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27.  Is my talk of transforming desire moralizing in a different sense, in that it focuses too much on personal responsibility? Racism, classism, ableism, heteronormativity: these are structural problems and—as we have learned to say—they demand structural solutions. That is surely right. It is als…

23.  Is there no difference between “telling people to change their desires” and asking ourselves what we want, why we want it, and what it is we want to want? Must the transformation of desire be a disciplinary project (willfully altering our desires in line with our politics)—or can it be an eman…

The question, then, is how to dwell in the ambivalent place where we acknowledge that no one is obliged to desire anyone else, that no one has a right to be desired, but also that who is desired and who isn’t is a political question, a question often answered by more general patterns of domination …

Since Willis, the case for pro-sex feminism has been buttressed by feminism’s turn toward intersectionality. Thinking about the ways patriarchal oppression is inflected by race and class has made feminists reluctant to make universal prescriptions, including universal sexual policies. The demand fo…

The invocation of young people in political discourse often serves reactionary ends. Calls to protect their innocence are based on a fantasy of childhood that does not and never did exist—a childhood untouched by the world of adults and adult desires. The appeal to childhood innocence also tends to…