Believe it or not, one goal of this policy is more, and better sex.
I assert, though, that the climate today makes it very treacherous to do so--and that even if it didn't, there still is a chicken-and-egg problem in learning how to do it. Vocaroo and similar services seem to be a starting point for folks these days.
Honestly it isn't something you just know how to do (especially if you are prone to over-analysis of your actions), and the chance of making a lot of trouble for yourself is non-trivial.
This is the problem with your argument. I'll admit it, I don't explicitly "ask consent" and there have been times where there was "no doubt in my mind", and yet, I was rejected. :(
But if I was rejected, then I've clearly committed sexual assault in the most strict sense.
It's called "misreading a situation". You may think something is enthusiastic consent, but it isn't. Hence, why I will continue to ignore your advice and "live dangerously" by attempting to interpret the situation and predict the other partner's desires by other subjective and unreliable means such as body language and the nebulous concept of "where we are in our relationship".
That's an easy choice for me.
1) The legal definition of rape (at least in most states?) makes it such that one cannot "accidentally" do it.
Keywords: "[by means of] force", "duress", "physical resistance", "objected verbally".
A woman who was: * Not forced * Had no duress * Not physically resisting * Not verbally objecting * Mentally capable of making decisions
...is considered to be consenting. In other words, and perhaps contrary to the way you believe it should be, THE LAW REQUIRES YOU TO EXPRESS YOUR DISCOMFORT OR ELSE THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE WAY THE OTHER PERSON COULD KNOW. Sorry. :(
If a person has sex but later decides they weren't really that into their partner, wished that they didn't, wished that they had stopped it earlier -- it's not rape. Regret and the discomfort / dissonance that comes from it is a far cry from traumatic, forced rape.
2) You know long before you were "accidentally raping" someone whether or not they were consenting.
In the aftermath of the guilty verdict, several people observed that many of the teens at the party didn’t realize that this was rape. To them, the fact that the victim was unconscious didn’t mean anything. “I didn’t know this was rape,” said one witness. “It wasn’t violent.”
...
In many ways, the focus on “no” puts the burden – yet again – on women to rein in the libidos of men who presumably can’t control themselves… and in many ways can put them at a disadvantage. Women are often socialized to be non-direct for fear of causing offense; many women are frequently uncomfortable with being up front with saying “No, I don’t want this.” http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2013/03/enthusiastic-consent/
This is much more complex than you make it out to be, and that's precisely what obliges us to set guidelines that encourage folks not to rape rather than assuming not-rape as the default.
In summary, let's keep rape as a reserved term for obvious and gratuitous violations. This "accidentally raped" is kind of stupid.
Men and women have unwanted sex all the time. They do it because they don't want to let their partner down, because they think it is their "job", because they want to get something, because they are bored, because they want to feel wanted, because they just want to feel loved, because they haven't in a long time, etc. -- not always the best reasons. Typically, those feelings can be resolved in other ways.
We, as lovers, should strive to reduce the number of unwanted sex events as possible, and to do so requires an open bidirectional communication channel. However, while it may be sad that women are more prone to agreeing to unwanted sex, this is not the same thing as //raping// someone. I think it's really important to make the difference, because for one we say that the relationship is a bit off, in the other, we lock a person up and mark them for life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/...
Essentially, it says that prison rape accounts for the majority of rape in the US and those victims are predominantly male.
Or does it have to be given via verbal instructions?
If a girl is touching you back, tugging at your clothes, unzipping your fly - is that some form of communication? Or is it meaningless?
This is so laden with sexism it cannot be taken seriously. No, most women are not brought up expecting men to do all courtship and it silly to assume so. Further, in the context of how men treat women the dominant social narrative is sexual violence perpetrated by men your problem as a victim, so the reality is that the kickstarter project in question advocates taking advantage of this narrative to get sex without clear consent, which is outright rape.
How? Serious question.
(Context for this is for your bog-standard straight courting scenario--I do not feel qualified to comment on how courting for any other gender scenario works.)
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In an ideal world, everybody would communicate honestly and openly. You could sit down with a girl, and have a conversation like so:
"Hi, I think you're attractive and I enjoy your company. Would you be interested in pursuing a relationship, or if not, perhaps a shorter-term physical engagement?" "Yes/No/Not interested."
This is, needless to say, not how 99.999% of the population works--as I, and I suspect others, have found to our dismay. Negotiating these sorts of things is not just a TCP ack sequence or something.
The fact is that even were roles reversed, that is just not what we would consider a compelling user experience. Expecting explicit handshaking for every step of the relationship cycle is something only emotional robots expect.
In an ideal world, the following things would be true:
1. People know what they want in a relationship.
2. People know how to convey what they want accurately to other people, especially in terms of arousal or courting.
3. People are free to signal availability or interest without repercussion, and accept rejection just as easily.
These three things are obviously far, far from the case.
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There are very much conflicting cultural mores about how courtship is supposed to work.
On the one hand, we have hundreds and thousands of years of precedent (and perhaps biology, though I personally hope this is not the case) suggesting that the man is the one to initiate actions, and that the woman, if disinterested, will make her rejection known. Strictly speaking, we've got a bit more barbarous history behind us than that, but let's assume decent folk here to keep life simple.
On the other hand, we've got this recent push for more explicit confirmation for consent and for the more equitable distribution of first-move-making between the man and the woman.
These two things do not go together, and even worse, trying to come to a synthesis for your average inexperienced guy is a road which easily runs to ruin.
So, instead we find ourselves in this curious place where young men who mean well want to get with young women who also mean well. Unfortunately, the women are brought up expecting that the men will do the work, initiate everything, and the men are increasingly told that hey need to--to be safe and respectful, mind you!--wait for explicit confirmation of every step.
In programming terms, we are setting up for a deadlock.
Perhaps even more troubling, the hilariously large impact of social networks and whatnot mean that gossip is worse than ever, and there is no room to make mistakes if you are one of these young men. Worse, media is constantly reinforcing some awful blend of these two mores, making both sides seek after a state of affairs that simply does not exist.
There's some more issues I've seen, but you get the gist.