Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

Written by Roxane Gay

Narrated by Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy and 17 more

New York Times Bestseller

“This is a devastating book, heartbreaking in how familiar and relatable each story is—yet there’s power and solidarity in it, too.”  — Shondaland

Edited and with an introduction by Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling and deeply beloved author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, this anthology of first-person essays from writers including Gabrielle Union, Brandon Taylor, and Lyz Lenz tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on. Searing and heartbreakingly candid, this collection both reflects the world we live in and offers a call to arms insisting that “not that bad” must no longer be good enough.

In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are “routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied” for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics, including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union and writers Amy Jo Burns, Booker Prize-nominated Brandon Taylor, and Lyz Lenz. 

Covering a wide range of topics and experiences, from an exploration of the rape epidemic embedded in the refugee crisis to first-person accounts of child molestation, this collection is often deeply personal and is always unflinchingly honest. Like Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, Not That Bad will resonate with every reader, saying “something in totality that we cannot say alone.”

Narrators include: Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy, Amy Jo Burns, Lyz Lenz, Claire Schwartz, Aubrey Hirsch, Jill Christman, Lynn Melnick, Brandon Taylor, Emma Smith-Stevens, A.J. McKenna, Lisa Mecham, Vanessa Mártir, xTx, Sophie Mayer, Nora Salem, V.L. Seek, Michelle Chen, Liz Rosema, Anthony Frame, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Zoe Medeiros, Sharisse Tracey, Stacey May Fowles, Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes, Meredith Talusan, Nicole Boyce, and Elissa Bassist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780062848703

Roxane Gay

ROXANE GAY is the author of several bestselling books, including Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, the essay collection Bad Feminist, the novel An Untamed State, the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti, and the graphic novel The Sacrifice of Darkness. She is also the author of World of Wakanda, for Marvel, and the editor of Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture and The Selected Works of Audre Lorde. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and has launched the Audacious Book Club and a newsletter, The Audacity.

Reviews for Not That Bad

[Ashley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For being someone who has gone through sexual assault myself I found this book to be therapeutic

[Ariana · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How do you rate a book like this? Not That Bad is a collection of essays from people who’ve experienced rape, child molestation, harassment, and other forms of sexual violence. This collection is a heavy yet unforgettable read, and one that I think is necessary for many.

[d-fbuser-416631102 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a year to read. If you are a survivor of any kind of assault there are many triggering moments, of course. A very rewarding, often challenging read. Some of the stories are better than others, but that’s always the case with anthologies.

[Passi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not bad. I like the story. Thought I felt sometimes I could not relate to some essays point of view.

[Dev Prajapati · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This application is very useful for me i like it

[sashastorylover · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely brilliant and necessary. The collection consists of over 20 essays and all of them are equally well-written and equally heart-breaking. Seeing this many people experiences, varied but eerily similar, showcases how actually Bad it all is.

[taa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Astounding. A true revelation on what rape is, what it means, and how it presents itself in our lives.

[kendallball · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What made this book so great is also what made it feel like a chore - these stories sound all too similar and familiar...

[Sibo Chils · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved listening to the book. the stories are sad but powerful. And I applaud the people who had the courage to share. This book made me realize that
1. We are not alone
2. That feeling when someone does something to you and you ask yourself if its okay...means that it was not okay..
3. That sexual harassment is not just when you are touched inappropriately.. it is also those uninvited words of a stranger
4. The strength to live differently.. just because others are okay with the rape culture and i am not, does not make me crazy
5. Hope that things will change for future generations.
Thank you for sharing. A young african girl read this, and im inspired..

[Amanda Cruz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a very necessary book, even in this day and age, specially in this day and age, where rape and sexual assault can go unnoticed and believed to be not that bad compared to what others have suffered.

[Ana Silva · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great audiobook. Every narrator was excellent in their own way

[LittleEyesReading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is the best essay collection that I’ve ever read.

[Felecia Kempen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can’t write in words what this book has meant to me.

[katiekrug · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"I grieved for many years the woman I would have been if...I had never been raped. She never got a chance to live. That is rape's legacy, the countless deaths women die just trying to keep existing in the world as it is." ("Reaping What Rape Culture Sows" by Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes)

This collection of personal reflections on rape, sexual assault, sexualized and misogynistic culture, survival, and pain packs a punch on nearly every page. I had to read it slowly, one or two essays a day, because it provided so much thought-provoking and rage-inducing content. As in any anthology, I found some entries better/more powerful than others. One that stands out is "Why I Stopped" by Zoe Medeiros which reflects on her determination to stop telling her rape story because she doesn't owe it to anyone.

"Not telling my story doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't have to be open about my experiences, about all of them or even any of them, to be a real survivor. I am a real survivor because I survived, even if some days it feels like I didn't survive at all."

The whole piece is full of excellent insight and quotable passages and was worth the price of the book alone.

