Rape Is Terrible, but Women Are Also Accountable for Their Actions

The London trial and acquittal of a 21-year-old student for alleging raping a female student has stirred a wider debate on the nature of rape and modern college life. The following is an excerpt from Nigella Lawson’s Oct. 20 column in the Evening Standard.

Just a few minutes after Austen Donnellan was found not guilty of rape this week, a spokeswoman for a rape advisory board managed somehow to find an instance in this particular case of the unfair burden borne by women in such trials.

The pressure was always on women, she said, to account for their behavior, what they were wearing and, most pointedly, what and how much they had been drinking. Ah yes, the drinking. No one could deny that it played a crucial part in the proceedings, in the courtroom as in the bedroom, but the woman who alleged the rape herself brought attention to it.

The gist of her excuse seemed to be that with the amount she had got down her, she was hardly in a position to give or withhold consent. If consent did seem to be given, she, in the circumstances, could not be held accountable for it. She thereby, more or less, declared herself not to be responsible for her actions.

Who then should be held responsible? Donnellan, it would seem by implication. No one says it, but you might as well add: “Well, he’s a man. It’s his job to take responsibility. She’s only a frail woman and he shouldn’t take advantage of her.”

For some reason, date rape is cited as a post-feminist phenomenon. How so? Nothing takes us back more to the times when a woman was a vulnerable little thing, never truly escaping the condition of childhood, for whom sex was a torment and whose role was forever to be that of victim.

Give me a break. Rape is a terrible thing. That is beyond debate. The spokeswoman I quoted above also lamented that the outcome of this case would put women off reporting rapes. That is lamentable. But those who pretend that an undesirable encounter . . . is the same thing as sexual assault are pretty criminal themselves.

To wake up and find yourself in bed with someone whom sober you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole is not such a big deal. We’ve all been there, honey. It’s called student life.

Reprinted with permission from Solo Syndication.