Your Honour if she hadn't wanted to be raped she should have avoided being born a woman

A couple of days ago National Radio had a short piece about a rape trial. Ranui Biddle had made a $50 bet with a friend that he could have sex with the friend's flatmate within six months. She twice allowed him to stay the night in his bed. The second time he raped her, while she said no.

During the trial: "defence counsel Michael Knowles pointed to what he called mixed messages from her that could have encouraged Biddle to think she might have been keen for a relationship."

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The judge approved:

"What the judge thinks doesn't matter a damn," said Judge Erber after the verdict had been delivered. "But I think in the circumstances it would have been very unsafe for any other verdict to be returned."

Unsafe? Unsafe! Well yes it may have been unsafe for men who wanted to force women to have sex with them. Then 'mixed messages means yes' is quite a good standard. But for women who do occasionally want to interact with men, without accidentally cosenting to sex, it's a pretty unsafe verdict.