher caste and she is an Indian-British woman. Like you said, this seems to be the nature of this type of work but I don’t think she believes herself to be a completely objective standby; that would be contradictory. I do think she wants to avoid the pitfalls of the elite capture-esque so to speak singular calls for identity politics (not that her ideas cannot come from a place where her identity matters but it cannot be the only place she speaks from) as evidenced by her consistent calling to black women and third world feminisms—something I greatly admire. She’s not eschewing one in favor of the other because who she is inevitably, has to, make her tied to the material in a certain way. And I get the feeling she could give less of a shit if her colleagues think she’s not objective enough. That’s beyond the point and I hope others who read her and are in that field can be encouraged to feel the same.
As for solutions, there’s very little in way of concrete ones. This is only a small essay (and a great one) on carcerality but the reality is that even the introduction to it will blow someone’s mind. I’ve been learning and becoming an abolitionist (“becoming abolitionists” is a great book!) and her way of thinking and writing still made me think even more and expand but the essay had no room to go over everything that could be done but that was never the point. She writes it and says, “just think about it” esp from the standpoint of legality. Letting us know we have to move and work beyond it—that’s a stunning thing even for the most progressive of /black/ lawyers.
I keep revisiting this book because it is so relevant . There’s a lot of flaws on my rereads but real strength and strength of character and integrity on her ideas and writing. It sort of hit me last night what her true goal was that I was losing sight of. We can change, we should, if we want a good future we can’t afford not to.
I just don't find anything new here, and I that is the problem I have. granted, many people don't read as much as I do, but I will say if these issues are that new to anyone then changing the narrative has become all the more daunting.
As for the first comment -- oof. Trafficking and sex work are not the same thing. Almost everyone I knew in my 20s did sex work- all were poor from poor or working class backgrounds, many were trans and/or POC, some were even occassionally homeless-- and none of us were ever pimped or trafficked. The ubiquity of internet made a huge difference, homeless crack whore's were handling their shit themselves from library computers and eventually smartphones. You miss the point which is criminalization is the worst possible response for the people doing it - even moreso if theyre trafficked. Calling something work leads to labor regulation that is subject to tax, unions, labor board, unemployment comp, h.r., social security, sexual harassment laws, it basically would make it so only those who wanted to do it could be doing it which gets rid of the organized crime elements. But I doubt they even read this book.
I agree with the reviewer, this just seemed like a summary of everything everyone I knew discussed as anarchist/socialist anti racist Queer/Trans 3rd (4th?)wave feminist millenials in the 00s -- . It made feel old. It made me miss my friends and the communities I was a part of. Like yea, I know, are we really still reiterating these things? Doesn't everyone know this? Socialist feminism ideal, liberal feminism imperfect, conservative feminism a failure. Its a great introduction though. I guess maybe we didn't have it distilled into one book like this then.
omg, you found the words to describe what I was feeling, but couldn't really get a hold on... :)
I feel like her analysis lacks perspective. Not everything has to be sex-coded—why not open space for new readings? Maybe sex itself is the problem. The more we try to code identity, the more tangled and limited it becomes, at least to me.
Great comment Sacha re: the first comment
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
Penny wrote: "This line sums it up: "perhaps the issue is that this book is borne of academia, sensitive to but many levels detached from the very real material needs of the vulnerable people it discusses." As ..."
I'm really sorry that this book/review brought up a lot of emotions for you, but I don't think this is a fair representation of Srinivasan's positions at all. I find it a bit odd that you chose to write this response to my review, since it's saying something very different to what I was saying. I'm happy for you to express your own opinions on the book, but in case anyone else comes across it on my profile, I just want to make it clear that I did not interpret it the way you did.
Hi Rita, thanks for writing the review, really gave a context to look at the book through. For someone like me just who is just beginning to engage with these topics what other books would you recommend ? Essays with personal involvement are some of fav style of writing as well.
