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Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#51

Post by eru »

rebelos wrote: post #41
eru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you reduce this down to the fundamental tension: either we have to ask women to become dramatically more vigilant and accept some nonzero risk of rape (more or less what we implicitly do already) OR we have to increase the likelihood of wrongful convictions. There's a third way, but perhaps equally unappetizing: record all interactions.

I'm going to assume you mean a video recording, which is the only way to be absolutely certain about what occurred when you have exactly two witnesses who also happen to be the accuser and the accused. I omitted this possibility for obvious reasons.

Well, you'd record as much as you can.

Video is obvious, but assuming you use a modern phone, you might as well add other sensors like accelerometer data, and extra channels like all WhatsApp conversations.

> I'm going to assume you mean a video recording, which is the only way to be absolutely certain about what occurred when you have exactly two witnesses who also happen to be the accuser and the accused.

Alas, even videos can be ambiguous. Eg picture some BDSM play. There can be lots of context required to make a decision.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#53

Post by skohan »

ginko wrote: post #34
oilbagz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People can change their mind So, a new era of abstinence is ahead of us. There is simply no other way for anyone to feel safe than to simply abstain. Personally I'm okay with this, but I know a lot of teenagers who grew up thinking sex is an important facet of their identity who will disagree... Frankly, though, I think a more conservative society which treats sex with a lot more respect than the current shit-show,…

>Frankly, though, I think a more conservative society which treats sex with a lot more respect than the current shit-show, is definitely in order. Conservative societies generally had more sex than we do now.

I once spent a summer in a conservative, religious country and let me tell you there was a lot of sex going on behind closed doors. And a lot of it was way more transgressive that what was happening in my left-leaning, permissive university culture.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#55

Post by eru »

afarrell wrote: post #45
eru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, you can still be falsely accused of almost anything.

True. So I advise not having sex with someone if you do not trust their ethics or emotional maturity.

No, I meant even not having sex (abstinence) doesn't 100% protect against accusations.

Of course, in practice people deal with certainly below absolute. But once you admit that, the argument for absolute abstinence loses some of its punch.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#56

Post by auganov »

oilbagz wrote: post #12
phs318u wrote: post #2

This is a bit of a hot topic in Australia - and the world (rightly so). A sampling of news articles in the last week: https://www.theage.com.au/search?text=consent With respect to the idea of consent via app - it's simply a dumb idea. People can change their mind, use of the app can be forced, then there's the whole tracking and data privacy issues (the slut-shaming potential of this data can't be overstated, especia…

>People can change their mind So, a new era of abstinence is ahead of us. There is simply no other way for anyone to feel safe than to simply abstain. Personally I'm okay with this, but I know a lot of teenagers who grew up thinking sex is an important facet of their identity who will disagree... Frankly, though, I think a more conservative society which treats sex with a lot more respect than the current shit-show,…

It's been my impression that's exactly what it has been all along. Sex outside of marriage (or even just procreation) is a pretty bad idea but people are afraid to say it because it's "conservative". Sexual everything has become such a staple in some circles that people don't have an easy way of saying they're not interested in most of it.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#57

Post by Lazare »

phs318u wrote: post #2

This is a bit of a hot topic in Australia - and the world (rightly so). A sampling of news articles in the last week: https://www.theage.com.au/search?text=consent With respect to the idea of consent via app - it's simply a dumb idea. People can change their mind, use of the app can be forced, then there's the whole tracking and data privacy issues (the slut-shaming potential of this data can't be overstated, especia…

Agreed, 100%, to everything you said.

Although on top of that, note also that consent is specifically for specific acts with a specific person (or people) in a certain context. Exact legal rules may vary over time and between places, and we may debate the exact comparative moral weights of different violations, but it should be clear to us all (I hope!) that consent to vaginal penetration is not consent to anal penetration; consent to sex with a condom is not consent to sex without a condom; consent to sex with someone whom you believe to be sober, disease free, and otherwise single is not consent to sex with someone who is not one (or more, or all) of those things.

And those aren't just hypotheticals; plenty of arguments about consent hinge on those things; eg, two people consent to sex with a condom, sex is initiated with a condom, one person looks down partway through the act and realise the condom has been removed or fallen off, they start yelling stop, but it takes some time before their partner actually stops, and now a judge and jury are trying to resolved a factual debate over what was or was not said about condoms prior to the sexual encounter, who was or was not responsible for the condom being removed and/or falling off, how long precisely it took between the call to "stop" and when the partner actually stopped, how long a reasonable person in that situation should be expected to take to realise consent had been withdrawn, and whether or not one person actually spent a significant amount of time consciously choosing to penetrate someone they were aware (or should have been aware) was no longer consenting, etc.

And then to take all that and think a EULA-style checkbox in an app will actually help any of that? At best it'll do nothing; more likely it'll confuse the situation and make mistakes and miscommunication more likely.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#58

Post by oilbagz »

viraptor wrote: post #48
oilbagz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps it is you who doesn't understand the word 'abstain'. If your partner changes mind mid-act, of course you stop - that is abstaining from further activity. The point is, this is precisely the kind of confusion to avoid by maintaining abstinence as your primary mindset. It is the only way to be sure: abstain at all costs, even if you were given consent, because that consent is not immutable.

No, I understand abstain and don't care about it in this context. I'm speaking out against the "change their mind after the fact" idea which gets brought up way too often as a possibility. It's disrespectful when discussing consent. You responded to a message which mentioned changing one's mind in terms of continuous consent, not false rape accusations. These are different things. If you want to talk about false rape…

"Change their mind after the fact" = you had consent, you no longer have it, stop what you're doing - i.e. abstain from further activity.

And that is the point - you're already in the danger zone if you've started and consent has been retracted. Better to just abstain entirely and not engage in sexual activity, at all, under those conditions.

No means no, always. To protect yourself from the "yes .. yes .. okay, no" dilemma .. just say no to casual, irresponsible sex - in the first place.

It is only way to be sure you won't get accused of assault, and even then, if you're not checking for continued consent every few milliseconds while engaged in the act, you're probably having very, very dangerous sex ... so just don't bother.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#59

Post by dgellow »

mFixman wrote: post #38
young_unixer wrote: post #5

(Off topic) Am I the only one who thinks the whole world is absolutely crazy right now? Like, in general, nothing seems to make sense anymore. When did I get transported into a parallel reality? I think it was 5 years ago after that LSD trip. Ever since then, things are getting increasingly weird /rant

The world hasn't changed. The way you consume media did. Here's a thought exercise: treat every news article that talks about "proposal" or "suggestion" as a low-quality personal blog. Or even better: treat everything on the Internet as false and trust only what you have seen in real life. The world becomes more clear when you realise that flat earthers don't really exist.

I would argue that by changing the way we consume media at a global scale, we are actually changing the world quite a lot.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#60

Post by dgellow »

eru wrote: post #42
dgellow wrote: post #26

Blockchain can fix this! Imagine what smart-consent-contract could do. You set your rules, everybody can see it but you’re in full control and do not have the government in between. Now that’s real consent for the 21st century! (I’m joking, please don’t take it as an actual idea and make it real, the world is already crazy enough as it is)

To take you more seriously than you wanted to be: A big part of human courtship and flirting is plausible deniability. Alas, that's exactly the opposite of what your (or any formal) solution would support.

Of course that would be a terrible idea. I’m poking at the absurdity of the app suggestion.
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