Time to talk sexual consent

Does anyone else think that whipping out the phone during foreplay to make a sexual contract might dampen the mood slightly? Photo / Thinkstock

The other day one of my friends told me that I always write about sex. I told him that was in no way, not at all, 100 per cent not true.

Sometimes I also write about Weet-Bix. No, seriously, I thought that I may reference sex frequently, but I don't actually write about it directly. Until today - so Mum, please take this as a hint to flip to the World section.

Recently an app called WeConsent gained a lot of press attention. A girlfriend told me about it over breakfast. It's the invention of former Wall Street banker turned philosophy teacher Michael Lissick. The idea is that the app records a video of you and your partner stating the time, date, name of your partner and that you agree to have sex with them. The video is then stored online for seven years as proof that an encounter was consensual.

It's an app aimed mostly at college-aged students. It was created in response to the prevalence of sexual assaults in American universities. It's also part of the rising movement to improve awareness around consent. The movement has seen the rise of the "Yes Means Yes" consent laws in California and compulsory consent classes for students in Oxbridge universities.

Personally I think WeConsent is like the Mooncup or coffee made from ground nuts; how did people ever think that was a good idea?

Okay, it's well intentioned. There is a problem among young people, and probably everyone else, over what constitutes consent.

I remember that someone once asked me if I could define consent and I rolled my eyes. "Of course I can," I said, waving a broccoli floret, "it's just saying yes."

And of course you can't be that dismissive without someone pointing out what an idiot you are.

What about if you're drunk? If one person is drunk and the other sober? Does it change if you've had sex before, or repeatedly before, or you just felt obligated or hesitant or generally unenthusiastic? Do you have to be verbally positive, as with the California law, to be consenting? Does that mean every silent or ambivalent sexual encounter was non- consensual? Does that make it rape? What if they're your friend?

So no, we aren't very clear on what consent is. And in the fallout after Roast Busters we realised that New Zealand still has difficulty defining the concept. Does anyone else remember the lawyer for Wellington bouncer George Pule, who defended his client's actions two years ago by saying that if the girl hadn't consented she should've just closed her legs?

The app is trying to address this. But it's just not doing it right.

First, it seems to have been designed by people who have never had sex. Does anyone else think that whipping out the phone during foreplay to make a sexual contract might dampen the mood slightly?

And it also assumes that sex is verbal. When was the last time you verbally consented to each stage of sex? Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I've never said, "I now legally consent to you moving from kissing my mouth to stroking my boobs, thank you." A lot of sex is a non-verbal process with each person trying to work out how far this is going. Yes, that can create problems, but an app isn't going to solve those.

But most importantly, to me the app is a sign of a broader unwillingness to talk about sex with young people. If there's an app for it, then apparently we don't need to have the conversation.

Except we do need to have the conversation. Young people are confused about consent and about sex in general. There is a lot we don't know. And of course the solution to this is education. I'm not talking about school classes. (I don't remember anything about health classes except everyone taking the piss out of them.)

We need reliable, easily accessible and non-judgmental information we can trust. What we need is a crack team of women in their late 40s. I only recently discovered how awesome these babes are. They don't give a shit about what people think any more. As such, they're happy to sit me down and explain why I should never fake an orgasm or how to make him use condoms. All of my knowledge comes from chats with these powerhouses.

Imagine if all these women got together with experts and produced a sex TedX? That would be incredible. All their information, kindness, tolerance and experience in an accessible, human format.

So yes, WeConsent highlights the urgent need for discussions about sex. No, it's not the right way to go about it. This, more than anything else, needs a human touch.