Editor’s note: This story contains a description of a sexual assault
Men once paid self-proclaimed ‘dating expert’ Jack Densmore – now a convicted rapist – to teach them how to “consent videos.”
The YouTuber advised them to take out their phone, press record and have the woman say she consented to sex.
Densmore answered that question while testifying at his own sexual abuse trial earlier this year.
“To prevent this!” he shouted, gesturing around the courtroom.
The irony — or justice, perhaps — is that in Densmore’s case, the video did absolutely nothing to protect him. It even helped the judge conclude that Densmore was a liar and that the woman had withdrawn her consent that night.
On December 11, Densmore, 30, was sentenced to three years in prison for forcing sex with a McMaster University student during a first date. Her identity is protected by a publication ban.
Densmore is already out on bail pending an appeal in his case.
There will be another sexual abuse lawsuit involving another woman. In that case he is accused of sexual assault, voyeurism and distributing intimate images.
Advocates and sexual assault prevention experts say consent videos not only reinforce rape myths but can also provide powerful evidence against a suspect.
Yet young men, often influenced by celebrities or media personalities like Densmore, are lulled into believing that a consent video is a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Lisa Kerr, an assistant professor of law at Queen’s University, says: “There is no such thing as prior consent in Canadian law.”
Greg Black photo
“There is no such thing as prior consent in Canadian law,” said Lisa Kerr, an assistant professor of law at Queen’s University. “It could be that someone agrees to something and makes a video saying, ‘I agree to X, Y and Z with this person.’ And five minutes later, when the deed is actually happening, they might change their minds. And under Canadian law, you always have the right to withdraw your consent.”
Densmore, who goes by the name Jack Denmo online, is known for his controversial videos encouraging drunken college students to have sex with multiple partners and tutorials on how to pick up women. Some of his videos have been viewed 10 million times.
The student he raped was featured in one of his videos, filmed at a McMaster homecoming street party. Densmore has been banned from several Ontario campuses, including McMaster.
The date took place on August 5, 2020. She was 19 and had just completed her freshman year at Mac. He was 26, had gone to college and was moving from job to job.
The student testified that sexual activity began consensually. But he became increasingly rough and aggressive. At some point, during oral sex on Densmore, she realized that was him take her in with his phone.
Densmore claimed he was making a consent video.
In reality, he made a sex tape without consent. And that raised serious doubt during the trial about his claim that he had her consent for all the sexual acts that took place.
The idea that it was a consent video was “too incredible to believe” and “fabricated by the defendant,” Superior Court Judge John Krawchenko said in finding Densmore guilty.
The judge also said it was “logical and credible” that after the Densmore student saw her recording her, she wanted to leave the room. At that point, the judge said, she withdrew her consent to sex.
Densmore had unprotected vaginal sex with her anyway.
He was either “reckless in continuing to have sexual intercourse,” the judge said, or “willfully blind.” After the camera incident, Densmore “should have taken a break, regrouped and gotten clearance,” Krawchenko said.
Densmore testified that athletes, celebrities, DJs and musicians he partied with advised him to make consent videos. So he made it a habit to do this “whenever I hook up with girls. Especially with girls where I didn’t really know who knew about my videos or was in my videos.”
The use of consent video during a criminal trial is “extremely limited,” Kerr said. “The first major issue will be whether the video itself was consensual.”
That has certainly been an issue in two recent high-profile Canadian cases.
The first concerns the 2018 Canadian junior world hockey team.
The woman went to the room with one player, but said other players later showed up and performed sexual acts on her that she did not consent to.
Two short video clips were shown – six seconds and twelve seconds long Globe and mail reporters by lawyers for the hockey players. They claim the videos show the woman gave consent that night.
“Are you okay with this?” A male voice can be heard saying in the first video as the camera shows a woman from the neck up. “I’m fine with this,” the woman says.
In the second video, taken an hour later, the woman “appears to cover herself with a towel in a hotel room, with a closed door to the hallway visible in the background,” according to The Globe and Mail.
