With more victims of sexual assault coming forward and pressing charges, some people are wondering if they should have a contract for consensual hookups? While consent is extremely important when it comes to hookups, and there are definitely some people who might not mind signing a contract before hooking up, there are also a lot of issues that would come with that because consent can change at any point during a hookup. A man or woman can change their mind while hooking up, and tell their partner that they want to stop. So for that reason alone, consent contracts aren't going to be effective protection against what most people looking to get them signed would be meaning to cover themselves for.

Let's look at some more reasons why you shouldn't have a consensual hookup contract.

Just because someone wants to hook up with you at one moment, doesn't mean that they have to continue having sex with you until you're finished. If at any point it feels bad for them, or they decide that it's a bad idea that they want to put a stop to, they're allowed to tell you to stop. At that point, if you don't stop, you are breaking the law because you no longer have your partner's consent. Having a signed piece of paper saying that you're going to hook up doesn't change that. It simply suggests that you're looking for a way to protect yourself legally if you decide to not stop when you're asked to.

Just because someone agrees to hook up with you, doesn't mean that you have consent to have sex with that person until the end of time. There have been some awful cases where men have sexually assaulted women that they have previously had consensual sex with in the past, which is used in court as some form of backwards logic, showing that the woman has had sex with the man in the past, so of course she wanted to have sex with him again. As much as many men are currently worried about women claiming that they have sexually harassed or assaulted them, these concerns are largely unfounded, and they have to consider cases like the ones we just described, where men have gotten off through a shady defense. The scales are usually tipped in the favor of the men involved. Wanting to have this paper contract to hypothetically present in a courtroom setting at some point, is a strange and fairly troubling idea, if you think about it.

Because consent is required every time that you hook up with someone, if you ever hooked up with the same person multiple times, would you sign a new contract every time you get together to hook up? Would the date, location, and time frame be all included in the contract?

The definition of consent hasn't changed one bit among the recent global discussion about it. All that has changed lately is that more women are finding the courage to come forward and tell their stories in order to put their attackers behind bars. When we're younger, and becoming sexually active, there are a couple ways that it typically goes down. There are the young and awkward people who are very nervous, but also very concerned about their partner's well-being, and they will check in with each other, and ask for verbal consent. Not for fear of being charged with assault afterwards, but because they want to make sure that their partner wants the same thing as them.

The other typical type of sexual activation will be where one or both participants are too uncomfortable to even talk about it out loud. They'll read each others' body language and awkwardly fumble their way through it without verbalizing consent, but there being a fairly secure understanding that they were both there for it.

There are of course other ways for your life as a sexually active person to begin, but the problems with the second type are only forgivable if both partners are inexperienced, and don't feel comfortable talking about sex. There's a very good argument to be made though, that if you aren't able to talk about sex openly with someone you want to have sex with, then you probably shouldn't be having sex with that person. While the definition hasn't changed, we've become more aware of the importance of verbalizing consent, and being comfortable enough with your hookup partner to say a version of, "Do you want to have sex?" out loud. There has surely been some hookups in your life where you've skipped that step. Think about your previous hookups, and try to find a moment where your partner seemed perhaps hesitant. If you can find examples like that in your memory, that doesn't mean that you've sexually assaulted a partner, but it does mean that you've potentially put your desire to have sex above what your partner wants.

If you find yourself considering the option of having consent contracts for your hookups to sign, you have to consider why you think they're needed. If you're fully onboard with the definition of consent, and trust yourself to be aware and attentive enough during sex to keep tabs on when it perhaps feels like your partner isn't as into it as you are. If you check in in those situations, and are committed to stopping if your partner says they want you to stop, or that they aren't super into it, then you're fine. You're making sure that there won't be any consent issues.

If you're considering consent contracts for hookups because you don't believe women who say that they've been assaulted, and think that there's a rush of women out in the world currently who are out to ruin the lives of men for reasons you can't seem to figure out, then you need to instead of writing up a consent contract, be more selective with whom you're having sex with. It's a wild world out there, and we can often find ourselves hooking up with people that we don't know very well. If you're concerned about being charged with sexual assault charges after having sex with a stranger, it is probably a better scenario to just be more selective in hookup partners.

Perhaps you have a friend who has been accused of sexual assault, and that's why you're worried. They're your friend, and you have a hard time believing that they would do that. Take a moment to think about why the accuser would accuse them of it if they hadn't. There are much easier ways to hurt someone.

The statistics regarding sexual assault are shocking. It has been found that 1 in 5 women will experience attempted or completed rape in their lives. 1 in 10 women have been raped by someone close to them (this includes people that they are in a relationship at the time of the assault). We hope that those numbers are enough to at least give you pause when you're thinking about asking a woman to sign a consent contract before hooking up.