I appreciate that Roxane Gay, the editor of the collection, included a diversity of experiences and authors, further testament to the near universality experience of women - not all of whom will be violently violated, but I have yet to meet one who has not been subjected to behaviors that are seemingly deemed acceptable in the rape culture we currently exist in.

4.5 stars

[milliehennessy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an incredibly difficult, but important read. I don't often call books important (because what do I know, I'm just someone on the internet), but if I'm going to use that label, it's for this collection. I cried multiple times (honestly, if I'd let myself I probably could have shed a few tears for each person's entry.) Be warned, some of the stories are pretty explicit with the details - but if you can at all handle the subject matter, I think you should read this book.

The collect does have a variety of voices across the gender and sexuality spectrums, which I also think is critical when sharing people's experiences of rape, though I think most of the voices shared here are those of cis women.

I don't know what else to say - it's a collection of people writing about their experiences with rape. It's a problem in the US and I think one of the first steps to addressing and changing rape culture is acknowledging the part it plays in our systems and media, and hearing the voices of those who have experienced the abuse first hand.

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A deep dive into rape and rape culture from many different authors and angles.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Obviously, this is heavy subject matter. I think the representation of demographics and topics in these essays are excellent, though the quality of writing varies vastly. There are some standout essays, like "All the Angry Women," while others just did not get off the ground, from a prose perspective. It was also hard to read this book for long stretches at a time, but that's because the subject matter is heavy and utterly crushing. I recommend reading this when you have good mental space to process it.

[narshkite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As with any anthology the quality and import of each essay differs greatly. I am giving this collection a 5-star because I think the best of the essays were radically fantastic, and because the messaging is so essential. I also was taken by the the true diversity of authors and of experience. In addition to notable racial/ethnic diversity the collection features stories from cis-het women, transwomen, lesbians, non-binary people, and gay and hetero men. Additionally while there are essays from people who have been raped there are many from people who have been subject to unwanted touching, and others who have felt the diminishment of objectification from the collection of cultural norms that underlie rape culture. Perhaps most importantly we hear the stories of women socialized to be complicit in their own devaluation. The term rape culture gets thrown around a lot, but it is rarely clearly defined. Rape culture is the inculcation of cultural norms which sap women's bodies of value and rob women of any sense of bodily autonomy. Rape culture grants ownership rights for women's bodies to everyone but the woman herself. Think about how absurd we would find it if women started regularly commenting on men's bodies on the street, in media, in the home. What if men started believing they had no right to pleasure during sex, and that their bodies were there only to serve the pleasure of their partners. What if men were brutally assaulted and the first words from peoples mouths were "at least you were not murdered" instead of "how terrible, what can I do to help?" And what if men were told over and over after being threatened and assaulted that they, and not the aggressor, were to blame for any attack (verbal or physical.) How would that change their lives? When I was raped (I was 19, about the average age for first sexual assault for women) I was passed out drunk when it began, I woke up in the middle, I said no, I clawed the rapist's face so hard he bled. And then I thought it was my fault because I got so drunk, because I was wearing a short skirt, because I danced with him, because I kissed him on the dance floor. I did not tell anyone for a long time because I was so ashamed I had let that happen. I was a shell of myself, careful to avoid ever being alone with a man for months and I was never the same. My rapist did not understand why I did not want to date him and complained to many others about how I led him on and then dumped him (we were never together as a couple though I knew him before) and people got mad at me for treating him so coldly. That is what comes from rape culture. I felt guilty and ashamed, and he felt entitled and annoyed with me when I had done nothing but overindulge in alcohol and let a guy kiss me, and he had fucked an unconscious woman. Nearly every woman I know who has been raped felt that same shame and guilt I did. This book examines that, holds it up to the light, covers how women deny ourselves the agency to say no and blame ourselves even when we do say no because the culture has hard-wired us to believe boys will be boys, and if we don't keep them from their mischief that is our fault. I don't see a lot of books that tell that story, and this one did it well.

As I mentioned, there was a good deal of variance in quality among the essays.

For me the strongest essays by far were "I Said Yes" by Anthony Frame (absolutely guttingly honest - it brought new truths to the discussion) and "The Ways we are Taught to be a Girl" by xTx. Other standouts were Fragments by Aubrey Hirsch; "Slaughterhouse Island" by Jill Christman; "What We Didn't Say" by Liz Rosema; Good Girls by Amy Jo Burns; "Why I Didn't Say No" by Elissa Bassist; "Bodies Agaisnt Borders" by Michelle Chen and "What I Told Myself" by Vanessa Martir. Surprisingly (at least to me) I was also really moved by "Wiping the Stain Clean", Gabrielle Union's addition. Another essay that really moved me until it started down an insane "all rape is political" rabbit hole was Floccinaucinihilipilification by So.

