Some men are going to extreme lengths to ensure they have consent.

A worrying new trend is seeing women being asked to record “consent videos” before having sex with men who fear they will be accused of assault afterward.

This dating trend involves one partner filming the other giving them verbal consent before they engage in a sexual act.

This then allows the person who recorded the video to use it as “evidence” that their partner gave consent before having sex.

In a recent Evening Standard article, one woman recalled how her partner had whipped out his smartphone before they became intimate in order to film her verbal consent.

Despite “sleeping together a few times before”, her casual fling grabbed his phone “suddenly and without warning” right before having sex to confirm she wanted to sleep with him.

Switching on the camera, he said: “Could you really quickly just say that you want to have sex with me?”

Unsurprisingly, the woman didn’t know how to respond and so he asked again: “Could you just say that you consent to having sex with me?”

After this worrying exchange, the woman also describes how a “friend of a friend” shared a similar experience with a “minor celebrity” on a recent night out.

“Could you really quickly just say that you want to have sex with me?” Image: Photo by Ömürden Cengiz on Unsplash

After flirting all night, “she accompanied this man back to his hotel.”

However, when they returned to his room the star “explained that his contract was very strict and that she would need to record a video of herself giving consent.”

After this, the celebrity “asked her to state her full name, that she was there of her own accord and that she consented to having sex with him.”

In other words, these worrying videos function as an insurance policy if someone is accused of assault or rape afterward.

Weighing in on the matter from a legal standpoint, barrister Kate Fortescue told the paper: “In this digital age, a jury is nearly always asked to look at material from phones and computers to help them decide the issue of consent.

“A jury is nearly always asked to look at material from phones and computers to help them decide the issue of consent.” Image: Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash

“Evidence of pre-recorded consent is clearly relevant and something a jury could consider. However, even if consent was freely given, such recordings could never provide a blanket defence.”

Judging how a court of law would interpret a “consent video”, she added: “A ‘yes’, pre-recorded or not, can be just as ambiguous as some men suggest a ‘no’ is.”

And Katy Thorne QC added that a video was nothing more than evidence and could not always determine consent.

She added: “The use of video or audio recorded consent is a very unromantic way to ask and may not be the cast iron protection the minor celebrity seeks, in fact texts and social media messages before and after the encounter might be as compelling.”

This story originally appeared on The Sun and is republished here with permission.