P.D. Workman's Blog, page 85
April 16, 2019
Excerpt from The Light Between Oceans
If you didn’t pick up your Easter egg surprises yet, you still have a chance! And be sure to come back here Friday for a list of new releases, including Sour Cherry Turnover, book #7 in the Auntie Clem’s Bakery series (which is available for preorder if you don’t want to have to remember to come back.)
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
I am just finishing The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. It has been a very interesting book with some unexpected twists and turns. There is some beautiful language and some very profound quotes. Fate miraculously presents a returned soldier with PTSD and his wife, who has suffered from three miscarriages with an apparently orphaned baby. But… life doesn’t actually work that way…
To have any kind of a future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past.
M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans
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After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
April 11, 2019
Do No Harm
Do No Harm
Coming Soon!
Genres: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Store links: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks
Available on preorder now!
DO NO HARM is an extraordinary, limited collection of medical thrillers written by USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon best-selling authors.
Do you crave reading books with nail-biting suspense, twisted plots and great characters who get caught up in whirlwinds of crime, deception and lies? Do you love sitting on the edge of your seat, wondering who will survive…and who won’t?
From the mountains of West Virginia, to acute care hospitals, the battlefields of the Middle East and the hallowed halls of our educational system, join us for these incredible stories of healthcare gone wrong.
If you like Robin Cook, David Baldacci and Patricia Cornwell, this collection is for you! Do No Harm is a binge-readers dream – 14 medical thriller books in one! And you can only get this collection of books from this group of authors here!
Grab your copy today and find a comfortable chair!
Click on the links above.
Features on the books in this bundle:
Unlawful Harvest
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Hoppy Easter Reading
I am getting a head start on Easter with this blog post, since I am doing a new release on Good Friday (Sour Cherry Turnover, book #7 in the Auntie Clem’s Bakery series, available for preorder now.)
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I don’t have any books or stories with an Easter theme. Maybe I ought to write an Easter short for the Reg Rawlins series. Because we all associate witches with Easter, right? As a matter of fact, I don’t think I even have any books that mention Easter.
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So what am I going to offer you for an Easter special?
I decided to make it an Easter egg. Click on the eggs on this page to access these surprise sales!
April 10, 2019
Unlawful Harvest
Unlawful Harvest is a Kenzie Kirsch Medical Thriller. If you have been reading the Zachary Goldman Mysteries, then you have met Kenzie Kirsch, who works in the medical examiner’s office.
This story will take you back to before Kenzie started medical school, to the case that first attracted her to medical investigation.
Kenzie Kirsch had led a sheltered life; daughter of a wealthy lobbyist, her way had been paved for her, and she wasn’t really required to do much in life. There were events to make an appearance at, boards to sit on, fundraisers to support, but she could pick and choose what she wanted to do and how busy she wanted to be.
When she set out to find out why her sister Amanda was so ill, she had no idea where her amateur investigation would take her. Amanda’s illness had never been discussed. Amanda deserved her privacy.
As Kenzie’s questions take her deeper and deeper into the murky world of transplant tourism, Kenzie starts to wonder just what her parents have been covering up, and who else’s life might hang in the balance.
Unlawful Harvest is currently only available as part of the Do No Harm bundle.
Back to DNH
April 9, 2019
Excerpt from The Mysterious Affair at Styles
I hope you are enjoying April, Autism Awareness month. Hop on over to have a look at my blog about autism awareness and acceptance if you haven’t seen it yet.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
I am currently re-reading Dame Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first Hercule Poirot mystery. This was Agatha’s first published novel, and received good critical acclaim. She made £25 on the book for the serial rights and wondered whether pursuing writing was worthwhile. (It turned out it was.) It’s a long time since I read this book, and I am enjoying it all over again.
If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go.
Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles is a detective novel by British writer Agatha Christie. It was her first published novel, written in 1916, and published in the US and in the UK a few years later. It introduced Hercule Poirot, Inspector (later, Chief Inspector) Japp, and Arthur Hastings.
