The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

“This is the deep contradiction at the heart of the incel phenomenon: incels oppose themselves to a sexual market in which they see themselves as losers, while being wedded to the status hierarchy that structures that market.”

“The central insight of intersectionality is that any liberation movement—feminism, anti-racism, the labor movement—that focuses only on what all members of the relevant group (women, people of color, the working class) have in common is a movement that will best serve those members of the group who are least oppressed.”

“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. The fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined.”

“on the contrary, it is when the slavery of half of humanity is abolished and with it the whole hypocritical system it implies that the … human couple will discover its true form.”

“Specifically, pornography performs the speech act of licensing the subordination of women, and conferring on women an inferior civic status. Like the stampede that follows my shouting “Fire!,” porn’s effects on women are not just, anti-porn feminists think, the expected result, but moreover the whole point of pornography.”