sophiewho's review

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4.25


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stevia333k's review against another edition

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The book opens up with a literary analysis of a porno from James Deen's website where he asks viewers/amateurs to submit an application "to have sex with James Deen". James Deen is acknowledged to have over a dozen victims he SA'd come forward. So mind you he's likely the one writing the script that's being analyzed here as describing common experiences of pleasure & internalized slut shaming.

At 10:33 the author acknowledges she didn't do the legalism research, that she took the porno for face value. The problem is, professional regulations are you arrange for what acts what limits are involved before the scene starts. The fact the actress's face is on camera is ... Ugh. If the set up she talked about is actually non-fictional footage, then that would be a highly illegal set-up.

Point being, studios have to keep records of contracts such as ages of performers etc. Like every porn site has info like a Title 2257, and address for conducting business. The author could've prioritized getting the "real" information involved in shooting that scene. In fact, she could've chosen any porno scene filmed, she'd have a variety of studios to choose from. But instead, she treats the fictional movie made by a actor/director/editor with a history of abuse at face value.

This book is therefore unreliable as fuck! Lacking the context of how porno production is professionally conducted when you talk about an actor's/director's dangerousness & then choose a work by them to use for what's literary analysis, it's whorephobia, and it's definitely classist. 

Seriously, we could've been talking about dealing with the contradiction between continuously-required consent & contractual obligations, but Katherine Angel doesn't even try to get the contractual information. She just wanted to do literary analysis on a porno in order to trigger people's sex drive when we're trying to talk about oppression.

So yeah, very I didn't know patriarchy existed until I saw segregation among brown people in Afghanistan when you're a normative white woman vibes. I call this conservative bullshit if not also neoliberal bullshit. Frankly, I don't give enough of a shit to waste good time after bad.

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jourdanicus's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

The level of nuance Katherine Angel brings to the fraught topics of sex and consent is incredibly refreshing. I got a lot out of reading this book. It has already both cemented how I thought about sex and consent and further influenced my thinking. I imagine it will have an effect on my views for a long time to come.

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angela42's review

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emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5


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mari_books's review

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I really wanted to enjoy this book, it was recommended by a content creator I like, but I just could not get into it fully. Parts what the author described were fantastic, and so refreshing to see these individual experiences that are actually cultural phenomenon but down on paper. But, at times I failed to find the central thesis and the book fell into its own trap of questioning itself, going on and on. Additionally, it did not seem to acknowledge the different realities (cultural, socioeconomic, racial) that women and their sexualities inhabit well enough for me. Stopped reading because I was bored. 

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leahlovesloslibros's review

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

This book was a great mix of feminism, science, and psychology - all surrounding the topic of sex. Women are constantly trying to be convinced that they should enjoy sex in the "right way," which typically equates to what men actually envision as being the right way. Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again uses the crossover between science and psychology to explain consent, assault, and desire in the era of Me-Too and feminism.

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anastazija's review

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dark informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Noodzakelijke literatuur

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hadleym12's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative fast-paced

3.5

this book is successful in exposing the failures of most modern consent discourse specifically where it places the burden of preventing sexual violence on women, just in new progressive sounding ways. i especially like the consideration that the notion of consent cannot and does not adequately cover various power imbalances that occur between any individuals entering into a sexual encounter. failing to see how these imbalances result in uncertainty and miscommunication while relying on either negation/force or affirmative/enthusiastic yes to indicate consent is setting vulnerable people up to be gaslit or denied a right to feel violated or in pain. where this book challenged mainstream consent discourse and the pathologization of female sexuality i was impressed. unfortunately i think the failure of this book was a major one in its adherence to a white cishet perspective. some attempts are made to work in the different issues women of color face but it is done as almost a footnote to the main narrative, as if to suggest that women of color have the exact same experience as white women just worse in some ways rather than white supremacy being an integral part of rape culture and conversations about consent/sexual relationships. similarly, a few times attention is brought to the unique experiences of sex workers but little is said about the sex trade as an industry. i wish more was said about what the sex trade reveals about the nature of consent for everyone in and outside the trade. most obvious and disappointingly absent was the consideration of lgbt+ identities. leaving that conversation for someone else to uncover would be a fine choice if it wasn’t for the bioessentialism and cisnormativity. the assumption that there is some fundamental difference between men (people with penises) and women (people with vaginas) goes dangerously unchallenged. and worse, discussions of sexual violence are centered around cis women, ignoring or even excluding trans women from consideration. i don’t believe that the author is a terf or otherwise discriminatory towards trans people, rather i think this lack of consideration comes from ignorance and an unwillingness to grapple what seems to be a daunting can of worms. overall i think the conclusions of the book are still mostly sound but when the bioessentialism and cisnormativity appear it is an unfortunate distraction. my final problem is that towards the end, in the chapter “on vulnerability” i think the author is lost a bit in their own imaginary utopia of what sex is/should be, so that the final conclusions are a lot less grounded than the rest of the book. there is an unpleasant back and forth between the empowering potential of vulnerability and the reality of sexual violence, and the contradiction between these things goes unresolved. the ending of the book especially suffers from a lack of consideration for people of color and for those in the sex trade who are especially unable to open up to vulnerability in the way the author describes. i think she is aware that this conflict is unresolved and i don’t expect her to have all the answers, i just wish there was something to take away that wasn’t just “sex would be so good if we could trust people not to be violent.” ultimately i think the notion of vulnerability is a powerful one to explore especially as an alternative to strict consent culture but a more thorough explanation of what it would mean in the real world and how it can be implemented is necessary. 

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iolam's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0


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