In the wake of experimenting with the Gesture of Consent on film, some things I noticed about it & the way it is used in this (admittedly contrived, abstracted & bizarro) setting.
1. Prompting the gesture is generally accomplished (once already physically touching) by tapping or holding the other person's elbow.
2. The gesture is not the intimacy, meaning that the act of the gesture precedes the actual shift in intimate proximity.
3. Observed order of operations: First, putting oneself up to it. Second, initiating the gesture. Third, using the gesture as a focus of the interaction. Fourth, negotiating verbally what acceptance of the gesture means. Fifth, allowing whatever was negotiated to happen. Sixth, emotionally engaging with the new intimacy. Rinse & repeat.
4. The gesture supplements but does not in any way replace explicit verbal negotiation of boundaries.
5. The gesture provides an opportunity to externalize some of the discussion around what is next, seeming to effectively take some of the pressure off the act of initiating the consent conversation (although not really off of the negotiation once it has begun).
Further analysis & whatevs to come with time/editing