Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape by Jaclyn Friedman

Feb 05, 2009 Avory rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, anthologies, sexuality

Read this book. No, really. Read. This. Book.

I can't tell you how much the essays in this collection made me rethink my perspective on female sexuality, rape culture, what it means to be a woman in America right now, and many other topics. These essays are eye-openers, embracing not only a sex-positive look at female sexuality but also a perspective that views all forms of sexual pain as legitimate injuries. The essayists go beyond the question of "was there rape?" and "did she say no?" and look...more

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Mar 22, 2009 Ciara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: folks interested in consent, survivor advocates, survivors (who've had some distance)

Shelves: feminist-y-books, radical-non-fiction, read-in-2009

i expected to find this book irritating, because i find most of what jessica valenti is involved in irritating (see my scathing review of full frontal feminism for more), & i find a lot of discourse around consent tedious & lumbering, a game of one-upsmanship in which people are proposing ever more individualistic & unrealistic-outside-of-incestuous-radical-enclaves solutions to the tremendous problem of sexual assault & rape culture. the calls for submissions were framed as jess...more i expected to find this book irritating, because i find most of what jessica valenti is involved in irritating (see my scathing review of full frontal feminism for more), & i find a lot of discourse around consent tedious & lumbering, a game of one-upsmanship in which people are proposing ever more individualistic & unrealistic-outside-of-incestuous-radical-enclaves solutions to the tremendous problem of sexual assault & rape culture. the calls for submissions were framed as jessica & her co-editor, jaclyn friedman, asking feminist thinkers to leave "no means no" in the dust & write some essays on women reclaiming autonomous sexual pleasure & power as a way to end rape once & for all, which i think we can all agree is absurdly ludicrous & could only be the product of self-referential bloggers who have lost all touch with reality. i sincerely doubt that most rapists & sexual assaulters would be particularly impressed or dissuaded from raping in the face of impassioned essays on female sexual power. it just puts the onus on ending rape on women, in new & more insidious ways.

HOWEVER! it seems like a lot of folks who contributed essays to the book were thinking along lines very similar to mine. & rather than giving the book up as a bad job, they wrote essays that specifically countered the spoken aims of the call for submissions, & these essays turned the book into something different & much better than it would have been. one of the best essays, in my opinion, was miriam zoila perez's piece, "when sexual autonomy isn't enough," about the epidemic levels of rape & sexual assault faced by immigrant women without the means to protect themselves or escape abusive situations due to racism, classism, & exploitative immigration laws in the united states. she repeatedly states that reclaiming sexual power is not going to help these women fight back against the institutional powers that are oppressing them. a lot of other contributers wrote similar essays, pointing out that women can relcaim their sexual power until the cows come home, but rape culture is an endemic & enduring system of interlocking oppressions that need to be consciously dismantled before we're going to start seeing significant changes.

a few of the essays had me nodding my head in surprised agreement, like in rachel kramer bussel's essay, when she critiques the slogan "consent is sexy," asking if we really needed to "sell" a concept like consent. YES! finally, someone willing to say that they find that slogan as vapid & inconsequential as i do! leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinka blew me away, as usual. (she's apparently working on a memoir & i COULD NOT be more excited!) other essays were predictably obnoxious. jessica valenti herself contributed something on purity balls, a pretty blatantly obvious attempt to whet people's appetites for her forthcoming book on the construction of feminine purity. *yawn* it's no longer 1983, this topic has been tread into the ground, & i don't get why she has to constantly be forwarding her future career with every essay or book she writes. why not just stick to the subject at hand, for once? worse than that was javacia n. harris's awful piece, "a woman's worth," which took twelve pages to basically say, "i know that women working in hooters-type restaurants are being exploited because of their low self-esteem, because i used to have low self-esteem & wanted to work in a hooters restaurant. then i became an aerobics instructor & got over it." wow, tell me more about how you know what all women are thinking because of how you once thought, & how your experience must be the experience of every other woman in the world making choices with which you disagree.