The essays I thought weakest were: "The Luckiest MILF in Brooklyn" by Lynn Melnick (I get her point, and its not a bad one mostly, but man so much of it was offensively self-involved and privileged. When she gets pissed a cop does nothing when she is cat-called I wanted to reach in and smack her.); Spectator by Brandon Taylor; "Utmost Resistance" by VI Seek (this centers on her time in law school, and with all sympathy for her trauma and PTSD, I have to assume she is a shit lawyer based on her inability to follow any logical thought process) and "Invisible Light Waves" by Meredith Talusan.

Some other stories failed because their narrators were unreliable or because they fell into simple man blaming rather than cultural commentary, but they were the exception. A few essays weren't bad, but neither were they very good. Overall a thoughtful and thought-provoking collection, an important read sure to start some important conversations and an even more important read for anyone who has ever asked the question, 'what is rape culture?"

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was excellent, even if I was left very angry afterwards. The amount of rubbish people have to deal with on a daily basis is stupid and people really need to be treated better.

[larryerick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To be candid, I'm not at all certain I should review this book. It was not targeted to my demographic or my personal experiences. I'm an old straight guy. If someone reading this, wants to skip over it to the next "review," I will not take offense, even if offense at my being a guy is taken. That being said, I will offer a few notes. I won't try to elevate what I have to say to the status of a review. First, about the introduction by the editor, I said to myself, this is really good -- and then I realized none of the rest of the book would be by her. But my disappointment was short lived, because the first essay was beautifully, masterfully written, and, in my mind, set a stage for the highly varying temperament of the overall book. There is a lot of unresolved thought by the authors of the essays, that goes well beyond just deep wounds. The situations that occurred -- or didn't occur, but feared they would -- and the responses received -- or not received -- and the endless need to assess and reassess, and forgive and not forgive, it's all an emotional, intellectual burden for the just the reader. Imagine the writers. The variety of the writing styles and the exact subject matter and the range of emotional levels, with all this, even the most sterile recitations have something to relate that still resonates. Well done, Editor. All in all, I'm very disappointed America's Uncle Joe still doesn't quite get it or that Donnie never will, but I hope this book, as pain filled as it is, will provide some degree of salve for the injuries our society continues to inflict.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Roxane Gay curated this collection of essays on rape culture, so I knew it would be amazing, at least from the writing and the way emotions are vividly and powerfully expressed. This book, however, is also an emotionally exhausting and tragic collection of essays. In each essay - some describing rape, others things like cat calling - the writers (who include men as well as women and transgender persons too) come back to the idea that their experiences weren't "that bad". From the beginning, we know that this is the wrong phrase to use for these kinds of experiences and by the end, the phrase nearly made me angry with its repetition. I don't share all of the experiences details in these essays, I've experienced enough of the pieces (the catcalling essay really resonated with me) for the stories to hit their mark. The essays here are poignant and I hope they encourage a larger change in how we talk and deal with these issues as a culture.

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Content Note: This book’s subtitle is literally “Dispatches from Rape Culture.”

Best for: Those looking for some reassurance and reminders that yes, it really is that bad.

In a nutshell: Editor Roxane Gay brings together essays from 30 people (mostly women), all of which address some part of rape culture.

Worth quoting:
“The part I wanted them to understand is that these equations can implode, constricting your whole life, until one day you’re sitting in a locked steel box breathing through an airhole with a straw and wondering, Now? Now am I safe?”
“I wonder if, when it finally stops for good, if it will be too late to relax, if the muscle memory of the harassment will keep me tense on the sidewalk forever.”
“Then they will revise backward. They will take every opinion they’ve ever heard from you, every personality train, every action, and recast them in light of what you told them. This will be particularly true of your sexual behavior and your appearance.”

Why I chose it:
Roxane Gay.

Review:
I am a writer. I mean, I don’t get paid to write, but I do write. A lot. And I have this essay, still sitting in the ‘ready to pitch’ folder in Scrivener, simply called “Arm Grab,” about the time a random dude grabbed and squeezed my arm and then ran off, and what multiple encounters like that do a person over time. And before reading this book, I probably would have left it in the folder forever because it is just one in a long line of small incidents that I would have described as “not that bad.”

This is a book that can be hard to read. It isn’t 30 essays about rape, though — it’s 30 essays about the various ways that rape culture affects women and men. About street harassment, and child abuse, and date rape. Individual stories that are connected by the ways we don’t believe women, or treat them as broken, or at fault, or as liars. The ways we’re taught to be grateful that our experiences don’t matter, don’t affect the ways we navigate this world.

The essay that resonated the most with me was “Getting Home,” where author Nicole Boyce talks about how an experience led to her not feeling comfortable walking alone after dark. Like ever. And so much of what she wrote lives in my head. The fear of the sound behind me when I leave the tube station. The keys sticking out through our fingers. My confusion and then sadness when my husband and I go for a walk late in the evening and I don’t want to walk through the park because I wouldn’t do it alone, and I remember that he navigates the world without really having to make those calculations.

I’d recommend this to everyone who feels that they’re in a place where they could read it. It’s not light reading, but it wasn’t nearly as challenging a read as I thought it would be.