Written consent forms only perpetuate the narrative that the ability to avoid rape is under the victim's control.
By Valeria Martinez
A few days before film mogul Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of felony sex crime and rape, his attorney Donna Rotunno told The New York Times:
"If I was a man today in today's world, before I was engaging in sexual behaviour with any woman, today, I would ask them to sign a consent form."
But what a consent form ignores is that everyone can revoke consent at any point. Asking people to sign these types of contracts shows an immense lack of understanding of what consent really is, as it isn’t something you can lock down.
Apps designed to digitise the act of giving consent, such as We-Consent or LegalFling, quickly collapsed, evidencing that codifying sexual consent will never be enough to prevent sex crimes.
Consent agreements, far from being a solution to rape and sexual assault, are in fact a way to preserve the notion that women should be taught how to say no, instead of teaching boys not to assault them. They are a distraction from the real problem: the actions of perpetrators.