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

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

• 
  Ciara

  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.
• 
  Emily May

  A really powerful read. This book attempts to refute the notion that sex is something that happens to women - that they are conquests, not participants. It's also about how women enjoy sex as much as men and shouldn't be shamed for it.
• 
  Avory Faucette

  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 instead at how the culture accepts heterosexual experiences where the woman experiences just a little or no pleasure as ordinary and acceptable. These essays challenge us to raise our expectations of sex and not to accept the misogyny and anti-woman behavior that is so prevalent in our society.
  
  The book also spans quite an array of topics. There are essays from the perspective of women of color, sex workers, and a MTF transsexual. There are essays on the problems faced by female immigrants, poor women, young women, and drug-users. Some essays explore the purity myth, while others look at incest or homophobia. There's something for everyone, but I would strongly recommend this book to all women, no matter whether you consider yourself a feminist or whether you've ever really thought about rape culture before. It's an eye-opening experience.
  
  
• 
  Yasmin

  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 pathetic victims in order to get funding. The one supplies the earnest foot soldiers for the other. Many of the writers work in women-oriented non-profits, but very few see the pitfalls of their work. An exception, Chicagoan Lee Riggs, writes of leaving rape crisis work because she felt “drained … within a framework that positioned the criminal legal system as the primary remedy for sexual violence.”"
  
  You can read the rest of my review here:
  
  
  http://www.yasminnair.net/content/yes...
• 
  Elevate Difference

  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 meaningful for actual cultural change and impact on women's lives.
  
  Professor What If: The introduction notes that the book intends to offer “a frank and in-depth conversation about forward-thinking ways to battle-rape culture,” and the book truly does contain many frank, in-depth conversations that formulate ways to rethink not only preventing rape, but also re-shaping the way we approach sex and sexuality. While the reasons behind the book are laudable, I find the claim that valuing female sexual pleasure will stop rape the book puts forward a bit too simplistic. Although the book nods to the complex socio-cultural factors that perpetuate rape culture, it stops short of really grappling with how rape is a by-product of our patriarchal, militarized, commodified world. I do think this is a very important book that makes crucial contributions to re-thinking sexuality, but it is only part of a much needed conversation we need to have—both in books and in blogs—about eradicating rape culture.
  
  The Apostate: I think "rape culture" should have been expounded upon more. I don't think people understand the difference between rape and rape culture, and that wasn't really addressed, which gave rise to some of the confusion around why anyone thought Yes Means Yes! would stop rape—the writers didn't think it would! They just want to dismantle rape culture, which is a bigger and more amorphous thing than the specific crime of rape, even if rape takes place within the context of rape culture.
  
  Professor What If: I was impressed with the broad coverage of the book and the diversity of voices. I especially appreciated those pieces that emphasized anti-rape activism must include teaching men not to rape and helping men to recognize rape. Jill Filipovic’s piece, for example, was very effective in examining the social-cultural contexts of rape culture and the need to include men in anti-rape activism and education. I also liked the inclusion of queer, male, fat, sex work, and BDSM perspectives.
  
  The Apostate: My favorite essay was Thomas MacAuley Millar’s. It really dismantled the perceptions of sex as something that is done to you, as a woman, rather than something you (enthusiastically) participate in. That is not a concept enough people understand; and although I get it, I have never seen it articulated so well as Millar did. His essay was beautifully written, cogent, with a great metaphor about sex as music. The commodity model of sex is one of the biggest hurdles women face, if they act like they are free to pursue their pleasure. People don't think their pleasure is really part of the picture at all, since women are the object, not the subject. And another thing: I had never realized how "no means no" continues to frame the sex as between a predator and prey, as Julia Serano defined the terms.
  
  Professor What If: Many of the authors argued against the 'power over' dynamic that shapes our thinking about sexuality by emphasizing mutual consent, doing away with the competition model of sex, ensuring certain partners (namely women) are not objectified/dehumanized, etc. I think this re-thinking of the power dynamics in relation to sex/sexuality are crucial. However, they must also be addressed in relation to those politics of domination that shape our society—patriarchy, capitalism, sexism, racism. Also, I wonder about the subtitle “visions of female sexual power.” Do we really want to rethink sexuality in terms of power? Doesn’t this go against the mutual consent/pleasure model the book upholds?
  
