Consensual Violence: Sex, Sports, and the Politics of Injury Hardcover - 2016

From the rear cover

"Consent is far from a simple moral metric or dispositive legal token, as Jill D. Weinberg's Consensual Violence reveals so richly. Weinberg's excellent ethnography and sharp sociolegal analysis show us how outsider groups repurpose consent to attain legitimacy, dissolve discord, and claim power." --Joe Fischel, Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University

"Consensual Violence grabs you from the provocative preamble. Using the kind of thick description that characterizes the best sociological writing, Jill Weinberg explains consent as the common thread across two apparently disparate cases. Her in-depth fieldwork and large interview sample allow Weinberg to contrast the "cultural tolerance" we hold toward the ability to consent to injury within MMA sports with the social and legal disapproval we show toward BDSM. Her rich ethnographic data demonstrates that what she calls "social decriminalization" must precede legal change. Specifically, Weinberg finds that in BDSM communities, formal law offers less protection than the management of rule violations by reputation, but that law does serve to convey legitimacy. This book will be a wonderful asset in the classroom with its sophisticated legal and sociological analysis presented in accessible language with vivid storytelling."--Chrysanthi Leon, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Women and Gender Studies, and Legal Studies, University of Delaware