This first mystery novel by Agatha Christie was well received by reviewers. An analysis in 1990 was positive about the plot, considered the novel one of the few by Christie that is well-anchored in time and place, a story that knows it describes the end of an era, and mentions that the plot is clever. Christie had not mastered cleverness in her first novel, as “too many clues tend to cancel each other out”; this was judged a difficulty “which Conan Doyle never satisfactorily overcame, but which Christie would.”
April 4, 2019
Autism Acceptance Month
I’ve written a few other blogs on special autism observation days (some links farther down). April is widely known as Autism Awareness Month. The last few weeks, there has been a lot of buzz on groups that I am associated with on the Neurodiversity movement and changing “Autism Awareness” to “Autism Acceptance.” There have been some great resources shared and I decided to post a few of them here. These essays and other resources will give you much more insight into what the adult autistic community is fighting for than I can myself.
And keep scrolling down for some books to read.
Resources
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Shifting the paradigm from awareness to acceptance
Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm
5 Guidelines to keep in mind during Autism Acceptance Month
What’s wrong with the puzzle piece and “light it up blue”?
The Ableist History of the Puzzle Piece Symbol for Autism
Fighting for the closure of ATU’s in the UK
She was so desperate, she swallowed a toothbrush
Autism Awareness Bingo
Watching all of those autism awareness articles, memes, and inspiration porn roll through your Facebook (or other social media) feed? Why not pull out this Autistic Party Giraffe card and see if you can get bingo?
Books to Read
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Normally I put my books and blog entries before other parties’, but out of respect for “nothing about us without us,” I will reverse this and put books by #actuallyautistic authors first:
Books by Actually Autistic Authors (Goodreads list)
I included a number of autism positive books (some by autistic authors) in my International Day of the Stim Blog
Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes sets out the modern history of and corrects a lot of misconceptions about autism.
And finally, I have autistic characters in a number of my books (sometimes labeled autistic, sometimes not.) People’s perceptions and treatment of autistic characters becomes a central issue in these two:
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April 2, 2019
Excerpt from The Fix
Hopefully, you managed to pick up a few freebies this weekend. If you didn’t, a few of them might still be on sale. Check out my post to find out.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
This week I am reading The Fix, one of the books in David Baldacci’s MemoryMan series, which I have written about before. I enjoy the neurodiverse Amos Decker series, and of course, Baldacci is great at creating a complex puzzle with lots of exciting twists and turns.
It was two guns versus one. The response should have been obvious. Lie down and you won’t fall down.
David Baldacci, The Fix
Danny looked first at the guard and then at Decker.
And smiled.
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Amos Decker witnesses a murder just outside FBI headquarters. A man shoots a woman execution-style on a crowded sidewalk, then turns the gun on himself.
Even with Decker’s extraordinary powers of observation and deduction, the killing is baffling. Decker and his team can find absolutely no connection between the shooter — a family man with a successful consulting business — and his victim, a schoolteacher. Nor is there a hint of any possible motive for the attack.
Enter Harper Brown. An agent of the Defense Intelligence Agency, she orders Decker to back off the case. The murder is part of an open DIA investigation, one so classified that Decker and his team aren’t cleared for it.But they learn that the DIA believes solving the murder is now a matter of urgent national security. Critical information may have been leaked to a hostile government — or worse, an international terrorist group — and an attack may be imminent.
Decker’s never been one to follow the rules, especially with the stakes so high. Forced into an uneasy alliance with Agent Brown, Decker remains laser focused on only one goal: solving the case before it’s too late.
March 28, 2019
A Catastrophic Theft and other March freebies
Are you looking for some books to add to your TBR pile? A Catastrophic Theft, book #3 in the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Detective series is free this weekend, Mar 29-31 on Kindle. Keep scrolling down for more!
About A Catastrophic Theft
[image error]Reg has been able to set up a respectable, if somewhat unconventional business providing psychic services in Black Sands, and is starting to feel like she could actually settle down there long-term.
