Affirmative Consent as Zeno's Paradox

With Affirmative Consent regularly part of the Discourse, I'll just share a personal anecdote from a few years ago that stayed with me. I'm a straight male and went on a date with a lady (side note: she's married and poly). We ended up naked, were heavily fooling around, and at one point I said "Do you like oral sex?" and she responded with a "Yeah!". So I started going down on her, and the response could only have been described as enthusiastic and affirming. We ended up having sex later that evening after I asked "Do you want to have sex?"

Fast forward a couple of days, I text her to see if she wants to meet again. She declines for well-grounded reasons, but then also added a bizarre postscript:

Her: "Do you like oral sex" sounds a lot more general than "do you want oral sex right now"

Me: I'm genuinely confused. Did you not want me to go down on you?

Her: I honestly just wasn't expecting it. I would've preferred a clearer heads up.

I was dumbfounded because I didn't understand how else someone would interpret "Do you like oral sex?" within the context of making out naked. It quite obviously wasn't a rhetorical question.

I think for this reason is why I am not a fan of affirmative consent. I think you should absolutely always ask before you have sex with someone or escalate matters similarly particularly the first time (and anytime you sense hesitation), but I can't understand how a strict policy of "ongoing consent must be reaffirmed continuously" can lead to anything but a real time manifestation of Zeno's paradox. "Do you like oral sex?" is not enough, so you then have to ask "Would you like oral sex?". But that's not enough either because the identity of the giver has not been established, so you need to ask "Would you like me to give you oral sex?" We're getting closer, but we have not established a time, is this an immediate ask or happening sometime in the future? Etc. You get the point.

My own preference for a standard is the reasonable person standard. Call it my profession (lawyer) bleeding into my sex life but I think it's a damn good one. All you need to ask is "Would a reasonable person similarly situated believe there was consent?"

When I first started dating, I had some mild anxiety about crossing lines I wasn't supposed to. I would approach consent comprehensively but playfully. For example, if they start undressing me, I'll gently swat their hands away and smile and say "you didn't ask". I did this consistently in my early years until it became apparent that quite a few women found it annoying. I changed my approach to switch to just asking at critical points early on (e.g. "Do you want to have sex?") but even that approach hasn't kept me out of trouble.

I've hooked up with some hyperwoke people and no one ever EVER has consistently used the affirmative consent model, no matter how much they publicly harp on it. I don't want to give too many examples for fear of needless gratuity. But a true adherence to affirmative consent would need constant inquiries along the lines of "is this ok?" "Is this still ok?" "Is it still ok?" "I know you said yes a minute ago but have you withdrawn consent in the intervening time?". It's impossible and I don't believe I'm exaggerating it because of other anecdotes from personal experience.

The practice I've settled on now I actually got from a Radiolab episode on this topic. I ask the person from the beginning something the lines of "are you comfortable saying no?" And also affirm and encourage "please let me know if you're uncomfortable at any point". The first question is much more effective than affirmative consent model because there is also the risk that some people are afraid of saying no.