@Penny…I wish more people could read what you wrote. I hope you are doing well ❤️
she isnt interested in this i dont think? i had a lot of issues with her dworkin assesment because i dont think it's rigorous in antogonizing white imaginations. i think your observations are great but as a diff perspective: it's a direct response to late capitalism/modernity/postmodern. (btw i recommend kadji amin for a queer theory kind of reivew on the postmdoern and then mariame kaba on carcerality if you havent!) but shes also a philosopher and i tried to read her work on cartesian stuff but it's hard for me to undesrtand. my point is that this is indeed feminism critique and thought and also philosophy but in her preface she says just this: questions to these things that many havent brought up before. and she's rigth unfortunately because the depth of this book alone is actaully little in comparison to the heaviness of postmodernity andthe callback to the 90s. i think it would be helpful to also engage with amin's work and people like guy davidson. i hate that it's actualyl really hard to find all this which i would love to see more critique of because the scholarly work has been fragmented. btw she mentions it in the book just on how hard it is to find this work since the liberation adn sex wars because it WAS in the feminist domain but post-willis it became more and more abstracted. i also think it' snecessary that she engages with it as detached so the idea is that she isnt moralizing. plus, the work shes engaging with does this very same. she published the right to sex in...i forgot and i reember seeing it for the first time back then but they arent personal essays just essays. i havent read morrison's work but. and in her book beacaue they are /essays/ she isnt doing this as a critique. on top of that i think the confusion is necessary because of the heaviness of the subject as a whole; she also does labor work IRL which is important majorly—i kinda wonder why we have to be emotional wrt this not because pain is absent but because women are accused of so much at once that her emotionality woudl be a cause for concern. ultimately the people she references that are in opposition to her are those that constructed the sex positivist or the liberationist (sex rev, gay lib, "queer theory") that prioritize male asociality, phallocentricism, androcentrism. they talk about their antisocial or utopic freedom and i think she's just more acerbic and biting anyway. her notes are funny and when she called rodgers a creep i laughed! anyway i am on the sleeping with professors and yea idk. i think it's great but i understand your ideas! at first i didnt realize they were essays liek that and was expecting a theory book (thank god it wasnt bc im already doing enough defining) so i was at first jarred by te easier flow of words but the lack of personal touch and i think these were scatters of her submissions into other journals as well or from dissertations etc and then previous work from her philosophy book! i love that you were thinking about this though bc i have been STRUGGLING with getting even a decent account of my anger when reading about sex and history formation eetc wrt everything esp as a BW that i felt fucking insane. in her preface she says "this may ease some of the way you feel but couldnt articulate" and i felt a breath of fresh air i think because even though I Knew what I Knew i was so terrified of doing the same anti sex work moralizing bullshit while saying it's in defense of the women i lvoe of my community. anyways!!!!!
Maybe you should read Virginie Despestes for sthg mind-blowing if you haven't yet ?
I likewise felt that most of Srinivasan’s conclusions were relatively unsurprising. She seems to admit as much herself. At the same time, I also admire her enormously and feel she courageously makes plain that the logic of patriarchy is self-sabotaging, absurd and arbitrary. It’s worth appreciating the massively understated work that she’s doing in bringing the fight to men, especially the context in which she’s doing it: at Oxford of all places, historically a bastion of male domination! For so long it has been “logic” (or, rather the insinuation that challenging the logic inherent in the status quo was to commit to an irrational position) which kept many women from considering some of the views Srinivasan holds.
I like how you said you weren’t sure you were the target audience. I studied philosophy as an undergraduate and I was surprised to find myself wondering the same thing. But then I thought: is it more unsurprising that most women would already know these things, or that our male-dominant culture would prefer we continue to see sexism, racism, and classism as merely fixed parts of a static landscape.
That surprise should allude us so thoroughly in this way is, I think, at the heart of Amia's argument. We are so conditioned to accept the desires picked for us that we are largely unable to imagine new ones, ones that we can choose for ourselves.
I share your lamentation that Srinivasan does not offer solutions, and furthermore I agree that she does seem personally detached from several of the topics. But as someone who has experienced the culture of academic / professional philosophy, this is a mainstay feature of the field, especially historically. Philosophy students are often taught to be detached observers. It's thought that worthy insight can be gained only from such a position; that having "skin in the game" inevitably breeds bias and therefore a method which actively relies on attachment means that any conclusions drawn from it cannot be trusted.
It's a problem unto itself, because obviously some of the best conclusions require the appropriate corresponding experience! At the same time, awareness of bias means that philosophers must not be TOO close to the personal side of the material. It's a maddeningly stupid duality that I think Srinivasan is very aware of, and works hard to untangle in The Right to Sex.