But her relationship with Sarah, who has been her loyal friend and protector since she arrived becomes strained when Sarah’s precious emerald necklace disappears.
There is no shortage of suspects, with Reg herself at the front of the line.
Friends and felines pitch in to solve the mystery, but in the end it is up to Reg and her cat Starlight to ferret out the truth.
Read sample
Download
Free Mar 29-31
Other Freebies
The Cats that Surfed the Web
Dead of winter. A Victorian mansion. Forty-four million dollars. And a young career woman with Siamese cats. When Katherine “Katz” Kendall, a computer professional in New York City, discovers she’s the sole heir of a huge inheritance, she can’t believe her good luck.
There are people in the town who are furious that they didn’t get the money. But who would be greedy enough to get rid of the rightful heir to take the money and run? Four extraordinary felines help Katz solve the crimes by mysteriously “searching” the Internet for clues. This debut book will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Murder & Mayhem
Within twenty-four hours, Alexis Danforth’s world is shattered. She loses her parents and her job.
Rummaging through the attic she discovers family secrets and returns to her hometown of Cryptic Cove; a quiet, sleepy little town perched above the sea.
The disappearance and death of an elderly couple sets the town on edge. Accusations fly. The past is dredged up. Bodies are found.
As she joins the town constable to help solve the case, she finds herself attracted to her main suspect, Jake Donovan.
Vistaria Has Fallen
Calli Munro, American professor, is arrested the moment she arrives on the island nation of Vistaria. The mysterious man known as the Red Leopard, Nicolas Escobedo, helps her. Brother to the President of Vistaria, Nick moves behind the scenes, influencing Vistaria’s army and the military junta that governs the country.
The power of the rebel Insurrectos is growing, as isolationist Vistaria spins toward revolution. Only a tiny nudge will tumble the country into the abyss of war. Nick’s liaison with Calli, a hated Americano, is that nudge.
Nick is dangerous to be with, but Calli’s heart and soul say otherwise. If they give in to their desires, a whole country will fall.
Gypsies, Traps & Missing Thieves
A massive snowstorm is wreaking havoc in Bohemian Lake but that won’t stop the Vianu ladies who have hired an outside event planning company to run a murderous mystery game extravaganza at the family-owned-and-operated lakeside resort.
It will be an unparalleled weekend at the Caravan Manor—where for a change—they get to take part in the clues, costumes, and red herrings. Two days of harmless murder or so they think until a dead body is found at the bottom of a secret staircase. Rumors abound of history repeating and a ghost out for revenge. The Vianu ladies begin to wonder whether they are in danger but how can you know what’s real in a game of pretend.
Cat Killed a Rat
Nothing bad ever happens in Ponderosa Pines
At least, that’s what anonymous gossip columnist Chloe LaRue and her best friend, town matriarch EV Torrence thought—until a resident of their sleepy little village turns up dead. When EV becomes suspect #1, even Chloe can’t stop the rumor mill from churning.
Against Detective Nate Harper and Deputy Dalton Burnsoll’s orders, Chloe and EV mount their own investigation—but what they uncover might just rock the community to its very core. Could one of their own beloved citizens really be a killer?
The Last Concubine
Inspired by Art: The Last Concubine is a collection of art throughout the ages, around the story of David. This volume focuses on the last concubine, Abishag, the rivalry between his sons, Adonijah and Solomon, and the transition of power to his chosen heir, ensuring his legacy for future generations.
This collection is arranged not by artist, nor by artistic style or era, but rather by the story moment-by-moment, blow-by-blow, as imagined by various artists. Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Chagall, Picasso, and Jan Steen to name but a few.
The Case of the Love Spell
Welcome to Hillcrest, a small box-canyon town snuggled high in the mountains of Colorado. It’s been Penny’s home for her whole life, and she’s always thought of it as a peaceful — if boring — place to live.
