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Jessica Valenti: 'Objectification Is About Dehumanizing People'

In this Sept. 16, 2015 photo provided by Tessa Ormenyi, students hold up a sign about rape at White Plaza during New Student Orientation on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, Calif.  (Tessa Ormenyi / AP)
In this Sept. 16, 2015 photo provided by Tessa Ormenyi, students hold up a sign about rape at White Plaza during New Student Orientation on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, Calif. (Tessa Ormenyi / AP)

We're big fans of feminist author and Guardian U.S. columnist Jessica Valenti. So when we got news of her recently published memoir, "Sex Object," we knew we had to invite her on.

Her booking coincided with a surge of interest in a sexual assault case at Stanford University in California — and the powerful letter the victim read in court to her attacker, former Stanford University student athlete Brock Tuner, has been shared and read one by millions.

"There is some power in laying claim to the word victim," Valenti told us today. "This is something that happens and impacts the people involved."

Valenti also spoke about how complaints about the suggested culpability of the unnamed victim in the case for consuming alcohol was unwarranted — but not unexpected.

"It's not illegal to get blackout drunk," Valenti said. "It is illegal to sexually violate someone."

You can read an excerpt of Valenti's new book, "Sex Object," here, and listen to the entire conversation about objectification, the Stanford sexual assault case, and more above.

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