Kitty Stryker

"A collection of essays by writers, journalists and activists exploring the role of consent in confronting power structures in day-to-day life"--

Building Consent Culture

Maggie Gordon

Ask: Building a Consent Culture is one of those books that starts an important conversation, but is not going to be the most powerful part of that conversation. Stryker has gathered a number of people to discuss what consent looks like outside of just sex, and that's an important issue to parce through. On the other hand, many of these articles are very short and light on analysis. Most are very focused on specific situations rather than consent as a whole. There are lots of interesting ideas arising from this book, but lots of questions remaining and frameworks to really interrogate.

Caroline Lewicki

I truly struggle to rate and critique this book, but with a gentle hand, I'll try. I thought the concept of this was incredible when I first picked it up. As a sexual assault survivor, I want nothing more than consent culture to be radiated through our society. Many of the stories in this anthology touched on that in ways I'd never even thought to think of consent. Even as the person I am, they made me think I could do better to seek consent in every day life. Where I struggle is that some of these felt so disconnecting. I think it's great that Kitty Stryker sought diverse voices, as they need to be heard, but some of the voices carried aggression. The "if you're a cis, white woman, you don't understand this" feeling was rampant in a lot of these and I don't often feel put off by that. I fully understand how my privilege can prevent me from seeing all sides of oppression and inequality, but this almost made me feel like I shouldn't try to help because my help isn't wanted. I also feel like people who should hear more about incorporating consent into daily life will turn their backs on this book. I hate to say that, but the people that really need to hear the message will feel totally disconnected when the work and consent section is almost entirely about the sex worker industry or when we start talking about swingers and sex parties. Building consent culture is so essential but I just feel like this book uninvited some of us from the consent party.

Ask Building Consent Culture

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