the set-up of the book was gimmicky in certain ways. jessica & jaclyn wanted to mimic the "information-sharing" & "user-guided" reading models of feminist blogs (seriously?), so they assigned a few overarching themes to each essay & "linked" to similarly-themed essays throughout the book. the themes seems to be assigned at random sometimes. like, i think every author of color was squished into the "race relating" theme, even if they didn't write specifically about race issues in their essay. ditto with queer contributers. i sometimes felt that these weird gimmicks were a way for the editors to show off how "diverse" their essayists were, so that this supposed intersectionality would reflect back on them & make them seem like awesome intersectional feminists, even though jessica valenti has only ever seemed invested in the interests of young, white, able-bodied, straight women (i don't know enough about jaclyn friedman's work to judge). but whatever. there was indeed some good shit in here, mixed with some boring or enraging shit, & as long as you can read with a critical eye & don't just swallow every idea as The Last Word on Feminism & Sexual Autonomy/Dismantling Rape Culture in 2009, you should be okay.(less)

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Feb 28, 2009 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sd-fem-bookclub

A well-curated collections of essays about rape, abuse, and sexual consent, "Yes Means Yes" contains a variety of different perspectives and voices. Some of the essays contradict other ones; I disagreed with some authors' points while finding others' persuasive and illuminating. I found highlights of the book included Margaret Cho's honest and assertive foreward, Julia Serano's proposals for changing male culture to discourage rape, numerous authors' calls for the cultural replacement of stressi...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Kari rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Kari by: Krissy

Shelves: non-fiction, women-s-studies

I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoy Feminist literature, but it isn't the best. Several of the essays seem to draw on forever, but others are simply incredible.

Perhaps my favorite essay, "Hooking Up with Healthy Sexuality: The Lessons Boys Learn (and Don't Learn) About Sexuality, and Why a Sex-Positive Rape Prevention Paradigm Can Benefit Everyone Involved...," was written by Brad Perry. I enjoy reading about rape, sex, and gender relations form a male perspective because I am bombarded with...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Tombom P rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, queer

My biggest problem with this book is that a lot of the essays don't really push into the visions promised by the title - they're to a large extent descriptions of what the authors have experienced. This is obviously valuable, but I guess I expected a bit more given the title and the wide availability of many different people's experiences on the internet that this to a certain extent replicates. Also, only a few essays linked the problems described to causes past a nebulous "culture" and to thin...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: EVERYONE

Shelves: feministing, possible-lesrdgrp, gender-violence

Rereading this for the reading group.

...

First Reading:

I'm so sad to be done with this book. I mean, I'm totally glad that I finished it and read the awesome essays at the end (Higginbotham, Kulwicki) that I was missing when I got distracted 2/3 of the way through, but I'm sad that there's no more for me to read.

Okay, there were a fair number of essays that were just sort of mediocre and which trolled through stuff that i'm heard ad nauseum (Valenti, Filipovic, Jervis)*. And there were the few es...more

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Jun 20, 2011 Meggan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, gender-slut, radical-ideas

As if humanity needed more evidence for a second sexual revolution. Just skim a few pages and you'll want to volunteer down at your local rape crisis center or Planned Parenthood. While I value this book for its bravery, I see two big flaws here: 1) too much focus on westernized American feminists, and 2) some essays reads like one long blog entry (I prefer empirical research over blog comments for evidence/arguments). But I understand that academia is too slow to wade into the swiftly moving de...more

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May 17, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: women

Shelves: ask-freedom-to-buy, women

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. from the library
306.7xxx

TOC from the library computer:
Table of Contents

Foreword 1 (4)

Margaret Cho

Introduction 5 (8)

Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms That Perpetuate Rape Culture, and How Feminists Can Fight Back
13 (16)

Jill Filipovic

Themes: Media Matters, The Right Is Wrong

Toward a Performance Model of Sex
29 (14)

Thomas Macaulay Millar

Themes: Is Consent Complicated?, Manliness, Sexual Healing, The Right Is Wrong

Beyond Yes or No: Consent as Sexual Process
43 (...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: womens-studies, politics, nonfiction

An exceptional work of valuable and unique feminist essays. By far this is Valenti's best book and one of the best feminist anthologies I have ever read. It manages to be accessible that even non-feminists and hard-core feminists will take away something important.

As with any anthology there will be a few lemons - either due to bad writing or just a subject that doesn't interest the reader. However 95% of this content is exceptional. I was sucked in and finished it in two days.

The essays are r...more

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Jun 29, 2011 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's a book of essays by different people, and as such doesn't build quite as much as a single book would, bouncing between different themes. The common theme as such is the idea of active female choice and agency over the idea of acquiescence/consent or refusal.

The breakout essay for me was (annoyingly) written by a man, in which he talks about how men are socialized to push against women's boundaries (asking for phone numbers, making plans, touching women during a date) on the underlying theor...more It's a book of essays by different people, and as such doesn't build quite as much as a single book would, bouncing between different themes. The common theme as such is the idea of active female choice and agency over the idea of acquiescence/consent or refusal.

