This story makes me unbearably angry. I mean, obviously what a woman wears cannot be consent – but even if it could, even if we accept that ridiculously corrupt and intellectually bankrupt argument as completely true… it still doesn’t mean that she consented to him. I don’t care if someone shows up to a bar naked with “I want sex” written on their abdomen (and completely mean it), they still get to choose who they have sex with (or nobody at all). This woman may indeed have wanted to attract someone, she may completely have intended to bed somebody that night… but that is all irrelevant because it was. not. him.
A jury acquitted a man accused of raping a teenage girl after his lawyer instructed jurors to consider the type of underwear the teen was wearing when the alleged assault took place in Cork, Ireland.
The issue of consent was at the center of the case involving a 27-year-old man and his 17-year-old accuser. Senior counsel Elizabeth O’Connell told the jury to consider that the girl was wearing a lacy thong at the time of the encounter, The Irish Examiner reported.
“Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was consenting to sex? That she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front,” she said in her closing arguments, according to the report.
Source: Teenage girl’s underwear used against her in rape case – NY Daily News
There is no such thing as “consenting to sex.” Thee is only “consenting to sex with a particular person.” The underlying implication of this argument that a woman is not allowed to have agency over her body. A woman is not allowed to have standards. If a woman is willing to have sex, she must have it with anyone and everyone who wants her. The entire idea is utterly misogynist and infuriatingly archaic.
Aaaaargh!
…oh, and also: dang, the Irish know how to protest. “Clothes are not consent!”
