Body language can't tell you if someone consents because there's no universal look. Relying on it means assuming you know what someone wants and acting without asking, which is dangerous. Explicit confirmation is the only reliable way.
Everybody in this room has a completely different look. And if everybody in this room has a completely different look, there's no such thing as a look. And if that's true, that means body language is unreliable. Now you may be thinking, Mike, what's the big deal if it's unreliable? Well, the problem is if you're making choices based on your body or somebody else's body with a system that's unreliable, it suddenly becomes dangerous. Body language relies on 2 things: assumption and arrogance. See, the assumption that I think I know what this person wants, the arrogance that I have the right to do it without confirmation.
