Ask: Building Consent Culture [Paperback]

Have you ever heard the phrase “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission?” Violating consent isn’t limited to sexual relationships, and our discussions around consent shouldn’t be, either. To resist rape culture, we need a consent culture—and one that is more than just reactionary. Left confined to intimate spaces, consent will atrophy as theory that is never put into practice. The multi-layered power disparities of today’s world require a response sensitive to a wide range of lived experiences.  InAsk, Kitty Stryker assembles a retinue of writers, journalists, and activists to examine how a cultural politic centered on consent can empower us outside the bedroom, whether it’s at the doctor’s office, interacting with law enforcement, or calling out financial abuse within radical communities. More than a collection of essays,Askis a testimony and guide on the role that negated consent plays in our lives, examining how we can take those first steps to reclaim it from institutionalized power.

"Ask is a good and definitely past-due read extending the idea of consent beyond the 'yes means yes' framework, with pieces exploring, in various ways, what it means to create consent cultures in a world that is overwhelmingly coercive." —Reina Gattuso, feministing.com

"Like you, I have good intentions. Like you, I know some things about consent. But I thought I knew a lot more. And if there’s one successful barometer of a book like this, it’s how many ‘a-ha’ moments it contains. If you’re anything like me you will find a lot of them in this book–some enlightening and pleasurable, many more uncomfortable and several downright horrific, especially as you realise your own crimes and also how many times your own consent has been violated. But you’ve got to start somewhere and that somewhere is here." &mlӥ