Mike Domitrz warns that reading body language alone to judge sexual consent is dangerous. He describes a scenario where a high school student misinterprets a hand on the leg as desire, makes an unwanted advance, and causes harm. Explicit verbal confirmation matters more than any gesture.
Which means body language is unreliable, potentially even dangerous. Now, somebody going, Mike, what do you mean body language is— could be dangerous? Well, let's imagine we have 2 high schoolers, end of the night, they're on a couch or at someone's house. One of them is hoping something's going to happen. That person looks down, sees the other person's hand on their leg. Now they see this and their ego says, hey, they're touching me, they want me, hey, you should go for it. And they start to listen to their ego. So they make a sexual advance. This person did not want. Could this quickly become a disastrous situation? Yes or no? Yes. Yes. All right, so you just told me that somebody assuming what their partner wants can quickly become dangerous, and it can. And that's the problem with body language. It relies on assumption and arrogance. The assumption, I know exactly what you want. The arrogance that I think I have the right to do it to you without confirmation.