“Are you recording me?” she asks. “Okay, good. It was all consensual. You’re so paranoid, holy shit. I enjoyed it, it was fine. It was all consensual. I’m so sober, that’s why I can’t do this right now.
The woman said in a statement of claim that she was instructed to declare that she was sober while the recording was made.
London police, who received the videos, initially filed no charges. After the story blew up, a new investigation took place and charges were filed.
In another case in January, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the acquittal of a male soldier who made a consent video involving a drunken female soldier before having sex with her.
The man was tried on charges of assault and admitted that the woman’s drunkenness was 10 out of 10 at times that night.
At issue was the woman’s ability to give consent given her level of intoxication.
The Supreme Court said the judge’s reasoning had been thorough in ruling that she had the capacity to lawfully consent at the time of the sexual act. There was no direct response to the consent video.
But Kerr says a consent video can be evidence in the complainant’s favor if it is taken close to the time of the alleged assault and shows that her “intoxication was at too high a level to enable the complainant to do so.”
The value of a consent video is limited, according to Kerr, who says factors considered by a court include: when the video was made in connection with the sexual act; what the complainant’s condition is in the video; whether there is evidence of subsequent drug or alcohol use after the video was taken; what exact sexual acts were consented to and with whom; and whether there are any inconsistencies between the video and other statements that could be used to assess credibility.
“The video could serve as evidence that a complainant went ahead and continued her consent,” Kerr said. “But if her evidence at trial is, ‘Yes, I made that video, but when the time came – whether it was two minutes later or two days later – when the time came, I withdrew my consent. ‘”
Kerr also emphasizes that a consent video made under duress is merely evidence of violence.
In the past, when Canada’s sexual assault laws were “sexist and misogynistic,” there was a “requirement of resistance,” Kerr says. “If you didn’t fight back, you were considered to have gone along with it.”
Even if a woman doesn’t kick and scream in a consent video, that doesn’t mean she consented.
Lenore Lukasik-Foss is director of the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office at McMaster University.
Barry Gray Spectator file photo
Education is critical to understanding exactly what the legal requirement for consent is, says Lenore Lukasik-Foss, director of the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office at McMaster University. The idea that consent videos are protective undermines everything we know about sexual violence.
Consent videos emerged from the #MeToo movement in 2017 and changed the conversation around sexual violence. In general, it’s young men who embrace the idea, Lukasik-Foss says.
“It’s an idea based on the premise that people lie about sexual violence and the experience of rape,” she says. “It’s often framed as, ‘Hey, you better make sure you get a consent video because if you don’t, they’ll come back and say it was rape.’”
Consent videos fuel the myth that women often lie about rape. That’s not true.
“We know that false reports of sexual violence are no higher than any other crime, and that they are incredibly low,” Lukasik-Foss said. “About ninety-five percent of people who experience sexual violence do not go to the police. And of the very small percentage that do, research has shown that between three and eight percent will be considered false reports.”
The number of cases that lead to charges is therefore very small.
“Consent videos conflate the idea that you’re going to be accused of sexual assault, so you better get a consent video. It is on shaky ground when it comes to the reality of sexual violence.”
Lukasik-Foss emphasizes that consent must be “clear, continuous and enthusiastic” and can be withdrawn at any time. If someone asks to make a consent video, this should be a red flag that he or she doesn’t understand consent.
All incoming students and student leaders at McMaster receive consent training. The gold standard, they are taught, is for partners to contact each other verbally during sex.
It doesn’t have to be clinical, she says. When done right, getting the right permission is less intrusive and tricky than making a video.
On the witness stand, Densmore scoffed at the idea of having to ask a woman if it’s okay for him to stick his penis in her vagina — a statement the judge later called “flip” as he handed down his sentence.
“Consent can be obtained by asking, ‘Is this OK with you?’ Are you enjoying this? Is this comfortable? Is there anything else you would like? What turns you on?’” says Lukasik-Foss.
“A consent video is a symptom that we are still looking for a quick fix.”
