Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel, Katherine Angel

13 reviews

hadleym12's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative fast-paced

3.5

this book is successful in exposing the failures of most modern consent discourse specifically where it places the burden of preventing sexual violence on women, just in new progressive sounding ways. i especially like the consideration that the notion of consent cannot and does not adequately cover various power imbalances that occur between any individuals entering into a sexual encounter. failing to see how these imbalances result in uncertainty and miscommunication while relying on either negation/force or affirmative/enthusiastic yes to indicate consent is setting vulnerable people up to be gaslit or denied a right to feel violated or in pain. where this book challenged mainstream consent discourse and the pathologization of female sexuality i was impressed. unfortunately i think the failure of this book was a major one in its adherence to a white cishet perspective. some attempts are made to work in the different issues women of color face but it is done as almost a footnote to the main narrative, as if to suggest that women of color have the exact same experience as white women just worse in some ways rather than white supremacy being an integral part of rape culture and conversations about consent/sexual relationships. similarly, a few times attention is brought to the unique experiences of sex workers but little is said about the sex trade as an industry. i wish more was said about what the sex trade reveals about the nature of consent for everyone in and outside the trade. most obvious and disappointingly absent was the consideration of lgbt+ identities. leaving that conversation for someone else to uncover would be a fine choice if it wasn’t for the bioessentialism and cisnormativity. the assumption that there is some fundamental difference between men (people with penises) and women (people with vaginas) goes dangerously unchallenged. and worse, discussions of sexual violence are centered around cis women, ignoring or even excluding trans women from consideration. i don’t believe that the author is a terf or otherwise discriminatory towards trans people, rather i think this lack of consideration comes from ignorance and an unwillingness to grapple what seems to be a daunting can of worms. overall i think the conclusions of the book are still mostly sound but when the bioessentialism and cisnormativity appear it is an unfortunate distraction. my final problem is that towards the end, in the chapter “on vulnerability” i think the author is lost a bit in their own imaginary utopia of what sex is/should be, so that the final conclusions are a lot less grounded than the rest of the book. there is an unpleasant back and forth between the empowering potential of vulnerability and the reality of sexual violence, and the contradiction between these things goes unresolved. the ending of the book especially suffers from a lack of consideration for people of color and for those in the sex trade who are especially unable to open up to vulnerability in the way the author describes. i think she is aware that this conflict is unresolved and i don’t expect her to have all the answers, i just wish there was something to take away that wasn’t just “sex would be so good if we could trust people not to be violent.” ultimately i think the notion of vulnerability is a powerful one to explore especially as an alternative to strict consent culture but a more thorough explanation of what it would mean in the real world and how it can be implemented is necessary. 
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iolam's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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ohmate's review against another edition

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challenging informative

5.0

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