All of that changes when the elderly Claudine Terra is killed, and a mysterious mountain pass behind her mansion opens up to through traffic. Could the new visitors to town, including a handsome vampire, have something to do with Claudine’s murder?
Penny is intent on finding out. She wants to save her failing PI business, get her love-life in order, and prove the police department wrong, all in one fell swoop. But as Penny learns about her own witchy powers, things turn out to be a bit more complicated than she expected.
The Cat who Went Bump in the Night
Eli Carter is a smart (yet strange) guy trapped in a dead-end career.
When he meets smooth-talking Khan Hart, a self-proclaimed necromancer, he’s given the opportunity to become a hero.
As soon as he takes the job working for Ghost Hackers, Eli’s life takes a turn for the paranormal. For starters, something under his bed is trying to kill him.
Now Eli must team up with Khan, face down his fears, and kick the butt of one very strange ghost.
The Recipient
A year after serial killer Michael Rhodes is executed and allowed to donate part of his brain as an organ transplant, Wade gets called to a murder scene that shares uncanny similarities to those of the late Michael Rhodes. Other similar killings happen around Seattle, and Wade seems to be the only person still alive who knows enough about Michael Rhodes’s murders to be able to replicate them.
Elle is overjoyed when her husband, Brian, receives a partial brain transplant and gets a second chance at life. Until she learns that his brain cells came from a serial killer…
Spooky Shopping Mall
When hysterical customers claim their shopping has been stolen by a ghost, the shopping mall manager calls the only paranormal investigation agency in the book.
Meet Amanda Harper Paranormal P.I. But its Amanda’s first day and nothing in life has prepared her for the bedlam that will follow. What is the truth behind the mysterious missing shopping bags? Does she have any idea what she is doing? And why, oh why, did she invite sassy BFF Patience Woods to help out.
Solving this is going to be tough, but if the ghost case wasn’t confusing enough, she’s got a bit of a crush on her new boss and a date in Paris with a Billionaire gentleman that seems too good to be true.
Southern Spirits
When out of work graphic designer Verity Long accidentally traps a ghost on her property, she’s saddled with more than a supernatural sidekick—she gains the ability see spirits. It leads to an offer she can’t refuse from the town’s bad boy, the brother of her ex and the last man she should ever partner with.
Ellis Wydell is in possession of a stunning historic property haunted by some of Sugarland Tennessee’s finest former citizens. Only some of them are growing restless—and destructive. He hires Verity to put an end to the disturbances. But soon, Verity learns there’s more to the mysterious estate than floating specters, secret passageways, and hidden rooms.
Red Rover, Red Rover
Of course he doesn’t know a latte from a cappuccino . . . Brent Peterson is actually a spy! When things go south, Emily, a young coffee barista, is thrown into a world of espionage, danger, and humorous codenames. The first in a series of clean spy-comedy novellas.
Sign up for the author’s newsletter to download.
A Ghost of a Chance
Nobody knows that Laurel Bay can see and talk to ghosts. When she inherits a funeral home, she is forced to return from the city to the small town of Witch Woods to breathe life into the business. It is a grave responsibility, but Laurel is determined that this will be no dead-end job.
There she has to contend with her manipulative and overly religious mother, more than one ghost, and a secretive but handsome accountant.
When the murder of a local woman in the funeral home strangles the finances, can Laurel solve the murder?
Maggie for Hire
My name is Maggie MacKay. When monsters show up in Los Angeles, I get the call to haul ’em back to the dimension where they belong.
It’s a living.
But I just got word my uncle has teamed up with the forces of darkness to ruin my life. Actually, everyone’s lives. Everyone’s gonna die if don’t find a magical object before the coming apocalypse. This is going to make the next family reunion a little awkward.
Come along with me, my sidekick elf Killian, and my crazy family for a snarky urban fantasy adventure with attitude.
Jolie Gentil Translates to Trouble
Jolie has gotten readjusted to life in Ocean Alley and manages to balance appraising real estate with chairing the Harvest for All Food Pantry. What she can’t quite do is mind her own business.
