by Sophie K Rosa
Pluto Press
3/20/2023, paperback
SKU: 9780745345161
Remaking the world through connection, care, and community requires radical imagination
Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. 'Making connections' means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. We must be productive and heteronormative, we must have babies and buy a house. But the kicker is most people cannot and do not want to achieve all or any of these life goals. Instead, we are left feeling atomized, exhausted, and disempowered.
Radical Intimacy shows that it doesn't need to be this way. A punchy and impassioned account of inspiring ideas about alternative ways to live. Sophie K. Rosa demands we use our radical imagination to discover a new form of intimacy and to transform our personal lives and in turn society as a whole.
Including critiques of the 'wellness' industry that ignores rising poverty rates, the mental health crisis, and racist and misogynist state violence; transcending love and sex under capitalism to move towards feminist, decolonial, and queer thinking; asking whether we should abolish the family; interrogating the framing of aging and death and much more. Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society.
Reviews:
"This was my most eagerly awaited book of the year and it does not disappoint. 'Radical Intimacy' is a powerful, utterly engaging read and a strong call to action. Sophie K Rosa analyses how current conditions restrict our capacity for caring relationships with ourselves and others, and how these conditions can be implicated in so many forms of intimate violence, injustice, and loss. A must-read." -- Meg-John Barker, author of Rewriting the Rules and Queer: A Graphic History
"A clarion voice from a new generation of British feminists accessibly expanding family-abolitionist thought and praxis into new spheres in response to a swinging care crisis... I was gripped." -- Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish The Family
"Implores us to transcend our unfair social structures to instead compassionately reconnect with one another" -- Katie Goh, i-D
About the Author:
Sophie K Rosa is a writer and freelance journalist. She has written for Novara Media, Guardian, Buzzfeed, VICE, Al Jazeera, Aeon and CNN. In 2018, she was openDemocracy's feminist investigative journalism fellow, producing a series of articles tracking the backlash against women's and LGBTQIA+ rights.