  The Apostate: The emphasis on sexual assault—and personal stories of pain and damage around that—got overwhelming in the second half of the book. The joy of enthusiastically consenting sex got lost in there. I think that focusing on how rape and sexual assault affect women's lives is very important, especially as so much of this reality is not captured in statistics or on the news, but perhaps sex as pain should not have predominated quite as much.
  
  Professor What If: I think an analysis of rape in same-sex or non-heterosexual relationships is missing. In keeping with this notion, the book frames women as rape victims, not covering boys and men as also victims/survivors of rape. For example, as rape within systems like the Catholic Church and public schools is prevalent, this seems a key omission. How could the rape culture condoned by religious establishments or the military be addressed via the “yes means yes” paradigm? In ways, the book leaves out the institutionalized aspect of rape and focuses on “individual rape scripts.” In so doing, it doesn’t fully examine those social structures and institutions that shape sexuality and perpetuate rape culture—the family, the church, the law, the military, etc.
  
  The Apostate: The overall feel I got from the book was very "alternative." It was very citified, and very margins-of-society, written by people we don't hear from on a daily basis in mainstream coverage. Those voices are all the more crucial for being so marginalized, and also because it is on the margins of society that the worst abuses happen. That said, I think it lacked a certain degree of balance. I did think it covered a wide range of issues and perspectives—except for married, heterosexual, middle class sexuality and the sexuality of older people. The only reason I would have liked to see that balance is to "normalize" these issues for the mainstream; so much of this sort of thing is hidden, under wraps, and allowing only the margins to speak out about it gives the deceptive impression that the problem of rape culture is not the problem of all women—which it most certainly is.
  
  Professor What If: I love blogs and blogging, but books are not blogs. Rather than trying to make the two mediums the same, I think we should value each medium (print v. online) in its own right. I found the “hyper-link” structure did not translate well into print format. Further, in keeping with the “blog format” of the book, many of the pieces were written in the less formal, talky style of blogs. Javacia Harris, for example, writes “Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not anti-sexy—I’ve been to my fair share of striptease aerobics classes.” This style seems too light for the aims outlined in the introduction and this style allows comments like these to be tossed out with no analysis of the wider cultural contexts that defines normative notions of “sexy” and results in the very existence of striptease aerobics classes in the first place.
  
  Too often the attitude that framed the arguments in the book is that any choice is ok as long as you know why you’re making it. This “sexual empowering choices model” is too simplistic. This is partly due to choosing a “blog style” for the book—a style that makes the book seem a bit too light given the subject matter at hand. While blogs work in a conversational, of-the-minute style, books allow for more thoughtful, hard-hitting, heavily researched writing. Both have their merits, but trying to write a book that functions like a blog makes me wonder about the purpose of going the print publication route; if one is not going to take advantage of a book format (and go into deeper analysis/research), stick to a blog (and indeed, the editors have a blog of the same name now up and running.
  
  The Apostate: I also thought the hyper-link theme was a little redundant. I liked the idea to begin with, but I ended up skipping the lists at the end of each essay and just read linearly. I did glance at a few and thought they didn't always make sense; they tended to include a quarter of the book each time, after every essay. A thematic unity among pieces kind of fell into one's head automatically, so I didn't see the necessity of that. As for the authors being mostly bloggers and part of the blogging community, I do think that it was perhaps a little insular and self-referential. For someone outside that community of bloggers, perhaps a lot of this stuff would be very new—some context is missing and some pieces are more bewildering than others. But overall, the hyper-linking style is easily ignored and doesn't detract, even if it doesn't add.
  
  Professor What If: I think examining the many factors that contribute to rape culture is helpful in addressing the pervasiveness of sexual violence. However, I still found there was a bit too much emphasis on what females do/do not do. The introduction notes that often what is missing in analyses of rape is the rapist. This book, with its focus on “yes” and on female’s “owning” their sexuality also under-analyzes rapists, instead focusing on women’s need to familiarize themselves with “enthusiastic consent.” In a strange way, the book thus keeps the onus of changing rape culture squarely on women’s shoulders. Many of the solutions seem a bit too individualized—as if becoming sexually empowered and educated will be enough to stop rape (or at least stop it from happening to oneself). While many of the texts offer useful, concrete suggestions to move towards a world without rape, I think more analysis of how the politics of domination upheld within patriarchy, capitalism, and militarism (all which profoundly shape our world) was needed. Also, we need to examine how intertwined violence and sexuality are in contemporary society—violence is so pervasive that it cannot be extracted from sex/sexuality. All of the enthusiastic “yes’s” in the world won’t change this.
  
