Clothes are not consent: How a man was acquitted from sexual assault due to his victim's underwear
- Prisha
- Jul 11, 2023
- 3 min read
What: This is a case that occurred in Ireland in 2018, in the city of Cork. A 17-year-old girl was raped by a 27-year-old man. The pair met in a club, and the man then proceeded to drag the girl through mud into an empty lane. Despite the girl's protests, he had sex with her. A witness reported seeing the man choking the girl. After intercourse, the girl told him that he had raped her, to which the man replied "No, we just had sex." The man claimed that the two had kissed, lied down in the mud, and had had consensual sex. However, the more disturbing part of this story is what occurred in the courtroom. During closing statements, the man's lawyer, Elizabeth O'Connell, stated the following: "Does the evidence out-rule the possibility 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." The juries -- eight men and four women -- unanimously found the man not guilty.
Aftermath: This incident sparked backlash all over Ireland. Protests occurred both online and all over cities in the country. Online, people posted pictures of various kinds of underwear under the hashtag #ThisIsNotConsent. Additionally, 200 people gathered to march on the Cork courthouse and laid lingerie on its steps. Irish politician Ruth Coppinger brandished a thong during a Parliament session in order to draw attention to how wrong such a defense was. She also mentioned how clothes, fake tans, and contraception had been used as proof of consent during recent rape trials. In addition to this, the Irish Prime Minister at the time, Leo Varadkar, said "Nobody asks to be raped. And it's never the victim's fault. It doesn't matter what you wear, it doesn't matter where you went, who you went with, or what you took — whether it was drugs or alcohol."
As far as my research has revealed, the court did not re-try or charge the man despite the backlash.
Additional notes: This is not an isolated case of such a defense being used in a court of law. In 2002, a teenage girl from Scotland was raped in a park near her home by a 14-year-old boy she knew. Later in court, she was forced to hold up her underwear during trial proceedings and read out the letters on them -- "Little Devil." Though the perpetrator was found guilty, the girl committed suicide three weeks later due to the ordeal she'd been through in court. Furthermore, In 2020, the city of Ica, Peru saw a similar case. The victim was taken to a party under false pretenses by the perpetrator and woke up naked in his bed the following morning. In the trial, the judges argued that the woman had misrepresented herself as a shy person and that this representation didn't align with the fact that she was wearing red lace underwear on the night of the assault. Hence, the man was acquitted. This ruling sparked a similar backlash throughout Peru, and the man was eventually re-tried.
Thoughts from the author: Sexual assault is perhaps the only crime I can think of where a valid defense from the perpetrator is that the victim wanted it. Our society views sexual assault as a grey area where the victim could have consented or secretly wanted it. I believe that this view of sexual assault needs to change -- we should rather view it as an act of more violence than lust, an act meant to assert control and dominance over the victim, and one meant to diminish the victim's voice and wants. Only when we view sexual assault through such a lens will we be able to prevent such immoral defamations of survivors and their stories. Because no matter what they had consumed, what they were wearing, their gender, or their background, rape is never the victim's fault.
Remember, use your voice and get educated!
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