Amia Srinivasan’s Feminist Analysis of Pornography

Abstract

My research will focus on Amia Srinivasan's political and cultural characterization of sex. In her 2021 book The Right to Sex, she asks about how we should talk about sex and what is sexual justice and sexual politics. Specifically, I will be looking at her philosophizing on pornography, the idea of societally imposed sexual inclusion, and sexual relationships as depicted in pornography. The specific essay where she discusses this is Talking to my Students about Pornography. However, I will also examine some of the other essays in the book (The Right To Sex, On Not Sleeping with Your Students, and Sex, Carceralism, Capitalism) as I believe these essays contain overlapping ideas on feminism and connect to her analysis of pornography in significant ways. I will also look into any follow-up to the publication of her essays, such as interviews about the book or further comments to ensure that I am working with the most recent and accurate depiction of her opinions. There is a lot of formal academic response to her book, likely because of how new and popular the publication is. I will focus my research on papers that review her work, and how they critique her viewpoints or agree with them. Particularly I am looking at responses by Judith Butler, Maggie Doherty, Kathleen Stock, Elaine Blair, James H. Lewis, Khaleel Rajwani, and others whom I may come across in my research. I think doing so would show how others engage with her work and how her work fits within the existing feminist literature. Also, I will research deeper into the authors she has mentioned directly in her essays, such as Catherine A. Mikkinon, Jane Gallop, Freud, etc.., to better understand their views. All of this is to help create a contextual and comprehensive account of Srinivasan’s feminist characterization of sex and pornography in the twenty-first century. The significance of this study is to better understand recent progress in gender relations and power dynamics in the politics of the twentieth century. Srinivasan’s work is important because it is both relevant and grounded in the philosophical discipline; she writes about the ideas of past philosophers and the unique culture of our time simultaneously. The study will be in presentation format, with an extensive poster and script.