  The Apostate: A lot of issues being talked about are really not discussed in our society and they need to be. And I was totally won over by the thesis of the book—that a woman's right and enthusiastic consent to sex were central to how sex and sexual violence are perceived. I’m really glad to see a somewhat mainstream book about women's experiences and hopes for a positive, enthusiastic, feminist ideal that also includes women as sexual creatures: horny, lusty, and slutty. Jaclyn Friedman's essay about overt sexuality really spoke to me on that front.
  
  Professor What If: I think the book is a really good first step towards re-thinking rape culture. I think, like Valenti’s other books, it will speak to many young feminists. However, being the theory-loving academic that I am, I found myself writing in the margins comments such as, “But where is the theory?” For that reason, I really liked Lee Jacobs Riggs account of our “sex negative” culture and the ways she also addressed the prisons/the criminal legal system and other oppressive systems. I would have liked more hard-hitting pieces like the ones by Coco Fusco and Miriam Zoila Perez (which were my favorites). Too often elsewhere, I came across the word “probably” being used to assess information. In the end, I also found the attack on second-wavers off-putting. Why does this have to be one of the defining characteristics of third wave texts? We need to get over the feminist blame game. No one “wave” has all the answers, and I think sometimes third wave feminism fails to address it’s own shortcomings.
  
  Review by The Apostate and Professor What If
• 
  Kari

  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 the female feminist perspective. Perry argues that he had unrealistic expectations of sex and "the game," which is of course the only way men can obtain sex. Perry explains that as he evolves as a person he develops a better understanding of sex and rape. He then moves onto abstinence only education, which was entertaining as always.
  
  Another awesome essay, "The Not-Rape Epidemic...," written by Latoya Peterson. This essay expressed the dangers in our culture of the "non-rapes." These experiences permeate many people who recognize that it wasn't rape, and thus he/she is lucky, and should just deal with it. Peterson detailed experiences not only of her own, but of many of her friends. She goes onto say that in retrospect one can identify what had happened, but at the time he/she is just so thankful that it wasn't worse that reporting or even speaking about it aloud didn't register. Only until after it was too late for others did she personally think that she should have said something.
• 
  Anna

  I suppose I should clarify why I gave this book such a crap rating. There is NOTHING in here about sex, consent and disability; for a book that's supposed to be "intersectional," that is a problem. In sum: "female sexual power and a world without rape" is only important for able-bodied women, I guess?
• 
  Kate Gould

  This is one of the most exciting, stimulating, and intelligent books I've ever read. I had so many "f*ck yeah" moments reading it. I'd recommend it to every woman and to every man who wants to know what makes us tick.
• 
  Dalyn

