Intimacy
Where a rape was preceded by some consensual intimacy, a woman will often find herself blamed and accused of being naïve, or of being a tease who led her attacker on. If she was out on a date, smiled at, flirted, danced with, kissed or engaged in some other level of intimacy with him, subsequent accounts will often portray her as being to some degree complicit what happened to her.
But a kiss is not a contract and the sexual autonomy to which we are all entitled means that women have the right to say no at any time – and to receive justice if that no is not respected.
Challenge yourself
At a night out at the pub with her friends, a woman meets a guy she likes. After chatting in the bar, he asks her to go back to his house – she goes. After another drink in his house, things get a bit passionate but he then becomes forceful, leading to rape. Is the woman partly to blame for the rape?
82% said no