Work

No Sex Until My Body is Green: Trauma-Informed Design Fiction of Spatial Consent to AR/VR Sexual Interactions

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Trauma pervades contemporary HCI research, particularly research into sexual harm. This has prompted careful consideration of whether empirical methods that require recruitment of study participants, such as survivors of sexual violence, are worth the risk of retraumatization, as well as exploration of trauma-informed alternatives to empirical methods. In this paper, we frame design fiction (a non-empirical, speculative design practice) as a trauma-informed method when deliberate structures for mitigating retraumatization of researchers are incorporated into fiction writing. Our research team applied trauma-informed design fiction to collaboratively write a speculative sex education curriculum for visualizing consent to sex called Spatial Consent. Grounded in a future where AR/VR glasses are widely adopted, Spatial Consent provides prescriptive guidance to high school students for how to visually (as opposed to vocally) exchange consent so as to mitigate unwanted sex stemming from misunderstandings of consent. The paper makes two distinct contributions: methodological guidance on when and how to use trauma-informed design fiction, and implications of Spatial Consent on HCI research into consent and sexual violence.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

DOI: 10.1145/3799449

Authors: Yosr Aissa, Douglas Zytko

Institution: University of Michigan–Flint

Language: English

Topic: Innovative Human-Technology Interaction

Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: National Science Foundation, University of Michigan