I think she does have skin in the game so to speak—she’s Indian, I don’t think she is Dalit so she may be of a certain higher caste and she is an Indian-British woman. Like you said, this seems to be the nature of this type of work but I don’t think she believes herself to be a completely objective standby; that would be contradictory. I do think she wants to avoid the pitfalls of the elite capture-esque so to speak singular calls for identity politics (not that her ideas cannot come from a place where her identity matters but it cannot be the only place she speaks from) as evidenced by her consistent calling to black women and third world feminisms—something I greatly admire. She’s not eschewing one in favor of the other because who she is inevitably, has to, make her tied to the material in a certain way. And I get the feeling she could give less of a shit if her colleagues think she’s not objective enough. That’s beyond the point and I hope others who read her and are in that field can be encouraged to feel the same. As for solutions, there’s very little in way of concrete ones. This is only a small essay (and a great one) on carcerality but the reality is that even the introduction to it will blow someone’s mind. I’ve been learning and becoming an abolitionist (“becoming abolitionists” is a great book!) and her way of thinking and writing still made me think even more and expand but the essay had no room to go over everything that could be done but that was never the point. She writes it and says, “just think about it” esp from the standpoint of legality. Letting us know we have to move and work beyond it—that’s a stunning thing even for the most progressive of /black/ lawyers.
I keep revisiting this book because it is so relevant . There’s a lot of flaws on my rereads but real strength and strength of character and integrity on her ideas and writing. It sort of hit me last night what her true goal was that I was losing sight of. We can change, we should, if we want a good future we can’t afford not to.
I just don't find anything new here, and I that is the problem I have. granted, many people don't read as much as I do, but I will say if these issues are that new to anyone then changing the narrative has become all the more daunting.
As for the first comment -- oof. Trafficking and sex work are not the same thing. Almost everyone I knew in my 20s did sex work- all were poor from poor or working class backgrounds, many were trans and/or POC, some were even occassionally homeless-- and none of us were ever pimped or trafficked. The ubiquity of internet made a huge difference, homeless crack whore's were handling their shit themselves from library computers and eventually smartphones. You miss the point which is criminalization is the worst possible response for the people doing it - even moreso if theyre trafficked. Calling something work leads to labor regulation that is subject to tax, unions, labor board, unemployment comp, h.r., social security, sexual harassment laws, it basically would make it so only those who wanted to do it could be doing it which gets rid of the organized crime elements. But I doubt they even read this book.I agree with the reviewer, this just seemed like a summary of everything everyone I knew discussed as anarchist/socialist anti racist Queer/Trans 3rd (4th?)wave feminist millenials in the 00s -- . It made feel old. It made me miss my friends and the communities I was a part of. Like yea, I know, are we really still reiterating these things? Doesn't everyone know this? Socialist feminism ideal, liberal feminism imperfect, conservative feminism a failure. Its a great introduction though. I guess maybe we didn't have it distilled into one book like this then.
omg, you found the words to describe what I was feeling, but couldn't really get a hold on... :)
I feel like her analysis lacks perspective. Not everything has to be sex-coded—why not open space for new readings? Maybe sex itself is the problem. The more we try to code identity, the more tangled and limited it becomes, at least to me.
Great comment Sacha re: the first comment
As a survivor of sex trafficking , I find Academic Feminists absolutely venal. They have zero empathy for women in the sex trade, which is why they say "sex work is work". This is the slogan of Rape Culture, because if sex is as emotionally neutral as any other physical activity, then rape is no big deal. To a "sex work is work" believer, when my father ordered me to blow him it was no different from his ordering me to wash the dishes. According to Academic Feminists, washing dishes for a living is worse than blowing strangers for a living. That's because most of these women have never had to do either.
Academic "Feminism" expresses hatred for poor and working class women who don't have the luxury of dealing with sexual exploitation in the abstract.
Yes, women DO have to lie to themselves to survive traumatic situations. Most trafficked kids will claim to "love" their pimps, and only a heartless academic would take them at their word and leave them in that hellish situation.
A much better book about "sex work" is trafficking survivor Cyntoia Brown's autobiography "Free Cyntoia".
Academics are not being "nice" when they claim "sex work is work" and they are NOT protecting "sex workers". They are protecting their husbands, boyfriends, sons, and brothers who use their economic privilege to coerce poor women into unwanted sex. Last I checked, coerced sex was rape. But I guess only middle class women are entitled to "enthusiastic consent".
Academic Feminism oppresses poor and working class women - especially trafficking survivors.
Also, in regards to incarceration, if abusive cops should be incarcerated then rapists and child molesters should damn well be incarcerated, too. To say otherwise is pure misogyny.