Looking at the disagreements in this thread and elsewhere on the internet, it appears to me that:
(1) Grace and Ansari probably perceived their encounter very differently and read each other's actions through the lens of what they expected or wanted the other to think.
(2) The people disagreeing on whether Grace's account, if accurate, describes a sexual assault are reading the same words but not seeing the same actions. In a weird way, they feel like accidental symbols for Grace and Ansari.
If you believe Ansari "ignored clear non-verbal cues" as Grace put it and furthermore dismissed her verbal objections, then it makes sense for you to think he acted in an inexcusable way. But my impression is that the people "defending" Ansari's actions disagree about how things actually happened and what those things were. They seem to see Grace as having behaved like she enjoyed the situation for the most part while secretly hating it. In their minds, there weren't clear cues to ignore.
I think it's clear that part of this difference in perception results from a selective reading of Grace's claims. It's hard to interpret "I don't want to feel forced" as indicating something other than "Hey, I feel like you're trying to force me." But I also believe that the bulk of the disagreement stems from the fact that we as readers of the account likely resolve ambiguous descriptions by inserting our own beliefs and assumptions. To give an example, consider the exchange where Grace said she'd have sex on a second date. According to her, Ansari asked if another glass of wine counted as a second date and then poured her one. Kate saw that as predatory. Grimstone saw it as a joke. In one interpretation, he's a lecherous lout. In the other, he's a comedian whose joke didn't land. I think that makes a huge difference in how one imagines that specific interaction and what allegedly happened afterward.
Similarly, Ansari getting the Uber to take Grace home seems to influence how some people see the prior events. Ansari's "defenders" see it as an indication that he didn't mean to violate her and thus probably just "misread" the situation as consensual. By definition, that would make Grace's signals unclear, at least to Ansari. That's very different from him "ignoring" a signal, which is what Grace accused him of doing. To "ignore" suggests Ansari received and perceived clear signals of what Grace felt but disregarded them. If you're inclined to think Ansari ignored Grace's cues, then bringing up the fact that he didn't trap her in his apartment sounds like a disturbing (and weak) defense of his supposed prior actions. But I think that people are saying something different when they bring that up and picturing a much less upsetting situation.
I guess my point is, these disagreements aren't just about the nature of consent. As this thread has thoroughly demonstrated, they're about language. Maybe there are people who would excuse ambiguously predatory behavior in the absence of an explicit no. That wouldn't shock me because I have a partly Hobbesian view of humanity. But I nonetheless think and hope that the fundamental disagreement lies in the drastically different ways people are probably picturing Ansari and Grace's behaviors. The opposing sides may be reading and using many of the same words, but if I had to guess, I'd say they're seeing and describing altogether different scenarios.