Imagine you're out on a date. It's going extremely well, and you just know that you're going to find yourself back at your place or theirs; ready to get it on. Your partner goes into their bedside drawer to get a condom, and you go into your pocket. They might notice, and think that you're getting a condom, so they put theirs back. When you instead pull a folded up and sweaty piece of paper from your pocket, and ask if they have a pen, you're hookup is DONE before it even starts. Your attempt to be extremely clear about consent (which is always a good thing!) has backfired because you've essentially told your partner that their word isn't good enough. That you don't trust them. Can you imagine having sex with someone who tells you that they don't trust you before you hook up? We can only speak for ourselves, but we wouldn't find that very appealing in a partner. You can just say, "Do you want to have sex?" That works.

As we've already mentioned. There have been cases where prior consent has been used to get someone off of sexual assault charges, and there could be similar effectiveness with a consent contract, but consider how dangerous those cases make the world for women. There could very easily be forged contracts drawn up to use against a woman who has accused a someone of assaulting them. We're very strong believers in the fact that consent should be a verbal exchange between people, which is able to be changed at any point during the hookup. If you're not okay with that arrangement, you could very well have difficulty finding people to hookup with you. We're here to help you get some action though, and hope you'll hear us out on the issue.

It seems as though we're making slow progress towards a point where courts are going to accept a more victim-friendly and more effective way to process sexual assault cases, so that something like a consent contract would be considered inadmissible evidence if the plaintiff claims to have removed consent mid-sex. As things currently stand though, that hypothetical contract would exist only to protect you, and potentially undermine your sexual partner's story, should things end up going poorly.

If there isn't any reason for a potential hookup to sign a consent contract if you think about it. If you don't believe us, grab a pen and some paper, and try and make a list of advantages for your hookup signing a consent contract instead of just exchanging verbal consent. (Note: If you were able to think of some, we're very curious to hear them.)

One of the first examples of sexual consent contracts, you might be surprised, was created by a woman. It wasn't for the reasons you might first think though. A college student at the time, Alison Berke launched The Affirmative Consent Project as a response to the number of assaults that were happening in colleges around the world. The project distributed consent kits to students (some for free, and some for sale at a nominal cost). Each consent kit contained a condom, breath mints, a consent contract, and a pen that the two people who were hooking up would use to sign it.

The contract was never meant to be an actual legal document. The project was created in order to create a dialogue between people before hooking up. Keep in mind also that these kits were being distributed exclusively to college students, in response to a widespread epidemic of college campus sexual assault. If removed from that context, it becomes problematic.

There are now multiple sexual consent apps on the market though, like Legal Fling and We-Consent. Currently these apps are free to use. Let's take a moment to think about other apps and websites that are free, and how they monetize our using them. Facebook is a great example of course. They track your likes, your history, the types of status updates and links that you share, and of course the people that you're friends with. If Facebook had an option for you to tell them who you've had sex with, would you? Would you be okay with your sexual history, and all of the information that could be learned from it being applied to the Facebook and Google ads that you see every day when you're browsing the internet? If your Amazon suggestions reminded you of a past relationship that you had been trying to forget? And think about all of the websites that have been hacked by groups like Anonymous, and have then released giant lists of names, addresses, and credit card numbers online. What if instead of your credit card number, it was a list of every person that you've hooked up with and used the consent app? That would certainly become a possibility. Again, this isn't why we're not super fans of consent contracts, but it's one more thing to think about when you're weighing the pros and cons of using sexual consent contracts in your sex life.

Another potential problem that we can imagine if consent contracts became widely used by people before hooking up, is that our ability to comfortably talk about sex with each other. A great advantage of verbal consent is that you have a one on one discussion about the sex you're about to have.

If we were to remove that step, and then even remove the physical signing of a paper contract, and replacing it with logging into an app on our cell phones, and simply taping phone screens together as an agreement to have sex, we would essentially be processing our consent in the same way we buy the ingredients for dinner at the grocery store, or order Christmas gifts online. While not every hookup is romantic, it's undeniable that the majority of hookups that happen every day in the world, still involve some element of tenderness. If we remove the need to discuss our hookups with each other, and our consent becomes a click of a button on our phone, rather than the simple act of looking into your partner's eyes and asking if they want to do it, we're removing a very important human element of sex.

Sex has of course always been important, but considering how detached many of us have become because of our increased use of technology, the intimacy that comes with hookups makes it perhaps more essential right now in our time than it ever has been before. Sex is one the few times in our lives where we put our phones down (unless we're making a sex tape or taking some sexy photos, of course). If we begin using phone apps to sign consent contracts, where does it stop? Do we have to keep our phones on us during the act, to check in every few minutes, to let the app know that we're still into it? We know it's a bit of a stretch, but would you have thought that you were going to be so attached to your favorite social media app when it first launched?

Even if we have some concerns about hookup consent contracts, it's very important (and really great) that you are at least thinking about the importance of consent, and trying to figure out the best way for you to get it before hooking up.

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