Sexual violence is prevalent in our society. We know this directly because of the courage survivors have shown in facing their perpetrators in courts, online and in the public eye. But society is hesitant, incapable or unwilling to hold offenders to account: they keep their jobs — or get promoted to powerful positions — and survivors frequently end up being on trial themselves. Furthermore, mainstream discourse and thinking about sexual violence and consent are limited to problematic op-eds, oversimplified viral videos or tweets. These will not end sexual violence. The contributors to Dis/Consent argue that the conversations happening today around consent and sexual violence ignore and erase the multiple forms of oppression that are part and parcel of sexual violence. They highlight the relationships between our social structures, social institutions and individual experiences of sexual consent and sexual violence. And because sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and ableism are deeply intertwined with sexual violence, it will not be undone without systemic, anti-oppressive, decolonizing change. Refusing to reduce intersectionality to a hasty footnote, this volume examines the construction of sexual violence and consent at diverse intersections of identity and includes a diversity of perspectives and positionalities rarely found in conversations about sexual violence and sexual consent.
About the Editor
KelleyAnne Malinen is a professor in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Mount Saint Vincent University.
What People Are Saying
Table of Contents
Dis/Consent: An Introduction (KelleyAnne Malinen)
Opening: Beginnings and Renewal, Oppression and Fragmentation (Sherry Pictou)
The Bogus BDSM Defence: The Manipulation of Kink as Consent to Assault (Chanelle Gallant and Andrea Zanin)
A Feminist Response to Judge Lenehan’s Ruling in the Trial of Al-Rawi (MSVU Feminist Collective)
The Blunt Instrument of the Law: Consent and HIV Non-Disclosure (San Patten and Alison Symington)
The Illusion of Inclusion in York University’s Sexual Assault Policymaking Process (Mandi Gray, Laura Pin, and Annelies Cooper)
Military Sexual Violence in Canada (Maya Eichler)
Surviving Woman-to-Woman Sexual Assault (KelleyAnne Malinen)
Power Struggles over the Sexualities of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (Alan Santinele Martino)
Sex Work and the Paradox of Consent (Meredith Ralston)
What You Can Do, What you Can’t Do, and What You’re Going to Pay Me to Do It: A First-Person Account of Survival and Empowerment through Sex Work (Debra Paris Perry in interview with KelleyAnne Malinen)
Tender Places: On the Intersection of Anti-Rape Activism and Prison Abolitionism (El Jones and Ardath Whynacht - A Dialogue)
Closing Chapter: Survival and Resurgence (Sherry Pictou)
Notes
References
Index