Published in 2025
7 hours and 11 minutes
Chanel Contos is an international award-winning activist who founded Teach Us Consent, a campaign that mandated consent education in Australia and criminalized stealthing in multiple states. Chanel has a Masters in Education, Gender and International Development from University College London and is currently obtaining a Master in Public Policy from Oxford University. In 2022, Chanel was named by the BBC as one of 100 Inspiring and Influential women worldwide. Her work has been platformed globally with coverage from BBC, the New York Times, France24, & many other outlets.
What is this book about?
The game-changing book about sex, consent, and the distortion of desire, a battle cry from a generation no longer prepared to stay silent.
When activist and internationally renowned philanthropist, Chanel Contos asked her followers to share their stories of sexual assault, her post went viral. Almost 7,000 people provided testimonies of surviving sexual violence by people they knew, but virtually none of these incidents had been reported to authorities. The testimonies proved that sexual assault is widespread and Chanel was on a quest to understand why. In an era of growing inequality, Contos argues that when it comes to sex, we are all still working with an outdated social contract that privileges cisgender men’s pleasure at the expense of humanity.
In Consent Laid Bare, Chanel challenges the rampant inequality that reinforces violent behavior and questions whether consent is possible in a world where female sexuality has been hijacked. She offers girls and women the tools and encouragement to seek sex that is truly enjoyable which involves:
- Redefining consent
- Challenging gender norms
- Language’s influence on rape discourse
- Understanding fawning responses
- Equipping teens to combat toxic masculinity
Chanel’s message of fostering empathy is especially urgent in the face of rising rates of toxic messages about masculinity and manhood that are targeting our young men.