The breakout essay for me was (annoyingly) written by a man, in which he talks about how men are socialized to push against women's boundaries (asking for phone numbers, making plans, touching women during a date) on the underlying theory that women are incapable of active agency. His point is that rapists are the natural outgrowth of this social brainwashing -- rapists don't think of themselves as rapists so much as "successful" men under their own logic. They broke down the woman's natural defenses and gave her what she secretly wanted.

I'd heard this referred to as "rape culture" but the problem is that it doesn't sound so much like rape culture, but like dating culture as a whole, where rape is the extreme end of it. It's like referring to the culture of violence against men as "murder culture" -- yes, men kill other men and it's wrong, but the real evil is in the assumption that it's okay to hit a man to begin with.

When it came to whether Hooters was degrading or how fat women are treated when it comes to sexual assault, I got the feeling that I was intruding even by reading about it. And a discussion about how sex can be viewed as a musical performance rather than being viewed as a commodity -- well, I thought it was interesting, but people just aren't genetically programmed at puberty to want to play music.

Interesting read though.

[After writing this and sleeping on it, there's also a disconnect between the title and the concept. The idea of female agency isn't about saying "yes" or "no", it's about creating a question that other people have to answer. And the idea of female agency is so foreign that books like "Belle De Jour" and "Girl with a One Track Mind" are shocking media sensations that have to be written anonymously because they deal exactly with that question. And the word for a woman who exercises that agency sexually is "slut", or if she exercises it personally or professionally, it's "bitch."]

[I remember reading about "Slutwalk" and thinking that it was important in some way I hadn't quite wrapped my head around. It's not just about rape: women should just as much of a right to exercise agency as men do.](less)

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Jun 18, 2011 Yasmin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A rather problematic book which has become something of a bible for neoliberal feminists. Here's an excerpt from my review:

"Yes Means Yes rests at the nexus of two ideological points. One is a liberal feminism so battered by decades of right-wing sexism that it spends all its energy reacting to the same instead of questioning how it might have become part of the problem. The other is a burgeoning domestic violence/rape counseling industrial complex compelled to paint its clients solely as pathet...more

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May 13, 2009 Elevate Difference rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Connections: The Apostate and Professor What If review...
Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape

The Apostate: My initial reaction when I heard about the anthology was mixed. It seemed that the problem of rape was being used for a catchy slogan's sake (the catchy slogan being a play on the anti-rape "no means no" rule), and not because it made any real sense. I wasn't sure where you could go with that—connecting sexuality with rape culture in a way that was meaning...more

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Apr 09, 2009 Ms. Online added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-fall-reviews

RAGE OF CONSENT
Veronica I. Arreola

Review of Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape
Edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
Seal Press

Utopian novels have grappled with the idea of a world without rape, but what would the path to that world look like? The controversial essays that make up Yes Means Yes! light the way along this very rough road and, not surprisingly, offer no easy solutions.

The book itself was conceived in controversy. A report on Women’s eNews a...more RAGE OF CONSENT
Veronica I. Arreola

Review of Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape
Edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
Seal Press

Utopian novels have grappled with the idea of a world without rape, but what would the path to that world look like? The controversial essays that make up Yes Means Yes! light the way along this very rough road and, not surprisingly, offer no easy solutions.

The book itself was conceived in controversy. A report on Women’s eNews about underage women who risked rape by frequenting party bars generated an explosion in the blogosphere. The onus should be on the rapist, furious critics wrote, not on the women who are raped. Feminist activists Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti responded by asking writers for submissions for Yes Means Yes!, which they promised would “fly in the face of the conventional feminist wisdom that rape has nothing to do with sex.” They wanted essays that would offer “a frank and in-depth conversation about forward-thinking ways to battle the rape culture,” and hoped contributors would help readers “imagine a world where women enjoy sex on their own terms and aren’t shamed for it…where men treat their sexual partners as collaborators, not conquests…[and:] where rape is rare and swiftly punished.”

The enthusiastic response resulted in an anthology that moves the concept of consent and positive female sexuality to a new level. Its essayists ask why our society doesn’t teach its girls how to find pleasure, why women don’t define for themselves the meaning of virginity and why those who are assaulted by friends or acquaintances often refuse to label the experience as rape, thus removing most responsibility from the man.

