I picked up this book because I follow the Feministe blog. Similar
to Feministe, I found this book relevant with fresh insights. The
central theme of the book is what would the world would look like
without rape. It states that instead of the established thinking
"if she doesn't say no, she means yes" it goes on to say there
should be enthusiastic consent, not just an absence of no. The book
goes into a variety of perspectives and ideas, leading me to look
differently at my own life and experiences (don't all of the best
books do this?).
The good, is that you can see how powerfully the act of rape has
effected all of our lives, and how the idea of "enthusiastic
consent" is not sought in either adolescent nor adult relationship.
The bad is that some of the essays are much better than others, and
some were so dogmatic that I had to skip over them. I did this for
about a quarter of them. I think that in order to stay relevant,
feminists have to stay away from that.
It is also fun to see the looks I got in the coffee shop while
reading this!