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Sexual Revolution

Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback

Laurie Penny

Bloomsbury Publishing

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ISBN10: 1526602202
ISBN13: 9781526602206

Paperback

320 Pages

$17.00

CA$23.00

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We are in the middle of a sexual revolution.

In our era of crisis, collapse, and reactionary tyrants, we are also witnessing a productive transformation: profound and permanent changes in how we define gender, sex, consent, and whose bodies matter. It's a time of creative disobedience, of reimagining ways of organizing care, reproduction, and the work of building and sustaining the human species. These changes threaten the social and economic certainties that form our world; they threaten existing power structures, and they undermine the authority of institutions from the waged workplace to the nuclear family. No wonder the far right is fighting so hard. A shakeup in sexual and gender relations is a shakeup in political, economic, and social life as well. The stakes could not be higher.

Based on Laurie Penny's celebrated, Ellie-award nominated Longreads series about rape culture, Sexual Revolution is the culmination of years of journalistic research, written for a broad audience, drawing on the work of Shulamith Firestone, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Silvia Federici, Wilhelm Reich and Michel Foucault. This is a hand grenade of a book, a manifesto of social change, and a story of how feminism can save the world.

Reviews

Praise for Sexual Revolution

“A writer and polemicist, a bad-ass, contrary, angry, bisexual troublemaker who is never happier than when they are upsetting someone, or preferably everyone . . . We need them.”The Times

Sexual Revolution is a fierce, informative, and persuasive book about feminism and sexual politics.”Foreword

“I can't really think of another writer who so consistently and bravely keeps thinking and talking and learning and trying to make the world better.”—Caitlin Moran

“Laurie Penny's searing critique of male dominance, violence and supremacy traces the link between everyday sexism and the far right's project of biopower. Penny's quiet but incandescent anger burns through every page, guiding with wit and erudition us towards solutions that involve a hitherto discounted possibility: that men might change.”—Paul Mason

“Brilliant; vital; revolutionary.”—Kate Manne

“Laurie Penny’s electric new book boldly announces that the feminist sexual revolution is here; we are in the midst of a ‘fundamental reimagining of gender roles and sexual roles, work and love, trauma and violence, pleasure and power.’ Captivating, emphatic, and deeply inspiring, Sexual Revolution lifted me greatly by envisioning the possibilities of our moment.”—V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues and The Apology

“Laurie Penny is a true gift. Their excoriation of the patriarchy and its continued harm against all humans is life-giving, and perhaps only matched by the exceptional warmth and good humour they express while making great strides to change the world.”—Clementine Ford, author of Fight Like A Girl

Reviews from Goodreads

About the author

Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny is an award-winning author, columnist, journalist, and screenwriter. Their seven books include Bitch Doctrine, Unspeakable Things, and Everything Belongs to the Future. As a freelance journalist, they write about politics, social justice, pop culture, feminism, mental health, and technology for outlets including the Guardian, Longreads, Time, Buzzfeed, the New York Times, Vice, Salon, the Nation, and the New Statesman. They were a 2014-15 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University. As a screenwriter, Laurie has worked on The Nevers (HBO), The Haunting (Netflix) and Carnival Row (Amazon). Laurie Penny is based between London and Los Angeles. laurie-penny.com / @PennyRed

Eleanor Penny