The authors in this collection speak with authority and, unfortunately for some, from personal experience. Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis and Racialicious.com editor Latoya Peterson explore the guilt women feel after they are violated. Cristina Meztli Tzintzun outs herself as a feminist who took years to leave an abusive relationship and hopes she can give others the courage to admit that even radical, kick-ass feminists who know better can have a hard time breaking the cycle of violence. Fat-acceptance blogger Kate Harding argues that society sells the idea that rape should be considered a compliment to fat or ugly women. We learn that women’s acquiescence, silence and shame allow rapists to get away with the sexual intimidation that Peterson labels “not-rape.” We’re told that date rape has a new moniker— “gray rape”—which rape apologists blame on “miscommunication” or “crossed signals” or even (gasp!) feminism because feminism has promoted women’s sexual freedom. It speaks volumes that in the 21st century we still need this anthology to explain whose fault it is when a young woman who agrees to make out with her boyfriend ends up raped.

---
VERONICA I. ARREOLA is director of the University of Illinois at ChicagoWomen in Science and Engineering Program by day and a feminist mommyblogger at vivalafeminista.com by night.
(less)

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May 27, 2010 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When Friedman and Valenti announced the call for submissions, it was met with criticism for ignoring the institutionalized aspects of rape and focusing instead on individual consent and sexual practice. Here's a link to a post that sums it up and provides further reading. (I think the title, "You Can Only Say Yes If You Can Say No," really says it all.)

The final product has been broadened a bit, with a few essays (namely, "When Sexual Autonomy Isn't Enough") that acknowledge the wider reality. B...more

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Mar 24, 2010 Chelsey Pennyamon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: women, violence, anthologies, birth-control, lgbt, political-science, race, sexuality, transgendered, abortion, pro-choice, fe-men-ist-allies, 2010

There are several things to appreciate about this book--for instance, the fact that it exists. I'd be excited (and grateful!) to get recommendations for books that cover sexual violence (NOT Against Our Will, the person who wrote that needs to fully examine the implications of their thesis!-- in my humble opinion) as sensitively yet humorously as this book did. A second thing to appreciate is the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. Related to this, the range of topics discussed is astound...more There are several things to appreciate about this book--for instance, the fact that it exists. I'd be excited (and grateful!) to get recommendations for books that cover sexual violence (NOT Against Our Will, the person who wrote that needs to fully examine the implications of their thesis!-- in my humble opinion) as sensitively yet humorously as this book did. A second thing to appreciate is the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. Related to this, the range of topics discussed is astounding-- I was extremely pleased, for example, at the essay "When Pregnancy is Outlawed only Outlaws Will Be Pregnant" with its examination of how low-income, addicted women of color are persecuted unfairly regarding the law. Another favorite contribution is an essay which focuses on the sexual assault of immigrant women, and how feminist solutions for rape, centered on our perspectives on sexuality and on individuality, cannot help these women. Another refreshing thing was the how personal this book was-- the personalities of the authors shined through in even the most academic writings, and I felt intimately connected with people who shared their experiences and thoughts. Finally, though people may think of this as a disadvantage, I really like the fact that I can find most of these essays online! It makes it easy to point friends in the direction of good writing without having to lend out my book (kind of possessive of my books...) and poor college students can read about important issues without breaking the bank!E-books and book-readers be damned, I can't snuggle up to my laptop at night.

