Our conversations about sexual consent have expanded rapidly in recent years. Schools are now implementing mandatory and holistic consent education, and affirmative consent laws are slowly becoming the new normal in jurisdictions across Australia.
But what about digital consent?
Lucille McCart, APAC Communications Director for Bumble, believes we are playing catch up, especially when it comes to educating young people about what is and isn’t acceptable in online spaces when it comes to sex, relationships and dating.
“We haven’t really taught people how to have conversations about digital consent,” McCart tells Women’s Agenda.
“Our conversations are evolving a lot when it comes sexual consent and consent education, but a lot of that revolves around what happens in the bedroom — it’s less about what goes on online.”
How consent is established in the context of intimate image sharing is a case in point, McCart says.
“Intimate image sharing is a really normal part of dating for young people,” McCart says. “So we can’t just say ‘don’t do it’ – the conversation really needs to evolve beyond that.”
“We need to be realistic about the dating culture for young people. The reality is they [young people] are going to share intimate images. So the conversation needs to be around how you obtain consent to do that every single time.”
At a recent Brunch with Bumble event in Sydney, McCart and her Bumble colleagues spent the morning engaging with a range of stakeholders and advocates, discussing everything from how to prevent abuse and harassment from occurring on dating apps, ways to keep women and minorities safe online, and the latest trends in dating culture.
“It’s really important to hear about what sort of solutions people want – if you don’t have people with lived experiences in the room, you might have the best intentions but you might leave out the things survivors actually want to see,” McCart says.
“What is so important is ensuring safety doesn’t just keep up with technology, but that it keeps up to date with culture as well.”
One in five women in Australia has experienced some form of sexual violence. With dating apps now the cornerstone of dating culture, the technology must be able to help us hold perpetrators of violence and abuse to account.
“We don’t want people to experience harm from the people they might meet on a dating app,” McCart says. “But the reality is, it can and does happen.”
A key initiative that Bumble has implemented this year to improve dating app safety is a new tip line for non-government organisations who work directly with survivors of sexual violence or technology-facilitated abuse.
Created in partnership with secure information sharing portal Kodex, there is now a dedicated tip line for those organisations working closely with victim survivors to share reports of abusive people using Bumble.
“These organisations are receiving disclosures from survivors about sexual assaults that have happened to them, some of which occur on dating apps,” McCart said. “While a survivor can always report to us at Bumble, through our block and report features, or if they delete the app, they can contact us by email, sometimes they don’t want to, and would prefer to reach out to another organisation.”
“This new initiative is really giving that person or organisation that receives that disclosure an easy pathway to pass it on to us, through a secure portal that’s private. And from there, we can take whatever action is necessary.
“It’s about relieving that burden, and ensuring a survivor does not have to report it twice or if they’re going to law enforcement, it might end up being three or four times.”
Feature Image: Lucille McCart, APAC Director of Communications at Bumble.