Men Don't Really Understand Consent
I ended I Don't Like Face ID with a comment about men not understanding consent, but unless I explain, it probably only has meaning to me.
The source
Memory is treacherous and it's hard to be certain after all this time, but I listened to the first two or three seasons of Mozilla's IRL podcast. One of the episodes had the creator of the Contributor Covenant on as a guest, and conversation briefly touched on how social networking wouldn't be the same if it were designed by women.
That's where I think that section wrapped up, with something like, "It would be different, because men don't really understand consent."
What really brought it home for me
One day, I stumbled upon a game called Cute Demon Crashers (NSFW), which was a visual novel about consent. I had no idea what that would mean, so of course I played it.
It really was about consent. There's some gameplay/exposition to get to know the characters, and then the player chooses who they want to be with. Or not; everyone is cool if the player doesn't get with anyone. Once an encounter started, it was always revocable, with an option to exit in the corner, which always worked.
After making a few runs and testing out the mechanics, I realized, I had never seen consent portrayed this way, ever.
What next?
Since then, I've read some romance novels, and it's not really there, either. The fantasy is that your lover knows you already; it was meant to be.
I've also been subjected to corporate trainings, but since they're a legal CYA exercise, they are focused intensively on policy violations, with a side of "and these are worse, because they're illegal." Anything else appears in multiple-choice questions as a misdirection, and is usually dubious rather than positive.
"Men don't really understand consent" just gives everything a frame I can't unsee. It pops back up in places like Face ID, where I am assumed to be 'authorizing' an action through passive surveillance. That's not real consent; that's men not understanding consent.