And yet, while it's really difficult to want to criticize this work, I do have a few qualms. While Yes Means Yes lives up to its promise of demonstrating how sexual assault is connected with other oppressions, it offers little in the way of non-individualistic, real alternatives. This isn't to say that we should be telling other women to beg their senators to take rape seriously (we've been doing that for decades) but shouldn't we still be demanding sufficient sex ed (which is, thankfully, suggested) along with (more) public protections, like a guarantee that rape-kits will be tested, more publicly funded self-defense (which is not a solution, but until the revolution happens I'd like to know how to protect myself) along with officials declared AND demonstrating that ultimately the responsibility for rape belongs with rapists? It seems to me that politicians, in a non-superficial way, need to recognize that rape is a societal problem and needs to be tackled ways similar to how we (should) tackle other problems: with the involvement of a community, in a way not relegated to school curriculum (which can only be delivered to school-aged people-- an important population, but not the only population which needs to know these things). These issues do involve women, but the relegation of rape and violence against women into "women's issues" tackled only by women privately or in a very restricted public setting (unfairly, yes, but nevertheless) sort of renders the issues invisible. I understand that not having faith in politicians to understand and respond to "women's issues" is in itself a response to the failures of our political machine(ESPECIALLY when it comes to "women's issues") and a need for women, especially regarding these issues to lead this movement, but I don't think that means that these issues and their solutions should be a matter of sequestering them to sympathetic women's organizations which depend on donations or gratefully accept a pittance from governments. We should instead fight for our space in the political and personal realm and demand that rape be tackled not as some after-thought during the month of March, but as an issue as real and important as the economy, education, and healthcare-- it's certainly more real for more Americans than the threat of "terrorism" for instance, and in a real way, it IS a terror. How about we wage a "war" on rape? (Problems with waging a war against something which is ultimately violent aside, and assuming the it won't look anything like the war on drugs, that is...) How about politicos realize that wars often use rape as a tactic? While this was hinted at, it didn't come out as strong as I'd liked.
In addition, essays, especially those near the end, often felt premature because they were finished too early. I mean, maybe in another life I was an English professor(and maybe this is why I have literary pretensions without actually knowing anything about literature!) but I really wanted to write EXPAND in red pen on a lot of these essays.
Another thing that bothered me was the insistence that women declare that they want sex. Let me expand (:P): There is nothing in and of itself wrong with this message... except for the fact that women are told to want sex all of the time. Women are told THEY want sex, for themselves, all of the time. What's missing is the need for the desire to have sex to come, organically, from these women. And an equally important message to convey is, it's also perfectly fine and natural for you to not desire sex (with another). Yes, most people like to share things that feel good with others, asexuality is rare, and this message needs to be conveys carefully because women have often been rendered asexual, but it still needs to be conveyed. I just don't know if, "It is normal for women to desire sex and we should be able to act on that desire!" is the primary answer to this in a society that pressures and bombards women with images of (unhealthy) sexualities. This came out in some essays, too, but not nearly as much as I'd like.

Also, if you're going to attempt to mirror the whole hyperlinking thing in your book, you should probably actually, um, hyperlink (like, include the freaking PAGE NUMBER, and not just the essay title). Yes, this is a superficial criticism, and doesn't apply to my experience because I read the work cover-to-cover, but flipping back to the ToC to find the page number to an essay is not fun. The writers include a table indexed by topic with page numbers in the back of the work, but that is equally inconvenient!)

And er, this isn't really a criticism, and maybe this relates to the fact that this book focuses on rape which presumes two parties, but there was a surprising dearth of essays on masturbation and how it can be both healing and frustrating for women who have been assaulted. While this would be one of those individualistic solutions (which aren't bad in and of themselves, it just sucks when those are the majority of the solutions) it's still worth exploring (In depth! NOT merely mentioned!). After all, what is sexual liberation if you still depend on another person?(less)

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Apr 03, 2013 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For a book - and a movement - that touts intersectionality, "Yes Means Yes!," a tour de force of writing talents ranging from WOC lesbians to straight trans and so on, completely ignores conservative and religious feminists.

Yes, we exist!

In fact, "Yes Means Yes!" reads more as a list of grievances against the Right Wing - who, according to the editors and authors, is completely made up of white religious men - with the authors of the essays roundly lambasting a straw-man version of conservative...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Daniel Lower rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Friedman and Valenti have put together an interesting compilation of essays which attempts to dismantle cultures and cultural structures which aid and abet rape and rapists from a secular feminist perspective. Partly because I am a Catholic, I don't think by any means that they've got everything right, but there were lots of good insights, the essays generally are written well and read well, and the book's format was friendly. Logic wasn't exactly flawless, but I have enough philosophical differ...more

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May 02, 2009 Tinea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: feminists, survivors, boys learningto be allies

Shelves: sexualized-and-gender-violence

This was really good.

Yes Means Yes is an anthology of essays on rape culture, consent, and related topics. I was really impressed by how broad the subject area covered was. An incomplete list: the book contains articles on reproductive justice, virginity, sex education, surviving abuse, and intersections of sexualized violence with race, class, sexual orientation, size, gender, and immigration status. The authors come from a wide range of backgrounds and ground their essays in varied unique pers...more This was really good.

Yes Means Yes is an anthology of essays on rape culture, consent, and related topics. I was really impressed by how broad the subject area covered was. An incomplete list: the book contains articles on reproductive justice, virginity, sex education, surviving abuse, and intersections of sexualized violence with race, class, sexual orientation, size, gender, and immigration status. The authors come from a wide range of backgrounds and ground their essays in varied unique perspectives and experiences. Several pieces looked at underlying causes of rape culture and it was interesting the ways the authors' different identities and politics led them to different and at times conflicting conclusions.

