Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Amia Srinivasan argues that while no one has a right to sexual access to others, there is a meaningful politics of sex shaped by race, gender, disability, class, and power. The conversation examines “fuckability,” feminist theory (especially MacKinnon), pornography as pedagogy, sex education, age/power imbalances, and how pleasure can be a socialist rather than purely individualistic value.
Main Topics: The meaning and limits of a “right to sex” (Priority: 5/5): Srinivasan distinguishes between the obvious right to consensual sex and the false claim that anyone has a right to sex with people who do not want them. She reframes the issue toward critiquing exclusion from sexual desire without endorsing coercion. Politics of desirability and “fuckability” (Priority: 5/5): The discussion explores how desirability is socially produced through racism, ableism, and gender norms, and how status is distributed through sexual selection rather than raw desire alone. Feminist theory, Catherine MacKinnon, and legal critique (Priority: 5/5): Srinivasan explains her ambivalent return to late-1970s/early-1980s feminist jurisprudence, praising MacKinnon’s force and seriousness while rejecting heavy reliance on law, policing, and incarceration as solutions. Pornography, pedagogy, and sexual education (Priority: 4/5): Porn is presented as a powerful but bad teacher that scripts sexuality, while sex education is critiqued for shame, stigma, and poor institutional design. Srinivasan suggests sex workers might be better educators than conventional institutions. Power imbalances, age, and consent (Priority: 4/5): The conversation distinguishes institutional power (e.g., professors and students) from broader age-gap relationships, asking when inequality becomes predatory and how to think critically without collapsing into ageism. Pleasure, queer politics, and socialist politics (Priority: 4/5): Pleasure is defended as a legitimate political concern, but Srinivasan argues it should be understood as part of a socialist, not neoliberal, vision of flourishing and collective life.
Key Arguments: There is a clear right to consensual sex, including self-sex and LGBTQ+ sexual freedom, but no right to sex with unwilling partners. Claims about who is “desirable” are historically and politically constructed; they are not simply natural or fixed. Racism, sexism, disability stigma, and norms of masculinity/femininity shape sexual hierarchy and who gets treated as sexually valuable. Mainstream pornography is intensely didactic: it teaches domination/subordination scripts rather than expanding erotic imagination. Sex education in its current form often stigmatizes non-normative sexuality and sex work, and in the U.S. abstinence-first approaches are harmful to public health. Law and carceral solutions are insufficient and costly; addressing sexual violence through policing and incarceration reproduces other forms of harm. Power imbalances matter even when formal consent is present, especially in institutional settings or relationships where inequality enables the dynamic. Pleasure should be central to politics, but framed as a socialist demand rather than a neoliberal self-optimization project.
Data Points: Publication year of essay: 2018 - Srinivasan’s essay “Who Has the Right to Sex” appeared in the London Review of Books in 2018. Academic title: Chichili Professor of Social and Political Theory - Her position at All Souls College, Oxford, as introduced in the conversation. Historical period referenced: late 1970s to early 1980s - Describes the feminist theoretical moment Srinivasan returns to, especially Catherine MacKinnon. Education statistic/category: abstinence - She says abstinence remains a norm in U.S. sex education and calls this a public health disaster. Institutional setting: professor and student - Used as the clearest example of a formal power imbalance in sexual relationships.
Pivotal Quotes: "Everyone has a right to have sex with themselves if they want to." — Amia Srinivasan: She clarifies that some rights to sexual autonomy are uncontroversial before rejecting any right to coerced sex. "It’s not really about desire. It’s not really about what people do and don’t, in fact, desire, and a lot more to do with what people are rewarded for desiring and not desiring." — Amia Srinivasan: Her explanation of how sexual hierarchy is socially and politically structured. "I would dream of would be a form of culture that just wouldn’t tell people how to have sex, but rather would sort of tell people in some sort of sense that what sex is and what it means is sort of up to them." — Amia Srinivasan: Her view of a non-scriptive, more emancipatory sexual culture and education.
Implications: Listeners are pushed to see sex as a site of politics, not just private preference. The episode suggests better sex education, less carceral feminism, and more attention to how desirability, pleasure, and consent are socially shaped.