Without Consent

A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime

By: Sarah Weinman

Narrator: Sarah Weinman

HarperAudio

ISBN: ‎ 978-0063279889

Publisher: Ecco

Publication Date: 11/11/2025

Format: Other

My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)

NOV 2025 MUST-READ BOOKS

From Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita, comes an eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions about women’s rights that would reverberate for decades.

In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in United States history to accuse her husband of rape, at a time when the idea of “marital rape” seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four states. After a quick and conservative trial acquitted John Rideout and a defense lawyer lambasted that “maybe rape is the risk of being married,” Greta was ridiculed and scorned from public life, while John went on to be a repeat offender. Thrust into the national spotlight, Greta and her story would become a national sensation, a symbol of a country’s unrelenting and targeted hate toward women and a court system designed to fail them at every turn.

A now little-remembered trial deserving of close, wide, and lasting attention, Sarah Weinman turns her signature intelligence and journalistic rigor to the enduring impact of this case. Oregon v. Rideout directly inspired feminist activists, who fought state by state for marital rape laws, a battle that was not won in all fifty states until as recently as 1993. Mixing archival research and new reporting involving Greta, those who successfully pressed charges against John in later years, as well as the activists battling the courts in parallel, Without Consent embodies vociferous debates about gender, sexuality, and power, while highlighting the damaging and inherent misogyny of American culture then and still now.

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Praise

"A searing, thoroughly researched examination of misogyny in past and present American culture — a particularly important history to understand now, as women’s rights are under attack.”

— Bustle

"Weinman tells the stories of Greta and the other survivors with empathy and respect, offering readers a well-researched and thoughtful narrative that sheds light on their experiences and broader systemic issues."

— Library Journal (starred review)

“Riveting…Weinman’s skills as a storyteller shine throughout...It’s a propulsive legal drama that underscores how difficult it still is to bring rapists to justice.”

— Publisher's Weekly

"A well-argued work of legal journalism that shines light on the darkest corners of married life." — Kirkus Reviews

“Signature storytelling and thorough reporting."

— Town and Country

“Important and impressive…Without Consent is history, yes, but also a warning about the future. A reminder of what happens when a right is given half-heartedly, or without teeth, or with every expectation that it will be diminished or eliminated. What does it mean for a society when rights are less foundations than pendulums — which basically makes them playthings, whims, historical artifacts?”

— Lisa Belkin, author of Genealogy of a Murder

“With characteristic rigor and grace, Weinman recounts a harrowing, overlooked chapter in the struggle for women’s rights in America. But this book does far more than unearth history. It stands as a powerful testament to the individual courage women have displayed, and the personal sacrifice they have been forced to make, in demanding dignity and freedom. We owe Weinman a debt of gratitude for telling Greta Rideout’s urgent story.”

— Seyward Darby, author of Sisters in Hate

“In this compelling deep dive into the havoc and trauma wreaked by misogyny, Weinman deftly uses Oregon’s first marital rape case to explore the failures of our criminal legal system and to trace the harm caused by a society that—then, as now—refuses to see women as people deserving of equal rights.”

— Roxanna Asgarian, author of We Were Once a Family

“This definitive account of the Rideouts’ relationship and trial is a major contribution to the history of women fighting for control over our bodies—and a reminder that for many Americans, as recently as the nineties, marriage was effectively a form of ownership. This is a rigorously reported story that’s as propulsive as it is haunting. Without Consent cautions us that the fight for justice does not always end with the passage of a just law.”

— Alex Mar, author of Seventy Times Seven

“Through detailed research and beautiful writing, Sarah Weinman has created an evocative, unputdownable, and haunting narrative about one woman and the trial that changed marriage for all women in America. . . . Sarah Weinman has made a name for herself as a master of true crime writing, and this book is Weinman at her best.”

— Lyz Lenz, author of This American Ex-Wife

About the Author

Sarah Weinman is the author of three books: Without Consent, forthcoming in 2025; Scoundrel, named a Best Book of 2022 by Time, Esquire, CBC, and NPR; and The Real Lolita, named a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, BuzzFeed, The National Post, Literary Hub, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Vulture, and winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award in Nonfiction. She also edited Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning; Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Nonfiction/Critical Work; Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America); and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin).

Weinman writes the monthly Crime & Mystery column for the New York Times Book Review. A 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for Reporting and the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, her work has also appeared most recently in The Atlantic, Esquire, New York, and Vanity Fair, while her fiction has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and numerous anthologies. Weinman also writes (albeit more sporadically) the “Crime Lady” newsletter, covering crime fiction, true crime, and all points in between.

She lives in New York City. WEBSITE