This boxed set puts together books four through six of the Jolie Gentil Cozy Mystery Series.They are Any Port in a Storm, Trouble on the Doorstep, and Behind the Walls.
Miss Spelled
Amelia Spelled has had a bad week. Her boyfriend dumps her when she inadvertently gives him food poisoning. Her workplace, a telecommunications center, fires all their staff as they are outsourcing offshore, and she is evicted due to smoke damage resulting from her failed attempts at baking. Amelia thinks her luck has changed when she inherits her estranged aunt’s store, two mysterious cats, and beautiful Victorian house.
Yet has Amelia jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? To Amelia’s dismay, the store is a cake store, and she discovers that her aunt was a witch. To add to the mix, the house has secrets of its own.
Spells and Spiced Latte
Maddie always thought it was a sleepy kind of town, apart from the fact that when she was seven, she found an ancient book, Wytchcraft for the Chosen.
Now, twenty years later, she can only cast one spell successfully from the book – the Coffee Vision spell. But when she peeks into Joan’s future – one of her regular customers – she sees the middle-aged woman lying dead in the kitchen!
When the vision comes true, Maddie is determined to investigate – with the help of Trixie, and Suzanne. Will her witchy abilities help or hinder her?
March 26, 2019
Excerpt from The Last Anniversary
I am busily editing and planning/researching for my next book right now. I’m sure you would find my Google history right now very interesting! In case you missed it, I posted a blog last week about consent and how that theme is woven into my Reg Rawlins, Psychic Detective series. Be sure to come back this weekend for a special promotion!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
This week, I am reading The Last Anniversary, by Liane Moriarty. It has been a very interesting read so far. Toward the end of last week, I was reading Mary Poppins, and found that I like the book even less than the movie. Or the second movie. I don’t understand the attraction of that one. But back to The Last Anniversary. Moriarty weaves the intertwined stories of the members of an Australian family who were involved in the case of a couple who disappeared, leaving their infant daughter behind as a cake cooled on the counter and the kettle on the stove had not yet started to boil. This family has capitalized on the sensational story for generations, but have not revealed what it is that they really know. I am getting quite curious to know their well-kept secret!
This home, built in 1901, has not been touched since teenage sisters Connie and Rose Doughty stopped by for a cup of tea with their neighbors on 15 July 1932. They discovered the kettle about to boil, a freshly baked marble cake waiting to be iced, and a tiny baby waking for her feed—but no sign of her parents, Alice and Jack Munro.
Liane Moriarty, The Last Anniversary
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Sophie Honeywell always wondered if Thomas Gordon was the one who got away. He was the perfect boyfriend, but on the day he was going to propose, she broke his heart. A year later he married his travel agent, while Sophie has been mortifyingly single ever since. Now Thomas is back in her life because Sophie has unexpectedly inherited his aunt Connie’s house on Scribbly Gum Island—home of the famously unsolved Munro Baby mystery.
Sophie moves onto the island and begins a new life as part of an unconventional family, where it seems everyone has a secret. Grace, a beautiful young mother, is feverishly planning a shocking escape from her perfect life. Margie, a frumpy housewife, has made a pact with a stranger, while dreamy Aunt Rose wonders if maybe it’s about time she started making her own decisions.
As Sophie’s life becomes increasingly complicated, she discovers that sometimes you have to stop waiting around—and come up with your own fairy-tale ending.
March 21, 2019
Consent is Magical
If you have been reading the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Detective series, you probably noticed that the first few books explore the issue of consent from a unique viewpoint. In the magical community of Black Sands, Reg finds herself attracted to and yet at odds with warlock Corvin Hunter. Corvin has magical abilities Reg does not understand, since it is considered to be in poor taste to discuss them.
“… such things are just not discussed in polite company. Men like Corvin… well…” She shook her head. “What they do is unspeakable.”
