Rough by Rachel Thompson - Review

Rough: How violence has found its way into the bedroom and what we can do about it explores physical, legislative, psychological, and emotional violence that can manifest before, during, and after situations of a sexual nature.

Thompson’s book is a comprehensive study of sex, sexual acts, and the factors that shape sexual interactions both before and during. She studies these from the perspective of societal structures, identity, stereotypes, power, the law (or lack thereof), and consent.

She continually and comfortingly re-iterates the idea of a grey area in sex, validating a feeling of uneasiness, violation, or ‘off-ness’ that someone may have left a sexual experience feeling. In conversations around unwanted sex, pressure, wanting to withdraw consent mid-act, or withdrawing consent for certain things, she explains the grey area – a very much valid space, but one where many people don’t validate their experiences. This is where maybe we think because we consented at first, anything that happened after (no matter how uncomfortable) was fair game, or where we consented to something that ended up being something else, or additions were introduced.

Thompson's and her contributors' discussions around consent are nuanced and layered, encouraging the question of ‘not did they consent, but why did they?’ in conversations around power structures amongst many other important interrogations. She also validates the provenly gendered feeling of unwanted sex – consenting, but not wanting, enjoying, or feeling comfortable in the sex either during all or part of the experience.

In bold and informative conversations about “the systems of oppression that manifest in our sexual culture … white supremacy, transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, ableism and misogyny” she speaks to people about their own experiences of these and how they manifest in their sexual experiences. She also delicately explores and discusses with contributors the tender middle ground between phobia, fetishization, and hyper-sexualisation regarding identity, race, or appearance, that are at play in sex.

Rough is both for the people who have suffered the unpleasant experiences that she covers and also for those who haven’t. She re-iterates and proves known information whilst shedding light on new considerations and conversations.

Thompson spares no opportunity to analyse sexual encounters and includes countless testimonies and inputs from experts, contributors, legal figures, and journalists. Thus, her topics, such as facial ejaculation, choking, the ‘grey area’ of consent, unwanted sex, ‘things going too far’, ethical porn, kinks, and stealthing, come with analysis and discussions around not only the acts themselves but also the psychological reasons and impacts of them.

Optimistically, Thompson involves her book in questioning how we can change conversations and portrayals of consent and sex for the better. As the #MeToo and #PrataOmDet (Talk About It) showed, talking about and considering our sexual experiences from a nuanced analytical standpoint gives us power by allowing us to see when a line has been crossed, or why an experience left us feeling uncomfortable. We, unfortunately, are hesitant to or seldom talk about our experiences that don’t fit the idealised script of a typical sexual encounter – ones that made us feel violated in some way, or we leave out parts that made us feel uncomfortable. Not only this, but we, unfortunately, have few references for positive sexual interactions. Thompson explores porn, media, and film as a reason for this. She includes a case study of the ethical and educational porn producers of ‘Come Curious’, and praises media such as Sex Education and Normal People that include real portrayals of sex – including education, giggling, affirmative consent, and continual consent.

Thompson's book is the perfect mix of validation, understanding, fact, discussion, intersection, and dissection.