  I liked this book quite a lot, as evidenced by the rating I gave it. I do recommend it. I thought it was a really thought-provoking, thoughtful collection of ideas and topics. But none of that is what I want to talk about here. What I want to talk about is what I didn't like about it, which, for me, overshadowed everything I did like.
  First off, let me say: sex positivity is great. Enthusiastic consent is great. Better sex education is great. It's all great, and all something we should work toward and fight for. But it upsets me how often people discussing that everyone should have as much sex as they like fail to even mention that having no sex at all is also a valid option. Hardly anyone ever bothers to flip that coin over and talk about the other side.
  That other side exists. That other side, speaking personally, is pretty damn sick of not getting a seat in the conversation. That other side just wants to be counted, included, acknowledged. Given how hard it is to realize you're asexual or aromantic in this oversexualized, romantic-idealized world, it makes me grind my teeth to see people who supposedly know a lot about this subject leaving it out. What they aren't saying is so loud between the lines of what they are saying that it makes it difficult for me to pay attention to what they are saying. It's very hard for me to think about all the good points these writers are making when I'm being irritated at being left out (once again). And ignoring asexuality diminished everything else in this book. In a way, it ruined it for me. It poisoned it. And it didn't have to be that way, which is probably the most frustrating part.
  In one of the essays (Shame is the First Betrayer by Toni Amato), the author listed the A in LGBTQIA+ as standing for "allies." Reading that, that vile exclusion that feels to me like it could only be intentional, my head physically reared back like I'd been slapped. I felt it in my chest, having my identity ripped out of the conversation. I considered stopping reading this book then and there, and I had to set it down for a few days before I felt better enough about it to go on. And it's not fair to hold the other authors who contributed to this book accountable for the shameful, harmful ignorance of one, but it's certainly not fair to be cut out of this. Particularly when aces are already cut out of so much so often, and spend so much time with our identity under siege, and it's hard for me not to feel that these authors should know better. They should know better. They should do better.
  This is the second book in a month that I was reading and really enjoying that was ruined for me by people's disgusting ignorance and exclusion. (Should you be interested, the other one was Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt, who seems to believe that people who don't get to have sex are "unlucky." Thanks, once more, for ignoring me.) And it wasn't just that one essay. Several other essays were riddled with little digs at aces; one went so far as to utter that dreary cliche of sexual desire and sex being "natural human urges/experiences." Cool. Sure. Love being told my experiences don't count.
  I don't really have anything else to add here except that no one can rightly have this (vital and necessary) conversation about sex and sexual desire without including EVERY part of the topic. If your so-called progress is harming a group of people, if it isn't progress for everyone, what is the point? We all need to do better. I am so tired of this and I am so unwilling to settle for this sub-par, exclusionary discussion. Get it together, people, and do the fuck better.
• 
  Rachel

  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 ideology.
  
  That's a crying shame, because some of what the writers had to say was good, hard-hitting, realistic stuff - but it was couched in such hateful, one-sided rhetoric that it turned even me off, and I consider myself very feminist, despite my identity as a "Right Wing religious nut who hates women."
  
  Overall, a good idea, timely, but alienating.
• 
  Meggan

  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 debates that are happening right now in the feminist blogosphere. Julia Serano has the best essay here, and I'm assigning it to my summer class. Can't wait to see how the students react to her transgendered take on heterosexuality!
• 
  Ms. Online

  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.
  
• 
  Emma

  I had really high expectations for this book, as it seemed to touch on a lot of issues that I have been thinking about recently. And unfortunately, what I read of it (admittedly, only about half the essays) didn't quite meet those expectations...as Lisa mentions in her review, if you're fairly familiar with feminist thought, some of the material will seem like more of a review than a radical new way of thinking about things.
  
  HOWEVER, there were two essays that stuck out to me and that I would highly recommend: one on using BDSM (specifically rape fantasy) to subvert and resist rape culture (which I'm interested in particularly because I am skeptical, still) and the second on body sovereignty and asserting our right to give and receive consent for ALL kinds of touch, including the touch that is generally perceived to be non-sexual (ie, hugs). This second essay helped me find words for what had previously only been difficult-to-express feelings, which reminded me of what I liked about critical theory in the first place.
  
  Lastly, I remember (it's actually been a while since I returned this to the library) really appreciating how the anthology is organized thematically, with cross-references that reflect an understanding of intersectionality. Instead of dividing the essays into themed sections, each essay is given multiple themes ("the right is wrong," "media matters," "is consent complicated?" to name a few) and at the end of each essay, the editors suggest other essays that address the same themes. simple, but so helpful!
• 
  Angela

  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 stressing refusal-as-rape with enthusiastic-yes-as-consent, Kate Harding's touching and hilarious essay on body image and culture, the illuminating interview with three sex workers about their work, Coco Fusco's article about sexual intimidation as an interrogation tactic, and Brad Perry's essay about how he stumbled as a teen before learning about consent.
  
  Each essay is assigned to a variety of categories, with more suggestions provided afterwards about further reading within the book for those interested in a particular topic. While I thought this was an interesting, helpful idea, I didn't find it all that useful, and enjoyed the variety and natural progression of reading the book from start to end.
• 
  Emily

  Love, Love, LOVE this book. It reinforced again and again concepts that I have argued for time and again in the past, and sincerely hope will become second-nature in the future:
  -Rape is caused by Rapists. Period. There's nothing that you do to cause yourself to be raped.
  -Girls and young women should be taught that their sexual desires are normal, and that both YES and NO are valid responses to the sex question.
  -An "absence of no" shouldn't be the baseline for sexual encounters-- an "enthusiastic yes" should be required.
  
