Now, apps aiming to help partners mitigate confusion in the bedroom have emerged, the newest of which approaches consent like a legal contract. LegalFling, which was introduced to users in beta on Monday, lets users give explicit sexual consent via an agreement, or a “live contract,” a dynamic document that users can continuously interact with and update.
And yes, these agreements could hold up in court, said Andrew D. Cherkasky, a former special victims prosecutor who now handles dozens of felony-level sexual assault cases each year as a criminal defense attorney. He emphasized, however, that what LegalFling offers are not technically contracts, but documentations of intent, which are legally viable.
LegalFling aims to make the sexual dos and don’ts explicit in a “fun and clear way,” according to its website.
Condom use, bondage, dirty talk, sexting: the app lets users set their boundaries before an encounter — boundaries that can be adjusted at any time with a tap and shared with a potential partner. (Sound familiar? Netflix’s twisted-tech series “Black Mirror” incorporated a similar transaction in its episode “Hang the DJ.”)
“A profile update is an event we store on the blockchain and will subsequently update the live contract,” Rick Schmitz, a co-creator of LegalFling, recently said. The transaction is encrypted, timestamped and stored. (A blockchain is a collection of digital transactions that are registered in a sequence of “blocks” of data.) (...)
When yes becomes no.
Dr. Michelle Drouin, a leading expert on technology and relationships, said the apps are good at documenting consent, but don’t account much for fluctuating human emotions. They don’t necessarily allow for any immediacy of one’s feelings, she said.
Use of the app “has to be planned,” she said, “and it’s really difficult for us to even know how we feel in the present moment, much less trying to anticipate how we might feel an hour from now.”
Mr. Schmitz said that a LegalFling agreement does not override someone changing his or her mind in the moment or being too intoxicated, for example, to consent. The company suggests you withdraw consent via the app at that moment, but, of course, that’s not always possible.
If encounters leave users feeling violated, Mr. Schmitz said, they should notify the aggressor afterward in a message, and it will be added to the record.
Also possible with a tap: triggering cease-and-desist letters, according to the website. (...)
But Dr. Drouin is not sold on apps as a solution to a very human problem. The requirement to interact with an app during a sexual encounter is “completely unrealistic,” she said.
“It would be very awkward within the context of an intimate encounter to be like, ‘Wait a second, I’m changing my mind on the app and also with you,’” she said.
More important, she said, the app could persuade someone to fulfill acts simply because they agreed to them in advance, or to overcommit in an effort to appear more sexually adventurous.
And yes, these agreements could hold up in court, said Andrew D. Cherkasky, a former special victims prosecutor who now handles dozens of felony-level sexual assault cases each year as a criminal defense attorney. He emphasized, however, that what LegalFling offers are not technically contracts, but documentations of intent, which are legally viable.
LegalFling aims to make the sexual dos and don’ts explicit in a “fun and clear way,” according to its website.Condom use, bondage, dirty talk, sexting: the app lets users set their boundaries before an encounter — boundaries that can be adjusted at any time with a tap and shared with a potential partner. (Sound familiar? Netflix’s twisted-tech series “Black Mirror” incorporated a similar transaction in its episode “Hang the DJ.”)
“A profile update is an event we store on the blockchain and will subsequently update the live contract,” Rick Schmitz, a co-creator of LegalFling, recently said. The transaction is encrypted, timestamped and stored. (A blockchain is a collection of digital transactions that are registered in a sequence of “blocks” of data.) (...)
When yes becomes no.
Dr. Michelle Drouin, a leading expert on technology and relationships, said the apps are good at documenting consent, but don’t account much for fluctuating human emotions. They don’t necessarily allow for any immediacy of one’s feelings, she said.
Use of the app “has to be planned,” she said, “and it’s really difficult for us to even know how we feel in the present moment, much less trying to anticipate how we might feel an hour from now.”
Mr. Schmitz said that a LegalFling agreement does not override someone changing his or her mind in the moment or being too intoxicated, for example, to consent. The company suggests you withdraw consent via the app at that moment, but, of course, that’s not always possible.
If encounters leave users feeling violated, Mr. Schmitz said, they should notify the aggressor afterward in a message, and it will be added to the record.
Also possible with a tap: triggering cease-and-desist letters, according to the website. (...)
But Dr. Drouin is not sold on apps as a solution to a very human problem. The requirement to interact with an app during a sexual encounter is “completely unrealistic,” she said.
“It would be very awkward within the context of an intimate encounter to be like, ‘Wait a second, I’m changing my mind on the app and also with you,’” she said.
More important, she said, the app could persuade someone to fulfill acts simply because they agreed to them in advance, or to overcommit in an effort to appear more sexually adventurous.
by Maya Salam, NY Times | Read more:
Image: LegalFling
[ed. What a world.]
[ed. What a world.]
