 This one's for the mandem. In the wake of the Weinstein revelations and the hashtag me too movement, the last couple months have seen a global revival in discussions of sexual violence, in particular the relative protection enjoyed by perpetrators at the expense of justice for their victims. Now some are arguing that technology can play a key role in rape prevention and in prosecuting cases of assault. Dutch blockchain company Legal Things is developing an app called Legal Flings. Blockchain saves permanent records and transactions in multiple places. The Legal Flings app would present would-be partners with a legally binding contract, consenting or not consenting to certain sexual activity. This is a fucking terrible idea. Consent is not a contract. This weekend an article was published in Babe magazine containing detailed allegations of sexual misconduct against comedian and actor Aziz Ansari. Grace went on a date with Ansari last September where it is alleged he became pushy, forceful and aggressive, cutting their dinner short, plying her with alcohol and ignoring her repeated insistence that things were going too fast. All too many of us have felt trapped in dates gone wrong, held in place by a combination of social embarrassment, reticence to hurt someone's feelings, fear of further harm or a lingering hope that the other person might read our verbal and non-verbal signals and stop what they're doing. What use would an app as oversimplified and binary as Legal Flings have in this circumstance? Intimate partners commit one-third of all sexual assaults and is in the murky realm of familiarity, trust, affection and trepidation that consent is negotiated and understood. Consent isn't just an unequivocal yes, it's a social process. It's the safety to say no or not now, maybe later, not like this, I'm tired or let's watch Thundercats and the confidence that such signals will be respected. Adult relationships require adult responsibilities, listening out for non-verbal cues, having difficult conversations and above all being willing to subordinate the urgency of your own desire and ego to another person's need for comfort and respect. Sound too difficult? Well, there is a tech solution to that. The sex bot.