“Whether you’re hoping to deepen your understanding about consent and rape culture, or learning about these issues for the first time, this book will walk you through its challenging subject matter in a way that is direct, inclusive, practical, and also deeply thoughtful.”

—DANIELLE YOUNGE-ULLMAN, award-winning author of He Must Like You

“An invaluable resource for young people of all genders, Ratchford’s book should also be committed to memory by every parent, every teacher, every doctor and every cop—because until those in positions of power and influence clearly understand rape and consent, the ‘grey areas’ where womxn are abused and rapists bypass consequences will continue to exist.”

—CHARLOTTE HERROLD, editor-in-chief, FLARE

“Sarah Ratchford offers the perfect introduction to consent, sexuality, and sexual violence. It’s raw, nuanced, and inclusive with a touch of humour. Everyone would benefit from reading Fired Up about Consent.”

—MANDI GRAY, activist and subject of the documentary Slut or Nut: Diary of a Rape Trial

“This book acts as a vital roadmap to a culture founded on radical—and necessary—consent. Young readers will find it jampacked with information, insight, and empathy. A foundational read for anyone working to tear down a system that harms us all.”

—LAUREN MCKEON, author of No More Nice Girls: Gender, Power, and Why It’s Time to Stop Playing By the Rules

“The world needs more contemporary books about sexual culture and communication from a queer perspective that is also respectful of sex workers. Fired Up about Consent is well researched from diverse sources, with a clear voice defined by both emotion and intellectual rigour. This book isn’t afraid to untangle thorny topics like prison abolition, beauty myths, white supremacy, and restorative justice. This is both an invaluable document of and contribution to consent culture, not shying away from all the pleasures and traumas that entails.”

—TINA HORN, host/producer of Why Are People Into That?! podcast and author of SfSx

“Sarah Ratchford has a powerful way of facing and transforming misogynistic and binary language into a holistic, survivorcentred way of communicating and sharing knowledge about rape, consent, and choice, like only a survivor can.”

—VIKTORIA BELLE, Executive Director, The Dandelion Initiative

“Fired Up about Consent lays bare myths about sexual consent and rape that are at the heart of our misogynist, victim-blaming culture. Sarah Ratchford shows graphically how this is not an accident or a misunderstanding, but that rape culture intentionally and insidiously sustains misogyny, racism, and the exercise of power over the marginalized and powerless. They argue that change must begin with us, those victimized by sexualized violence—first by claiming our own consent-based lives, and then loudly challenging the construction of social shame that silences us from speaking up.”

—JULIE MACFARLANE, author of Going Public: A Survivor’s Journey from Grief to Action

INTRODUCTION

WHEN I WAS a little kid, I was afraid of nothing. I always had to climb to the top of the tree or go on the scariest ride at the amusement park. Always had something to say. My mom would braid my hair or otherwise wrestle it into place, but I would invariably yank it out again and come home from school with my hair full of dirt and leaves from running around and fighting with the boys.

When I was eleven, that changed. I was wearing my new favourite shorts—they were short, white, denim, and made by Tommy Hilfiger. It was the 1990s, and that look was everything. I was obsessed. That is, until a trusted adult let me know there was something wrong with it. “Be careful,” she said. “Those shorts are easy to get off.”

At first, I didn’t know what she meant. Wouldn’t it be a good thing that my clothes were easy to remove at the end of the day? I can’t remember whether she explained or I figured it out later, but she was, of course, talking about men taking the shorts off. Before she walked into the room and said that to me, I had just been (secretly) playing with my Barbies. I thought she was being silly, overcautious, and perverse. I also thought I had nothing to worry about.

That was the beginning, though, of my new life. That was the year I got my period, the year I realized my body was shaped like an hourglass and I should definitely capitalize on that, and the year I was sexually assaulted for the first time. That was the year my childhood ended. I had to start taking care of myself by realizing when I might be in danger—when men were around—and when I wasn’t.

I’m non-binary, but I was assigned female at birth (AFAB) and brought up as a girl, and the message was clear: that I should be afraid. That I was somebody’s potential prey, that sexuality was powerful and I should beware. I was first policed for it in grade four, whenever I wore my favourite top: a crocheted tank top in ombre shades of lavender. It had spaghetti straps, and I was forever being lectured about it. What I was wearing, where I was walking, who I was with, and what I was or wasn’t drinking would plague me for my whole young life. And even though I knew I had better things to worry about, I saw no way out of it. Girls, the message went, were both dangerous and in perpetual danger. Not free. Expected to package themselves as sexual products, but only to a certain level, and not to actually enjoy it.

This book is for everyone whose life is constrained by rape culture. Children who are raised as girls grow up being oversexualized and expected to overcontrol for our latent potential sexuality, and for simply existing in the world. This state of affairs is ending: survivors, especially trans survivors and survivors of colour, have long campaigned against it. So have rape crisis workers, academics, and feminist activists. #MeToo, an international uprising of survivors demanding a better, safer life, started up again in 2017. It’s still going strong three years later, and it showed that for the first time, sexual assault is slowly becoming unacceptable. My hope is that this book will contribute to that resistance by shedding light on the cultural climate surrounding rape and sexual assault, and suggesting some concrete ways to move forward, up and out of it, into a more consent-based future. I hope young people will use this book to learn to have healthy, mutually satisfying sex lives.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE

This is a survivor-informed book that aims to empower. I try to reflect this with language. Sexual assault is not some binary event, committed only by men against women. Cisgender men—that is, men whose gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth—are the ones who most often engage in acts of sexualized violence. But I’m going to talk about people of all genders, since all people can be assaulted or commit acts of assault. Also, trans people have been at the forefront of activism around sexual assault, Pride, and making the world a safer, more just place. More people are beginning to identify as genderqueer and non-binary. In fact, the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary named the singular pronoun “they” as its 2019 word of the year. I want to represent that, and so I will not erase trans and gender non-conforming people in this book.

