Demonstrating Consent Rings: Explicit Non-Verbal Consent Through Haptic Wearables as a Solution to Unwanted Sex Between Neurodivergent Partners
Braeden Burger, Douglas Zytko · 2026 · Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26) · doi:10.1145/3772363.3799120
Summary
Consent Rings is a pair of symmetric haptic Bluetooth ring wearables developed by three neurodivergent researchers as an accessibility-oriented alternative to verbal 'yes means yes' affirmative consent. The authors situate the work in evidence that neurodivergent people - those with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, or learning disabilities - experience sexual violence at significantly elevated rates, and that a subset of unwanted sexual experiences are linked to sociocommunicative difficulties: trouble interpreting subtle social cues, identifying when to pause an interaction, or producing 'sufficiently blunt' verbal refusals under emotional load. Drawing on prior findings that autistic adults sometimes use written notes or other non-verbal channels in intimate settings when speech is inaccessible, the authors propose a haptic consent model with three stages: initiation (pressing a ring's button starts a 30-second low-intensity pulse on both rings, prompting clarifying communication), agreement (the partner clicking their own ring switches both rings to a stronger continuous vibration representing active consent), and continuation (the agreement vibration decays over 30 seconds and stops unless both partners re-click, encoding the ephemeral nature of consent and requiring sustained mutual reconfirmation). Either partner can revoke consent instantly via a double-click. The hardware uses a Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 Sense with Bluetooth 5.0, a DRV2605L driver and Adafruit mini disc motor for programmable haptics, a 70 mAh lithium-ion battery, a 12 mm tactile button, and a 3D-printed PLA housing. A companion Python Research and Reflection interface, off by default for privacy, can log interaction metrics for empirical study or partner aftercare reflection.
Key findings
This is a design and prototype paper rather than an evaluation, so the contributions are conceptual and technical. The authors articulate a haptic consent model that explicitly rejects the dominant affirmative consent ('yes means yes') framing on accessibility grounds: verbal-only models give no guidance for non-verbal communication and exclude people for whom verbal communication is unreliable under emotion, anxiety, or overstimulation. Three design moves stand out. First, consent is treated as ephemeral by design: agreement decays automatically over 30 seconds and must be actively reconfirmed by both partners, operationalising the principle that prior consent is not ongoing consent. Second, initiation is deliberately ambiguous about what is being consented to - the rings prompt a separate clarifying exchange (verbal, written, or otherwise) rather than enumerating acts, which sidesteps over-specification while preserving explicit agreement. Third, revocation is a single distinct gesture (double-click) that instantly stops the haptic signal on both rings, giving either partner a low-effort hard stop. Privacy is addressed by defaulting metric logging off and requiring a wired firmware update to enable it. The authors note the demo is groundwork for empirical study; no user study results are reported.
Relevance
For accessibility practitioners, this paper is a useful example of grounding a sensitive interaction design in a specific access need - non-verbal, low-cognitive-load consent communication for neurodivergent users - rather than retrofitting accessibility onto a verbal-default system. The framing that 'yes means yes' is itself an accessibility barrier is transferable: many normative interaction patterns (verbal acknowledgement, eye contact, real-time spoken refusal) implicitly exclude users who rely on alternative modalities. The decay-and-reconfirm pattern is also generalisable beyond intimate contexts to any scenario where ongoing consent matters, such as data sharing, telepresence, or AI agent actions. Limitations to keep in mind: there is no empirical evaluation, the binary button channel cannot express what consent is for (offloaded to a separate channel), and accessibility for users with limited fine-motor control, sensory sensitivities to vibration, or skin conditions is not discussed. The explicit data-off-by-default stance is a useful pattern for any sensitive-context wearable.
Tags: neurodivergence · autism · ADHD · consent technology · haptic wearables · non-verbal communication · sexual violence prevention · accessibility · wearables · affirmative consent