Comment by Pfhreak

> Consent is unambiguous and enthusiastic yes.

No, “consent” is, like “intent” on the other side, a mental state rather than an action: it is the active desire for the act.

An ambiguous and enthusiastic yes is outward evidence of consent, though, and it tends to be the kind of evidence without which (or at least, some similarly very clear sign) we would tend not to infer consent to other acts where consent negates criminality, like battery.

I agree that this is morally correct but the law and the majority of real life intimate interactions don't reflect this. "Yes, I agree to have sex with you, and I am stating this without being under duress" or variations of that sentence is very rarely verbalized as such beforehand. Hence innocent until proven guilty and not vice versa, reasonable doubt, etc. and all the other law jargon applied.

This just leads to sill propositions and exclamations like "Now we all have to sign a contract before we kiss another!".

Human communication is complicated and complex and error prone. Combine it with sexuality and you have a mess.

There must be room for error and for dialogue. Humans are not binary machines. We're probabilistic ones.