Radical Intimacy

by Sophie K Rosa

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 heterosexual, 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 ageing and death and much more, Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society.

Paperback | 208 pages | Pluto Press | 2023

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.