My favorite essay was "An Immodest Proposal" by Heather Corinna. Corinna's proposal is that narratives of sex in mainstream US culture, and especially narratives of early and virginal sex, are missing a fundamental ingredient: female desire. The ideal high school virginity-loss story includes safer sex, consent (though not "enthusiastic consent"), and commitment. It is based on the male initiator/ female gatekeeper model. Male orgasm is assumed; the male sexual cycle, from turn on to hard on to penetration and orgasm, frames the act. Girls, however, are taught to expect pain and blood. A good first time minimizes the pain. But what about maximizing the pleasure?

In a later essay, author Cristina Meztli Tzintzun explains how the above "ideal first time" narrative makes it difficult for people who are being abused to identify their abuse and get out of it. When pain and disinterest are expected from the best case scenario of women's sexuality, how can we tell when we've fallen into coercion and abuse? Is there much of a difference? Creating a culture in which enthusiastic consent from all participating parties is a baseline for sexual interaction would alter this narrative. It wouldn't end abuse, as articles like "When Sexual Autonomy Isn't Enough" by Miriam Perez, about power dynamics faced by immigrant and undocumented women, clearly show. But it would help change our culture from one where abuse is nearly an expectation to one in which sexual abuse can be more readily seen for what it is: abuse of power.

Drawbacks to "Yes Means Yes" came in its hesitations. Strong essays like "The Not-Rape Epidemic" by Latoya Petersen (available online) pushed against society's unfair and illogical definitions of rape and assault, but pulled back when it came to solutions. This particular articles ends with tired safety prescriptions for girls. Where's the outrage? Where's the systemic change, the finger pointed at the culprits? Worse were the few essays written for and about the male perspective. By "male perspective," I mean perpetrator or potential perpetrator perspective, not that of male survivors, which I don't remember being represented here. Discussions of male social pressures and "double binds" (the asshole/nice guy equivalent to women's virgin/whore stereotype), though useful and interesting, neglected power. Go ahead and write me off as a ball-crushing feminazi, but unless prescriptions for changes to male sexuality include a redistribution of sexual and gendered power (and all other kinds for that matter, as applicable), I'm not particularly interested.

Overall: I'd love for y'all to read this book so we can talk about it.(less)

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Dec 03, 2011 Intery rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gender-studies

Even though in recent years I've been sort of entrenched in the liberal, intersectional, sex-positive, pro-queer, pro-trans, pro-BDSM feminism the anthology is sporting, most of the essays still managed to tell me something new. Overall, it was less gender-egalitarian than I would have liked, but it can't really be blamed for being Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The essays are delightfully varied and tagged with themes like 'Fight the Power', 'Here and Queer', 'Media Matters', 'Race Relating',...more Even though in recent years I've been sort of entrenched in the liberal, intersectional, sex-positive, pro-queer, pro-trans, pro-BDSM feminism the anthology is sporting, most of the essays still managed to tell me something new. Overall, it was less gender-egalitarian than I would have liked, but it can't really be blamed for being Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The essays are delightfully varied and tagged with themes like 'Fight the Power', 'Here and Queer', 'Media Matters', 'Race Relating', 'Surviving to Yes', etc. Highpoints:
* Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's "What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life" talks about how the Riot Grrrl movement assisted her healing and how different it was from the institutionalised NGO approach in the US today. The piece is highly empathy-inducing.
* Coco Fusco's "Invasion of Space by a Female" examines the ways the US army makes use of its female soldiers/interrogators (particularly in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and Afghanistan) by employing them in a white-washing of sorts, as in "How bad can torture really be if it's performed by a member of the "weaker sex"?"; in humanising the Iraq occupation; in deploying sexual tactics in interrogation, etc.
* Samhita Mukhopadhyay's "Trial by Media: Black Female Lasciviousness and the Question of Consent" is about the hypersexualised image of black females in US media and how it influences black female rape victims experience (and credibility).
* Hazel/Cedar Troost's "Reclaiming Touch: Rape Culture, Explicit Verbal Consent, and Body Sovereignty" suggests considering seeking explicit verbal consent before engaging in whatever form of physical contact, even with close friends, and how joyful that can be. I especially loved the footnotes to hir essay, one of them defining 'cisgendered' as "a person whose self-determination of hir sex and gender is uncontested"; and another stating "Gender coercion is the system of forcing other people into gendered and sexed social categories and behaviors. I use it to create coalition between those who would end behavioral restrictions withing the category they inhabit (e.g., masculine women, feminine men), those who would create third- or fourth-gender categories (e.g., genderqueers), and those who would create equal access to existing categories (e.g., transsexual people). While the term "gender binary" is often used similarly, it frequently alienates the third movement from the other two."
* Latoya Peterson, "The Not-Rape Epidemic" is a personal account of the ubiquitous sexual violence and not-violence far, far too many people face. Another soul-crushing piece.
* Julia Serano, "Why Nice Guys Finish Last" looks at a corresponding male dichotomy to the female virgin/whore: asshole/nice guy, and how both are based on a larger cultural predator/prey mindset.
* Tiloma Jayasinghe's "When Pregnancy Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Be Pregnant" examines the 'War on Drugs' consequences on the governmental (and cultural) approach to pregnant drug-addicts as criminals undeserving of bodily autonomy or help, based on little to no scientific data. It's a problematic essay, perfect for heated arguments.(less)