  I was surprised by the breadth of contributions in this anthology and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing a number of different authors' voices all imagining the same thing: a world where a woman's sexuality is valued just as much as a man's.
  
  
• 
  Tinea

  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.
• 
  Jessica

  This is a wonderful anthology full of a wide range of essays. I liked some more than others, but overall it's a great book.
• 
  Alex

  Easily the best book I've read this year, if not ever. Yes Means Yes! is an anthology of essays from women and trans folks (and a few men) of all backgrounds, white, black, Latina, Asian, poor, affluent, queer, hetero, sex workers, dominatrices, bloggers, organizers, educators, artists, and survivors, all answering the question, "How can we create a world without rape?"
  
  This book more than any other opened my eyes to the central importance of female sexual power to movement for progressive social change. Through dissecting sexual assault and "rape culture" from ALL angles, the writers articulate that the objectification and control of female bodies is literally the cornerstone of patriarchal society. Therefore efforts to reclaim female body sovereignty and sexual power are at the forefront of revolutionary change.
  
  This book does not just offer women tips on how to avoid sexual assault (although it does encourage self-defense classes!), it courageously directs blame at the male-dominated society that puts women in dangerous situations on a daily basis. Similarly, as should be obvious from the title, this work is not just about teaching men to respect "No", but showing women (all people really) how to love their bodies and embrace their sexuality, in whatever way it manifests. Enthusiastic consent, responding to "Yes!" and cautious "Maybes", and taking things one step at a time without assumptions or feelings of entitlement to orgasm, while respecting the ability of a sexual partner to say "Stop." at any moment, shows a way to the best and most liberatory sex.
  
  But the book covers so much more than consent. This is a feminist handbook for the masses: well-written, varied, practical, theoretical, yet accessible.
  
  It's hard to pick a favorite essay, but the one that spoke to me the most was "Killing Misogyny: A Personal Story of Love, Violence, and Strategies for Survival" by Cristina Meztli Tzintún, a personal story about overcoming abusive and controlling male partners. Cristina relates how she got involved with a "radical, feminist" man of color and bonded through activism. Before she knew it she was years into an abusive relationship that gave her STDs and an inability to leave him, despite his cheating on her with his students, half his age. The pattern mirrored her parents' disastrous marriage, which made it even more depressing that she could not break free of the cycle of abuse.
  
  While it's easy to demonize her partner, Alan, a more honest reading will recognize some of his patterns in each of us who have been male-socialized. For example, entitlement to women's bodies and lack of consideration for the emotional damage wrought by selfish actions are things I know I have to struggle against. Cristina's bravery in leaving Alan and demanding accountability for his assaults should encourage all of us, that misogyny can in fact be beaten and that personal transformation is an incredibly political act.
  
  I can't recommend this collection highly enough. Everyone needs to read this book.
• 
  Nicole

  I picked this up after reading Jaclyn Friedman's What You Really, Really Want: A Smart Girl's Shame Free Guide to Sex and Safety. The title was catchy and made me think "Is it possible to have a world without rape?".
  
  At first, when I found out how the authors suggested I read the book via the list of recommended titles at the end based on the themes, I was a little sceptical as I am quite a routine person who reads things cover to cover. But I tried it and surprisingly it was a fun and unique way to read the various stories and articles. I would not call this an anthology exactly but it seems more like a collection of essays and articles.
  
  I enjoyed all of the stories I read during the first half. It had to do with not only content in the story but writing style and tone. For those which I did not enjoy as much, I still appreciated the messages they shared but I just could not vibe the style of writing. This books encompasses the landscape of United States of America but even though I do not live there, I could still relate to what I read like not feeling like an individual could speak up, feeling scared that they would be judged and laughed at. Some of the things I read, I felt uncomfortable with but I think that is normal and everyone is different.
  
  So many of the stories talk about female sexual autonomy and it is a concept that I found hard to envision but I liked it. It felt nice to finally have in my hands a book that discusses things that usually are not talked about and avoided. To have answers to my questions, "Why is it like this?", "Why do I feel this way?".
  
