> There is simply no other way for anyone to feel safe than to simply abstain.

Well, it's the same as with anti-natalism:

People who don't care about this stuff, will still have kids / take 'consent risks' to have sex.

An important complication about the topic at hand is that a lot of human courtship / flirting, involves plausible deniability. Eg extensive eye contact in a bar can indicate sexual interest, or perhaps you just have a booger on your nose.

Similarly, status and power play are just as much ingrained in human psyche as sexual behaviour. So there's lots of overlap. Lots of people enjoy when their prospective mate is a bit brazen (or, the opposite, plays extra shy).

Playing with social convention is a big part.

Human behaviour is messy.

You're absolutely right. Human sexuality predates language, so it shouldn't be surprising that it continues to have a non-verbal, sub-rational component.

I think the discussion of explicit consent is really intended as guidance for children/teenagers who don't the dance yet. For experienced adults it's possible to navigate all of these grey areas and read the underlying signals while being crystal clear about playing within the boundaries which are acceptable to both sides. But for kids who are still figuring this out, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that people use their words and be unambiguous.

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.

Sex is the oldest form of political power, and provides the shortest path to irrational reactionary thought available to the modern propagandist or political operative intent on influencing culture over generations. Our current ("Western") ideals for how sexuality is to be portrayed by our social institutions doesn't allow for much escape from the negative effects that this power can have over the individual. Hopefully that will change. One way it can change, positively, is for people to learn abstinence culture and just refrain from the act, entirely.

If you never bother attempting to initiate sexual activity, you're pretty safe from those who would use the sex act to alter your life. And if you eschew participating in collective sex-culture, its pretty easy to keep this under control, at a personal level.

Not sure what exactly you're referring to. It's virtually impossible to prosecute most sexual crimes. And if somebody's really out to frame you, the truth doesn't matter in the first place. Getting murdered by an angry lover may be more likely.

All this does is make people think twice. If you're married and trying to have children how can any craziness ever happen? Not sure what "collective sex-culture" is, but it may be what many just call "promiscuity" (which is kind of my point).

>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.

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.

Or sex work is going to go be very lucrative as casual sexual relationships incur more of a tax if there is even the slightest bit of confusion on consent (not to mention the fact that most people have alcohol in them, some have drugs, others just have bad experiences and carry regrets...).

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. This is classic internet flamebait complete with snark—exactly what the site guidelines ask you not to do in HN threads. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Edit: it unfortunately looks like you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not ok, and we ban such accounts for what ought to be obvious reasons. Please stick to the rules from now on.

Its not just a matter of 'not being rapey' - its a matter of agency over the sexual act.

If you get consent from your partner, have sex with them, and then your partner changes their mind about it afterwards - for any reason they determine under their own agency, what is to be done to avoid the danger of being falsely accused of not having gained consent, other than to simply abstain?

If consent can be retracted after the act, the act is not safe. So abstinence is the only answer.

And really, this shift towards abstinence is an appropriate social response.

"Change their mind" was never about changing mind afterwards. It's about "I don't like what you're doing, you should stop now" situation even if you were happy up to that point. You misunderstood the idea.

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 accusations, don't call it "change of mind".

"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.

> To protect yourself from the "yes .. yes .. okay, no" dilemma

Why protect yourself? Why is this a dilemma? If you stop when asked, it's not an assault.

If you're worried about this, you're worried about false rape accusations, not some dilemma about people changing their mind. "if you're not checking for continued consent every few milliseconds" is an imagined problem taken to extreme. People who actually change their mind during sex will tell you about it and not treat it as assault.

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.

If you want to make a change in society, you need to consider the risks invilved.

It’s important to see how prone to abuse is a new law that will be introduced.

Have you ever actually tried it out or are you just talking about your own imagination here?

Sure have. Never been raped, never been accused of it, and have a lot of happy, consensual sex all the time.

However, I will be teaching my teenage boys that "Yes is not always Yes, it can be changed", and that "No thanks, I'll abstain, even if you give me explicit consent" is always the safest approach.

Who's talking about after the fact? You can consent to sex, then change your mind in the course of things. Maybe you just stop wanting to have sex, maybe your partner starts going into territory you're uncomfortable with, doesn't really matter. An app where you give consent beforehand can't handle real life.

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.

Abstinence is the only answer _with an ironclad guarantee_.

Fundamentally, sex requires trust and analog communication over a connection either physical or verbal.

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.

Perhaps the surveillance state might save the day. If the sequence of interactions is recorded a jury could review it and decide if any consent was given or given and subsequently withdrawn at any point :-)