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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

#71

Post by oilbagz »

ginko wrote: post #68
oilbagz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safer or not-safer kind?

If you think the Victorians typically used condoms or only had sex in wedlock then you're quite mistaken.

"Conservative" = cautiously moderate, i.e. in this instance, not engaging in sex with reckless abandon, but rather with caution and moderation.

If you think "Victorians" are what is meant when someone refers to a conservative society, then you might need to read a few more books. Its quite possible to be conservative on the subject of sexual activity, while also voting Democrat.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#73

Post by im3w1l »

rebelos wrote: post #20
mam2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I feel no one is able to realize that at the end of the day, the bottom line is that there will NEVER exist a way to PROVE consent without doubt. Even if you say yes you could say no later. Even if you have marks, it could be some weird rough sex / kink thing. Am i really the only one to see it ?

Being sexually active is particularly dangerous for heterosexual women. It's nearly impossible to prove a rape case in court. Because of this, there has been some groundswell of support for relaxing the burden of proof in rape cases to a standard that might ultimately permit some false accusations to result in wrongful convictions (a horrifically bad idea that would likely be a Pandora's box imo). If you reduce this…

So one thought I had: You can relax the burden of proof without having false accusations if you disincentivize accusations. It could work like this: If a woman accuses a man of rape, you accept it as true no questions asked. You imprison her for a month, and imprison him for two years.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#74

Post by oilbagz »

viraptor wrote: post #70
oilbagz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because withdrawn-consent can be used offensively. False rape accusation do happen and have resulted in many, many ruined lives - of people who legitimately and honestly thought they had consent, where the court later did not agree. Ignorance of this fact doesn't support your argument.

I don't disagree false accusations happen. I'm saying that it's shitty to bring them up when a legitimate change of mind is discussed. Yet people keep popping up whatabouting this one, like someone's just waiting to accuse them of something.

False Rape Accusations are a form of abuse. Rape is also a form of abuse. They are not equivalent, but can certainly lead to the same order of life-destruction magnitude in either case.

Both of these things are relevant in the discussion of consensual sex, and I disagree with your attempt to elevate one position over the other.

Rape is bad because it negates a persons agency over themselves and denies them their basic human rights - false rape accusations also deny a person their basic agency and human rights.

Best way to avoid either case: just don't have sex, i.e. learn the value of abstinence.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#75

Post by rich_sasha »

rebelos wrote: post #20
mam2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I feel no one is able to realize that at the end of the day, the bottom line is that there will NEVER exist a way to PROVE consent without doubt. Even if you say yes you could say no later. Even if you have marks, it could be some weird rough sex / kink thing. Am i really the only one to see it ?

Being sexually active is particularly dangerous for heterosexual women. It's nearly impossible to prove a rape case in court. Because of this, there has been some groundswell of support for relaxing the burden of proof in rape cases to a standard that might ultimately permit some false accusations to result in wrongful convictions (a horrifically bad idea that would likely be a Pandora's box imo). If you reduce this…

Came here to say more-or-less this.

We now define consent as something so etheral (probably rightly so) that it's virtually impossible to prove it was granted (clearly, "leave me alone" remains unambiguous). People can change their mind but feel coerced to continue, or grant consent to something different than what ends up happening. Court cases thus go down the "he said, she said" route.

I don't really know how to get out of that.

The flipside is that, indeed, because genuine accusations are so thin on physical proof, it is so hard to separate them from fake ones. Whenever I hear someone publicly shamed for sexual misconduct and the wrath of public opinion descends on them, a part of me shudders at the thought of that happening to an innocent person, with no defense available.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#76

Post by rich_sasha »

im3w1l wrote: post #73
rebelos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being sexually active is particularly dangerous for heterosexual women. It's nearly impossible to prove a rape case in court. Because of this, there has been some groundswell of support for relaxing the burden of proof in rape cases to a standard that might ultimately permit some false accusations to result in wrongful convictions (a horrifically bad idea that would likely be a Pandora's box imo). If you reduce this…

So one thought I had: You can relax the burden of proof without having false accusations if you disincentivize accusations. It could work like this: If a woman accuses a man of rape, you accept it as true no questions asked. You imprison her for a month, and imprison him for two years.

That sounds terrible. If you want to punish someone, just say they raped you, and put up with a month's worth of prison. And also, genuine rape victims will be sent to prison, to top up their already ghastly experience.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#77

Post by m12k »

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…

I agree with all points - giving blanket consent up front misses the point entirely. But I've been thinking if it's possible to flip the idea on its head: Make a kind of "sex partner review escrow service". What if instead of granting consent, the app allowed you to designate a person that is allowed to 'review' you. Basically saying "I give this person the right to call me out as a sexual predator" and get the same in return. That way it'll be what they think about the encounter afterward that matters.

Reviews aren't perfect, and they won't catch someone mostly well-behaved who only occasionally sexually assaults [1]. But as it is, there are serial-perpetrators out there who get away with it, because there's no 'background check' for dating, and the only remedy is if a community around a known predator keeps trying to warn each new girl he tries to get with - which is indistinguishable from slander, and can just as well be used to ruin someone's life based on a single lie. So maybe an app could actually help with that? Make an 'official' paper trail so your sexual behavior, good or bad, is on the record. The technology could enforce various things - e.g. the review could be 'locked in' after a couple days, so you can't change it weeks later due to a bad breakup (it wouldn't even need to be published or sent to a server, a cryptographic hash would be all it takes to make it possible to verify later that the review wasn't tampered with). And by only allowing 'authorized' reviews, you avoid the possibility of brigading.

Using technology to deal with a sensitive issue, and sensitive data like this isn't easy - and doing so would require a very careful design about what is visible to whom under which circumstances (not unlike the recent contact tracing systems in iOS and Android). But I feel like a legal grey-zone like this, where the courts continuously fail to help women that have been raped, that calls for more creative solutions, even if they don't solve the problem completely. With a consent app, each person 'signs away' their right to call the other person out, but with an app like this, the opposite is true, you give weight to the other person's voice, and I think that's worth exploring.

[1] https://xkcd.com/325/

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#78

Post by oilbagz »

rebelos wrote: post #20
mam2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I feel no one is able to realize that at the end of the day, the bottom line is that there will NEVER exist a way to PROVE consent without doubt. Even if you say yes you could say no later. Even if you have marks, it could be some weird rough sex / kink thing. Am i really the only one to see it ?

Being sexually active is particularly dangerous for heterosexual women. It's nearly impossible to prove a rape case in court. Because of this, there has been some groundswell of support for relaxing the burden of proof in rape cases to a standard that might ultimately permit some false accusations to result in wrongful convictions (a horrifically bad idea that would likely be a Pandora's box imo). If you reduce this…

> no good solution here

The solution is the de-stimulation of society from an era of overt sexual manipulation and an adjustment of expectations regarding the value of casual sexual activities.

Re: Australia: Sex consent app proposal sparks backlash

#80

Post by kolinko »

oilbagz wrote: post #37
nikanj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False accusations work just fine despite your abstinence. If the other person is lying about consent, what's stopping them from lying about the sex too?

We have legal tools for this already: Effective evidence-gathering by the investigating authority.

There are voices on far (I hope) left that want to abandon evidence gathering and presumption of innocence in this case.

I’ve seen some people post things like this on Facebook and not realise how crazy it is.

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