  I particularly liked that even though this book focuses on females, there are also perspectives into minority groups like African American women, immigrant women, sex workers, LGBTQ individuals and also the prejudices that come to mind when we hear about females abusing males. Until recently it was very hard for me to believe that a man could be raped, I always thought that only women could be victims of rape. I found it interesting to get a point of view of a Trans woman who can see from both the perspectives of a man and woman. Why do women seem so attracted to bad boys. This trope is so apparent in fiction especially young adult and it annoys me.
  
  I found that this book helped me become aware of things that were unconscious to me and why they came about. I liked that I was able to see from new perspectives and this book does a good job of representing many groups. Not everyone will be open and supportive of what this book stands for. Some are not ready to have their views challenged, others need more evidence to be convinced and have misconceptions on what feminism stands for. I can see that there is still alot of work to be done but this is a great way to open minds and conversations.
  
  To be clear, I did not rate this a 3 stars because of the content because I applaud what was shared in this book but I judge it base on the book as a whole and take into consideration content, writing style, ease of reading and how much I enjoyed each story.
• 
  Caty

  I really expected more from a book that claimed to be putting the yes and pleasure back into consent. I've been disgusted with the liberal rape crisis movement for years in the way it polices people's fantasies and sexualities for healthy or unhealthy (do you like BDSM? You're just reliving your trauma; try to condition yourself to get off by imagining a refreshing waterfall instead--that's bullshit is straight from _The Courage to Heal_, the movement's bible, by the way) and how it looks down on sex workers as abused victims--yup, you got it--Reenacting Their Abuse.
  Yet the whoraphobia still steams off the page in some of these essays. Check out the $pread magazine review of the book in issue 4.4. It picks some choice quotes from Javacia N Harris' essay--"just b/c someone loves what they're doing, does that mean they're not being exploited?" That's right, Ms. Harris, we're all brainwashed, happy slaves. "...portraying a woman's body and sexuality as merchandise [makes it:] easier to demand, even force, a woman to give you her body...". As the $pread reviewer, Monica Shores points out, "the attitude that commercialized sex contributes to rape is an old and ugly trope that has never proven true."
  Then there's Thomas MacAulay Millar's piece, full of academic language and critical theory pretensions, that proposes that the commodity model of sex be replaced by a performative one, as Shores says, "apparently unaware that sex workers of all stripes have for years pointed to the fundamentally performative aspects of their jobs...Sex, in fact, is often made highly performative when it's commoditized; prevalent acronyms like GFE and PSE attest to that."
  There are some good moments, like Jaclyn Friedman's piece, which declares her right to be irresponsible and still be free from attack. But for the most part, what didn't recapitulate insulting old second wave attitudes just read like obvious, boring third wave sex positive feminism 101--nothing new.
  The fact that Bitch magazine enthusiastically reviewed the work shows that mainstream feminists often fail to be sex worker allies they claim to be.
  
• 
  Sarah

  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 essays that made me enraged (Blanke, Harris)**. HOWEVER there were so many essays that were so flipping FANTASTIC that I feel that the collection overall is the best thing I've read all year.
  
  Essays not to be missed:
  Towards a Performance Model of Sex (Millar)
  How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman? (Harding)
  What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life (Piepzna-Samarasinha)
  A Love Letter From an Anti-Rape Activist to her Feminist Sex Toy Store (Riggs)
  When Sexual Autonomy Isn't Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in the United States (Perez)
  Reclaiming Touch: Rape Culture, Explicit Verbal Consent, and Body Sovereignty (Troost)
  An Immodest Proposal (Corinna)
  Why Nice Guys Finish Last (Serano)
  Sex Worth Fighting For (Higginbotham)
  Real Sex Education (Kulwicki)
  
  *Not that I don't think that these authors' works are important. I think they're all pretty awesome. I've just heard what they're saying A LOT.
  
  **Blanke: wtf with this attitude of being the enlightened feminist academe who is going to report back on the doings of these crazy uneducated supposedly-feminist wayward youth?
  Harris: Way to be all judgmental and "my feminism is better than your feminism."
• 
  AB

  Yes Means Yes is a great anthology incorporating a number of perspectives and analysis on rape culture, including but not limited to persons of color, survivors, trans people and queers. It is mostly focused on American culture, but it's still a relevant text since damaging campaigns like the Silver Ring Thing expanded their remit well past the US of A.
  