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Sep 26, 2011 tuttle88 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This book is actually surprisingly sexy. That's right a sexy book about stopping rape. The basic premise of the book (although its a series of essays so they aren't all sticking to the same point), is that instead of consent being about the absence of a no it should be about the presence of an enthusiastic yes. That if women are free to ask for sex when they want it and be open about their desires sex ceases to be a commodity (something men try to get from women who don't want to give it away).

I...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Ruby Duvall rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Many essays, some of which were not as tightly written as I prefer, but all of which were well worth a read. I'll simply list the essays I found most enlightening—those that pointed to intersections I hadn't thought of before—along with short excerpts or quick summaries of their topic. Of the book's twenty-seven essays, definitely read the following:

-"Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms That Perpetuate Rape Culture, and How Feminists Can Fight Back" by Jill Filipovic
"...Not until t...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book raises a lot of important issues and is an important book for all men who regularly interact with women to read, possibly even more important for those that don't. Some of it is geared to younger (20-35) audience. It explores consent in a way that supercedes well intentioned attempts at rape prevention, especially acquaintance and date rape prevention, which unfortunately had the potential to make sexual situations seem like ordering a large chocolate milk in a Starbucks ("Ice venti, n...more

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May 20, 2009 Anurasika rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2009

Everything I need to know about feminism I learned online.

It's startling how little new information there was in this collection of essays, since I've been reading feminist blogs online. I can't remember exactly why I had this book on my to-read list, since it was published by Seal Press, and co-edited by the founder of feministing.com. I ended up skimming through a lot of the essays, and focusing on the ones written by the women of colour. Most of it seemed pretty feminism 101, and there was on...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminist, essays

Sex. This book is about sex and how society sees sex. Honestly, if you are a women read this book. If you are worried about sex ed in school, read this book. There are various topics covered in this collection, mostly about sexually and rape. (The weakest one I thought, strangely, was the essay about sex and immigration. While I grant rape is a particular thing the female immigration must worry about, outside of that, don't male immigrants face the same problem?).

Yet the ideas and theories prese...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Levi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Levi by: Stole it from Raquel

Shelves: gender, queer, non-fiction, political

I'm counting this as read because I read most of the ones I was interested in. I may go back and pick off a few more.

I really liked Julia Serano's essay about how in addition to not desexualizing women who choose not to make themselves objects, we have to stop desexualizing men who choose not to objectify.

The interview with three sex workers was also really interesting, although it sort of ignored the idea that sex work isn't always a choice.

There was another really good one that I'm not remembe...more

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Feb 02, 2010 Unwisely rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, non-fiction

So, I finally finished this book. It's a tough book to read cover-to-cover - the subject matter gets to be too much, after a while. Or at least that was my experience - I had to put it down and come back to it after I cleansed my palate with something light and froofy.

But, having said that, I think it was a worthwhile read. I mean, I am a long-time feminist and even minored in women's studies, and this seemed like a different discussion than I've had. (Can't tell if I've forgotten or These Kids...more

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Dec 05, 2010 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, memoiresque

4 our of five, because while i did really enjoy it, some of the essays seemed a little off, and I would have liked at least another male-perspective essay, as well as one about choosing to NOT have sex that was not from a sexual violence survivor point of view, just to round things out a little more. Honestly, this is the sort of stuff that fascinates me, and i want to make a million blog posts about different concepts addressed in the essays, but the book is due back to the library in two days,...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Shana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This collection of diverse essays revolve around the issue of rape/sexual assault, but from a sex positive perspective. Although the topics may seem quite different from one another, they all reflect back to how our society views women's bodily autonomy, sexuality, and consent.