A Psychic with Catitude
In the most recent release, A Catastrophic Theft, Reg ends up testifying against Corvin before a warlock tribunal and finds that her modern view of consent is something completely foreign to the community, who in spite of modern conveniences are living with attitudes that are several hundred years old. She finds herself the target of some serious victim-blaming and shaming.
Reg saw the trap he’d laid for her. A hot flush rolled over her face. “Why are you blaming me?” she demanded. “I’m the victim here! I told him I did not yield my powers to him even if he managed to make me say yes with his magic. I told him no over and over again, and he still glamoured me!”
“Miss Rawlins, this issue of consent seems to be one that you hold some very strong opinions about.”
A Catastrophic Theft
I won’t give too much away. I don’t want to spoil the books before you have a chance to read them!
Modern day (non-magical) consent
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It has been interesting to watch the transition in attitudes and laws over the past couple of decades. Western society has made some significant strides in redefining sexual assault and the expectation that (potential) partners have each other’s consent at all times. Consider that the United States did not even criminalize marital rape in all states until 1993. Historically, a woman was the property of her husband and did not have the right to refuse sex.
We will, I hope, continue to advance in this area despite some world leaders who do not appear to understand the concept of consent.
Resources
I looked around for some good resources on modern laws of sexual consent and guidelines for those who are trying to understand the new paradigm, and these are a few of the pages that I thought worth looking at.
Because Google knows where I live, my top hits were Canadian sites, and I particularly liked this one from the Edmonton Police Department. It is not as victim-centric as a lot of the other pages I looked at, but gives constructive help in communication to ensure that you have your partner’s consent at all times. Unique to this page are their “examples of no.”
“Not now” “Maybe later”“I have a boy/girlfriend”“No thanks”“You’re not my type”“*#^+ off!”“I’d rather be alone right now”“Don’t touch me”“I really like you but…”“Let’s just go to sleep”“I’m not sure”“You’ve/I’ve been drinking”SILENCE
It is important to note that this list includes “silence.” A number of people that I have heard from over the past year have talked about freezing up when they feel threatened. As much as we would like to declare what action we would take in a threatening situation (punch them in the face, walk away, etc.,) in the face of danger or an assault it is a natural human response to freeze. I have heard things like “Couldn’t he tell I was frozen?” “I was just lying there with tears running down my face” or “Didn’t they even care that I wasn’t participating?” Read Bea Currie’s heart-wrenching Silence is Not Consent.
One of the sites that I read suggested partners say things like “Can we slow down?” or “Can we stop?” if they felt uncomfortable and did not want to continue. But I feel that this phrasing, which is intended to be polite and non-confrontational, is not adequate. “Can we” suggests that it is a request, and that it can be answered with “yes” or “no.” I feel that we need to get away from the notion that we need to be polite and concerned about not hurting the other person’s feelings. Saying “stop” or “no” is not rude, blunt, or offensive. If your partner considers you a [insert ugly word here] for saying no, then maybe it’s best to part company.
Rather than “Can we slow down?” why not “Slow down”? Rather than “Can we stop?” Why not “Stop”? If you are feeling anxious, unsafe, or not ready or in the mood, and you are able to find your words, then in my view, the clearer you can be, the better. It should not be a question, it should be a directive.
A couple more good resources:
What is consent?The infamous Tea Consent video. (Why they felt the need to include an f-bomb at 0:10, I don’t know. The rest of the video is fine.)
If you have some other great resources (web pages, videos, books, etc.) let me know in the comments section.
Last words
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I shouldn’t have to say it, but here it is. The rules of consent apply to everyone: male, female, transgender, intersex, gay, straight, bi, poly, whatever. Men are victims of sexual assault too. Those who are LGBTQIA are much more likely to be sexually assaulted. So are those who are neurodiverse or handicapped.
And of course, children, those who cannot understand sex and consent, and those who are drunk, unconscious, or asleep cannot ever give consent.
And finally, if you have been the victim of sexual assault, it is not because you did the wrong thing. The fault lies with the perpetrator, not the victim. I hope that you are able to find healing and wholeness in your life.