  The essays are as varied in their topic and approach as their contributors, but the underlying theme is that a model of enthusiastic consent would help foster a more mature form of sexuality and help reduce rape in all its forms. The variety of viewpoints in display is fantastic, with great diversity of sexual orientation, gender, size, class and race represented and given a non-tokenistic voice.
  
  The quality of essays varies. Some can be a bit lacking, but all have a solid core of sexual positivity and a hope for a better future of empowered sexuality.
  
  To finish up, I recommend this book to all feminists, anyone interested in sexual politics, and especially people working on sex education.
  
  A note on the structure of the book:
  
  The book is composed of a series of essays, but since many of the authors originate in the blogosphere, there is a little innovation added. Each essay is given a number of categories, like one would in a blog. At the end of the essay, these categories are listed alongside the title and page number of other essays in the same category. The idea is that one can read the book according to interest.
  
  I felt this was a refreshing concept, although ultimately it became confusing when I was trying to pick up where I left off. Eventually I simply read the whole thing from start to finish.
• 
  Mahsa

  چقدر دوست داشتم اين كتاب ترجمه بشه تا تعداد بيشترى از افراد جامعه بتونن بهش دسترسى داشته باشن.
  يه نكته مثبتش اينه كه مقاله مقاله نوشته شده. توصيه ميكنم كه حداقل يكى از مقاله ها رو بخونيد.
  نويسنده ها متنوعند، و بعضى مقاله ها از ديدگاه كسانى بود كه هيچوقت به فكرم هم نرسيده بود خودم رو به جاشون بذارم. خوندن نظراتشون و درك مشكلاتشون پنجره هاى جديدى برام باز كرد.
  
• 
  Van

  This is by far the most enlightening, educational and informative book I've ever read on the topics of rape, sexuality, consent, masculinity, femininity, gender, pleasure, incest, dating, love, misogyny, birth, pregnancy, female empowerment, and trauma, many of which are tied to each other, or race and/or class. I personally loved that it was a collection of essays grouped together by theme; I followed the "jumping around" throughout the book that Friedman and Valenti encouraged-I didn't read from start to finish, moreso by essay to essay. Most of the essays are definitely worth it; I had been apprehensive of the book because Jessica Valenti/feministing turn me off sometimes but I'm happy that I went ahead and bought this at a local used bookstore and read it. (Margaret Cho's introduction is also well worth the read).
  
  If you have any initial desire to read this book, you're probably already headed in the more open-minded (I'd say right, also) and progressive direction, and also know what you're getting into. Pick this book up and you won't be disappointed, I assure you.
• 
  6655321

  like, there is a 1:1 correlation in this book: is the article by a WOC? then it among the best in this book. The rest is just... largely boring, repetitive,overly optimistic, etc. and it was almost unbearable to work through the fucking thing, especially the naive sex positive parts...
• 
  Ann-Frédérique Lorquet

  Een must read
• 
  Natalie

  Having now completed this, I find that I have pretty mixed feelings about the whole thing (hence the 3 star rating). Some of these essays were absolutely phenomenal and really spoke to me and just seemed to IMPORTANT and well thought out and just amazing all around. But others either just went completely over my head, felt unfinished, or were just "meh".
  
  I do have to congratulate the editors of this essay compilation however, because this "mixed bag" of essays from different authors really cover some incredibly difficult topics and a wide range of feminist topics and anti-rape topics.
  
  We've got essays covering the abstinence movement, the "virgin vs. whore" dynamic, the importance of "enthusiastic consent" (and not just a lack of "no"), being queer or a woman of colour of a female that's not conventionally beautiful or "skinny" enough, surviving incest, human trafficking and the issues that immigrant women often face in regards to their own sexuality - and even their right to reproduce, and even an essay covering "the lessons that boys learn" and how the fight to stop rape shouldn't rely entirely on the shoulders of women.
  
  There are just so many different and difficult topics that while I think it's an important read, it's by no means an EASY one. These topics are not pleasant, and the essays discussing them do not hold back.
  
  Having read these, I feel like I've learned some important information, but I did not come out of that book feeling "good" or like a weight was lifted. This just introduced so many more problems that I wasn't aware of ._.