Aussie reality show's hidden bed detail divides: 'So dangerous'

A former Love Island Australia contestant, Georgia Murray, has revealed a little-known fact about the show, saying each contestant has a "consent button" by their bed that they can press to consent to "anything that happens" during the night.

“OK guys, I’m gonna tell you something about Love Island that you probably don’t know... You see these little buttons on the side of the bed? Those are called consent buttons, and there is one on each side,” Georgia said on TikTok. "Basically, you press them before you go to bed to consent to anything that happens during the night."

While Georgia captioned her video saying, "We love consent buttons", Dr Erin Carlisle, a sociology lecturer at University of Wollongong, told Yahoo Lifestyle that while the consent button is a "positive step" as a form of active consent, it must be imperative that consent can be withdrawn at any time.

"Sexual consent is, and must be, enthusiastic, ongoing, unequivocal, equal, and conditional," Dr Carlisle said. "The 'yes' is not a blanket, all-or-nothing statement. People must be able to change their mind and withdraw their consent."

Fans react to Love Island's consent buttons

Fans were torn on the concept of the consent buttons, expressing concerns in the comments section of an Instagram post. "This is so dangerous. Anyone can withdraw consent at any time," one person commented. "A step in the right direction, but ideally consent, boundaries and desires are openly and candidly communicated between people instead of having to be signified through pressing a button," another said.

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"I hope there’s some sort of codes for the buttons, otherwise someone can just press their own button and their victim’s button without their permission," another person commented.

"What if we just didn’t make weird shows about random people hooking up?" someone else queried.

"Given the premise of Love Island' is centrally about people 'coupling up' to remain in the competition for $50,000, it is not clear of coercion – the cash prize creates a context where contestants may feel pressure to 'couple- up', or remain 'coupled-up' with someone, who they do not feel entirely safe or comfortable with," Dr Carlisle stated. "The starting-point for the consent buttons therefore is not one of free and equal consent without consequences for the people involved."

Are consent buttons to protect Love Island contestants or the show itself?

The show made the switch to introducing a consent button in 2022, replacing the previous method of confirming consent, which involved cast members pausing anything hot and horny happening to verbally give consent.

"Once they go under the covers they are out of our view,” Love Island Australia’s executive producer Alex Mavroidakis told Herald Sun in 2022. “We have had producers creeping into the bedroom at night time tapping them on the shoulder and saying ‘you have to say I consent’, which is incredibly embarrassing for the producer and certainly for the islander. To alleviate that we designed the consent button or the horny heart."

Dr Carlisle raised concerns that while the button is a show of consent, it may not be enough.

"A suggestion was made that the 'consent buttons' were introduced in an effort to create a safer environment for contestants. For me, this appears foremost as an effort on the part of producers and the network to put the responsibility for safety onto the contestants themselves, as a way to mitigate risk of liability," she told Yahoo Lifestyle.

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"What else are producers doing to ensure safety and, more importantly, to prevent sexual abuse? For example, are they implementing other initiatives during casting – such as screening for adherence to violence-supportive attitudes, mandating completion of consent training and other primary prevention initiatives – to ensure all contestants are in fact safe and respectful of their partners, from the very beginning?"

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