I enjoyed the perspective these essays presented because they were sex positive and discussed ways in which we as women can enjoy being sexual beings without compromising our safety. Oftentimes I feel discouraged by anti-r...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Melissa Baggett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism-women-s-studies

An interesting collection of essays that discuss several aspects of both male and female sexuality as well as a need to redefine the concept of consent. YMY insists that consent is not the absence of "no" but the presence of "yes," a loud, liberating, mutually pleasurable yes between couples of both sexes and all genders and sexual orientations.

Some highlights:

1. Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms that Perpetuate Rape Culture, and How Feminists Can Fight Back by Jill Filipovic. No...more An interesting collection of essays that discuss several aspects of both male and female sexuality as well as a need to redefine the concept of consent. YMY insists that consent is not the absence of "no" but the presence of "yes," a loud, liberating, mutually pleasurable yes between couples of both sexes and all genders and sexual orientations.

Some highlights:

1. Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms that Perpetuate Rape Culture, and How Feminists Can Fight Back by Jill Filipovic. Nothing new in the discussion of how sex roles propagate rape culture, but one cannot repeat too often that reinforcing male dominance and female passivity through accepted gender norms just makes it that much easier for male rapists to dominate and female victims to submit passively. Filipovic also points out that the culture of fear surrounding rape serves to keep women more confined to the domestic sphere, as it limits women's movement about in public spaces, than women would otherwise choose to be without that ever-present fear.

2. Toward a Performance Model of Sex by Thomas Macaulay Miller. At last! Miller describes society's view of sex as a commodity with sex as a good that can be bought, sold, traded or stolen and women as the primary dealers in this commodity. But going beyond that, Miller suggests that sex be viewed like a dance or a music performance--who would want to try to dance or play music with someone who just stood there or danced/played reluctantly? What kind of performance would that be? If sex were viewed in the same way, enthusiastic consent would be the norm, and sex would be rightfully recognized as something that should be a performance between two people equally interested in its completion and excellence.

3. How do you Fuck a Fat Woman? by Kate Harding. A look at the way women who are considered overweight are treated after a rape. Apparently, "fat" women should consider rape a compliment--how else would they get sex?

4. An Old Enemy in a New Outfit: How Date Rape Became Gray Rape and Why it Matters by Lisa Jervis. Personally, I think Cosmopolitan owes American women an apology for making us think we are or should be their version of the "fun, fearless female." Cosmo's coining of "gray rape" as something that falls in between consent and common conceptions of sexual assault is yet another reason the magazine should put a pistol to its collective temple. "Gray rape" is the same ol' date rape, but this time in the Cosmo universe, and unfortunately in the real world too, it's the rape makes self-blame that much easier. Because those who experience sexual assault may also see themselves as strong, independent women, they don't want to see themselves as victims, and consequently create a concept of rape that's not really rape. In one go, they rename and continue to trivialize rape while punishing themselves and any other woman for stepping outside that passive role to be strong, independent women in the first place.

5. An Immodest Proposal by Heather Corinna. A suggestion that teenage girls pursue sexual fulfillment for their own pleasure--and that adult women do the same.

6. Hooking Up with Healthy Sexuality: The Lessons Boys Learn (and Don't Learn) About Sexuality, and Why a Sex-Positive Rape Prevention Paradigm Can Benefit Everyone Involved. I especially like the author's discussion (read: criticism) of the US approach to sex education as based on one group's moral perspective rather than on science (which it is).(less)

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Jun 14, 2010 Grumpylibrarian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, feminism, non-fiction, politics, sexuality

Required reading for women and men. A few chapters sort of made me go "huh" (as in what the hell is going on here, I'm looking at you WWE/Pussycat Doll chapter) but most made me think YES. YES YES YES YES.

The experience of being a woman, of being vulnerable and of diminished ownership in our own bodies was so explicitly and eloquently described and dismantled by the authors of each chapter. The experience of masculinity and ways to involve men in efforts to end societal violence against women wa...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
The Feminist Book...: * Foreword by Margaret Cho- Sex (and Other Things) You Didn't Want	6	18	Oct 19, 2012 11:36am
The Feminist Book...: Yes Means Yes: General observations	1	12	Oct 09, 2012 08:42pm
The Feminist Book...: Finding the Book	5	30	Sep 26, 2012 02:01pm

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Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape

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