Over the last few decades, interest has grown among academic philosophers in what’s come to be called “public philosophy”: talks and writings aimed at a nonacademic audience. This is a salutary development. Not only do philosophers have much of substance to say about matters of general concern, they have approaches to the considering of difficult questions that can illuminate unfamiliar (and sometimes, unpopular) points of view, sort out alternative positions, and make unexpected connections among familiar opinions. Amia Srinivasan’s book The Right to Sex does all these things and more, setting a new, very high bar for public philosophizing.
The book collects six long essays plus a “coda” (Srinivasan’s reflections on first publication of “The Right to Sex”), each centered on some central aspect of contemporary issues pertaining to sex. The writing is lucid and disciplined, but also full of passion. There is a great deal of outrage in these...