The language around gender, though, is changing all the time, and much as I try, I know I can’t perfectly represent everyone. When I talk about sexual assault, it’s important to me to encompass everyone who was assigned female at birth, and everyone else who is disproportionately at risk. Instead of saying “women and femmes” are at risk of gender-based violence, Toronto-based educator and organizer Faelix Kayn uses the phrasing “women, femmes, and coercively feminized people,” and I like to use the same language. It includes both cisgender and trans women under the word “women.” It includes people on the femme end of gender expression, and those of us who are aggressively feminized against our will, such as many trans men and non-binary and gender non-conforming folks. Kayn coined the “coercively feminized” part to acknowledge the additional violence of misgendering. They wanted to explain the intersection of being assigned female at birth and having femininity forced on you, while also being subjected to misogyny. So, instead of talking about “women” being at risk of sexualized violence, when I write online I talk about “women, femmes, and coercively feminized people” being at risk. Or better yet, cisgender men being at risk for offending. To keep it concise, though, in this book I’m going to use the word “womxn” to refer to this group. I don’t love this solution. I don’t think it’s the most elegant, and there’s a good chance I’ll find a word I like better. But for now, I’m doing the best I can with the tools I have.

Gender Bending

Most of us are raised with a binary view of gender—that people who are assigned female at birth based on their genitals grow up to be “women,” and people assigned male at birth based on their genitals grow up to be “men.” Given our conditioning, it makes sense to usually default to these assignments. As a result, when we refer to people we don’t yet know, we often assume their gender.

But not everyone is cisgender, so this is harmful and inaccurate. Instead, we should ask people what their pronouns are. More people are coming out as trans, meaning their gender identity is different than the one that usually is assigned to the sex they were given at birth. Many people no longer identify as men or women, but as non-binary, or genderqueer—meaning they do not see themselves in binary terms. These folks sometimes see themselves as trans, and sometimes as a separate category altogether. They can be feminine, masculine, androgynous, or any and all of these on a given day.

The most common pronouns adopted by folks in this group is the gender-neutral “they/them/theirs.” This avoids misgendering, leaves room for fluidity, and most importantly, is the term of choice for the group in question. Two-spirit people, a term many Indigenous people who have both masculine and feminine spirits within use, may also use different pronouns than you’d assume. The words “folks,” “everyone,” and “people” can be used as well to replace common modes of address such as “ladies and gentlemen.” Using words like these encompasses everyone and lets you get someone’s consent before you gender them.

By making trans people visible, I’m not trying to erase cis-gender women. Dominant forces, by nature, cannot be erased, especially in one book. And the binary—people with penises are men, people with vaginas are women—is dominant. Rape culture relies on this binary: men are cast as virile and aggressive, and women are cast as passive, helpless, and desirous of providing sex.

In their early days after joining the resistance, many women use this binary language, too. Language is changing to better reflect gender variance, but a lot of research on rape has been done in binary terms. On many intake forms, surveys, and data collection initiatives, there are only two boxes: male and female. From there, it’s assumed a person is a “man” or a “woman.” Academics, government officials, and police need to do a better job of making sure people can self-identify so that the population can be more accurately reflected in the statistics.¹ That’s why, although a study I cite may refer only to the gender binary, I’ll make sure the results include all womxn.

I write out of my own experience, so I’ll fill you in on my identity. I already told you I’m non-binary and a survivor of sexual assault; I’m also white, a settler with Scottish ancestry, and I “pass” as cisgender. I acknowledge that I live and write on the unceded territory of the Wәlastәkwiyik. This land is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship, which do not include surrender of land and resources; rather, they recognize Wәlastәkwiyik and Mi’kmaq title. I also acknowledge that acknowledgements, by themselves, are insufficient and do not constitute meaningful work. It’s important to ask how you can respond to Indigenous people’s calls for action and self-determination.

While I try to be as relevant as possible to people who don’t share my identities, they both inform and limit my work. As you read this, I also encourage you to seek out and pay for work by writers of colour on the same topic.

As I take you through the elements of rape culture and some suggestions for how we can begin to heal it, I’ll use words like “patriarchy,” “rape culture,” and “white supremacy.” These are references to systems that leave some of us with privilege and force some of us into marginalization. These systems are not accidents; they were built deliberately. Nonetheless, if you have privileges of some sort you may feel defensive when you encounter these words for the first time. You may feel it’s about you and no longer want to engage with the material. I felt this kind of discomfort when I began to learn about racism. You can overcome that feeling, though, by noticing your feelings and continuing to engage with the subject matter until you understand what the person is trying to tell you. You’ll realize it isn’t a personal attack, it’s a chance for you to learn how to stop causing harm to others. These systems are just that—systemic—and they need to be dismantled at that level. Dismantling, though, requires many individuals to decentre themselves. Someone else sharing their story is about them, not you. All you need to do is listen and believe them. #NotAllMen or #AllLivesMatter, in other words, isn’t a good response.

When people refer to these systems and the need for change, it doesn’t mean they hate all men or all white people, or that you’re a bad person for benefiting from these systems. It may mean you have access to privileges you didn’t have to work for, and that, due to discrimination, someone else may not be able to access what you can. That’s the part that needs fixing so we can begin to construct a more equitable reality, where everyone is heard and everyone’s needs are provided for.

FIRED UP ABOUT
CONSENT

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE