Stockholm-based female lawyer and defense attorney Baharak Vaziri has launched an app named Libra to alleviate the risks arising from the "consent law" that was passed amid the #Metoo anti-harassment campaign which will come into force on Sunday.
According to the app's website, the new legislation can lead to considerable difficulty for couples seeking to consummate their union, hence the tool to mitigate risks using a "digital contract."
"The app should make it easier and more empowering for people to enter into a sexual relationship, to make it based on free will and consent," the app's description in App Store said.
According to the Aftonbladet tabloid daily, the app was instantly criticized for allegedly making it harder for women to "regret" and have second thoughts during the intercourse.
A 27-year-old Lund native Laurea Lindroos ventured that people may abuse the prior consent referring to contract obligations. She also argued that the very idea was taking advantage of women's vulnerability and was "disgusting."
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According to Vaziri, this criticism is not justified.
"This app does not apply in case of sexual assault or when women get in vulnerable situations. It is only aimed to remove any uncertainty, and such cases are plenty," Baharak Vaziri said.
The new sex law demands that consent is obtained "ahead of every new moment" during acts of intimacy. According to the law, consent shall be explicitly expressed in words, actions or otherwise. Although the law passed at the height of the #Metoo campaign caused remarkably little debate in Sweden, it triggered negative reactions worldwide.
Among others, Germany's biggest newspaper Die Welt described the law as a "witch hunt on Swedish men" and "reversal of the burden of proof," suggesting Sweden was "driving sexual correctness to the extreme." According to the newspaper, the law would further empower Swedish women to report intercourse when they were sleeping or too drunk to say no as rape.
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The new law, under which the legal classification was expanded with crimes such as "negligent sex assault" and "negligent rape" with a maximum penalty of four years' imprisonment, has been criticized from several angles, including from the Legal Council, which said it was too vague.
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