Computer-Mediated Consent to Sex: The Context of Tinder

TL;DR

This study explores how consent is communicated via Tinder, revealing two main processes—signaling and affirmative consent—and discusses how app design can influence sexual violence prevention.

Contribution

It identifies and analyzes two distinct computer-mediated consent processes on Tinder, highlighting design shortcomings and potential for violence prevention.

Findings

Consent signaling involves implicit cues without explicit confirmation.

Affirmative consent includes overt discourse on consent across online and offline interactions.

Both processes have limitations that may increase vulnerability to sexual violence.

Abstract

This paper reports an interview study about how consent to sexual activity is computer-mediated. The study's context of online dating is chosen due to the prevalence of sexual violence, or nonconsensual sexual activity, that is associated with dating app-use. Participants (n=19) represent a range of gender identities and sexual orientations, and predominantly used the dating app Tinder. Findings reveal two computer-mediated consent processes: consent signaling and affirmative consent. With consent signaling, users employed Tinder's interface to infer and imply agreement to sex without any explicit confirmation before making sexual advances in-person. With affirmative consent, users employed the interface to establish patterns of overt discourse around sex and consent across online and offline modalities. The paper elucidates shortcomings of both computer-mediated consent processes that leave users susceptible to sexual violence and envisions dating apps as potential sexual violence prevention solutions if deliberately designed to mediate consent exchange.