A ‘Brief’ Update on Cork’s Attitude to Sexual Assault

There was something disconcerting about getting dressed this morning. Dragging a jumper and a pair of pants out of my wardrobe was done so as absentmindedly as every morning, slice of toast in one hand, cup of tea in the other, the clock ticking hopelessly closer to me being late for my 9am. Instead of pausing to contemplate which of my prospective patterns would be clashing however, this morning I pondered over my underwear drawer. Three Penney’s thongs for a euro bizarrely didn’t seem like such a good deal now. Forget the uncomfortable lines those boxer briefs are going to inflict, or the uncomfortably placed waistband which would belong more in the overpriced, startlingly beige section of Marks and Spencers lingerie department – at least no one could assume I’m consenting to sex as I walk home, or as I go to a party, or to work, or on a date. But a thong? In Cork, that’s a whole other story.

Last week, Elizabeth O’Connell, the defence solicitor of a 27-year-old man accused of rape, questioned if the evidence out ruled ‘the possibility that [the complainant] 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.’ After 90 minutes of deliberation, the 8-man, 4-woman jury came to the conclusion that the man was not guilty of the rape of the 17-year-old girl.

I’m not the only one surprised and appalled that a lace-fronted thong is suddenly synonymous with consent. TD Ruth Coppinger brandished a thong in the Dail chamber on Tuesday, protesting the ‘routine victim blaming going on in Irish courts.’ Taoiseach Leo Varadkar stated that, ‘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… Nobody asks to be raped and it is never the victim’s fault.’ Simultaneously, hundreds assembled on Patrick’s  Street to express outcry at the mishandling of the trial, with matching crowds in Limerick and Dublin. Mary Crilly of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre said those who gathered outside the Central Court, holding signs which plead to the court system to ‘end victim blaming’, stood for the many more who could not be there because the trial was ‘too close to them.’

Recent statistics published by the Rape Crisis Network estimate that 10% of crimes of sexual assault are reported, with only 1 in 40 of the perpetrators being appropriately punished. It is startlingly true that this trial is too close to many women and men across the country. It is too close to all of us. In the week following UCC freshers week, 3 women from UCC and CIT reported that they had been victims of rape. 2 out of those 3 women shortly withdrew from their courses to return home.

These cases of sexual assault go under reported due to the culture of victim blaming which has festered in the country for decades. It is clear that, despite public solidarity, the position of the legal system remains static. Louise O’Neill wrote in her novel Asking for It, ‘They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest,’ a statement which circulated social media in April following the ‘not guilty’ verdict reached in the Northern Irish rape trial which absolved international rugby players, Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, of any accusations. Despite the slut-shaming messages shared between the self-proclaimed ‘top shaggers’, Jackson, now signed with Perpignon, has continued his career without a hitch.

The lack of consequences for those accused of rape is scary, the lack of justice for victims of rape is even more terrifying. On Tuesday, the same day crowds were forming on Patrick’s Street to protest the ludicracy of a woman’s underwear dictating her consent, another case reached its final verdict inside the courthouse. A man, who plead guilty to sexually assaulting a girl while she slept after a house party, received a 2-year suspended sentence. The victim did not attend the sentencing as ‘she was not ready to be in the same room as the suspect,’ an investigating guard said, ‘she was not ready to see him.’

We need to treat victims of sexual assault better. We need to teach men not to rape, we need to teach women that their choice of underwear, their choice of clothes, their degree of drunkenness or sobriety, does not constitute consent, and it does not make anything their fault. Consent is retractable, it is changeable, it is not open to interpretation. If someone is asleep, if they are drunk, if they are in a state of uncertainty or incapacity to consent, then they are not giving consent. If they consent once, they are not consenting every consequent time after that. It is non-negotiable and it is not determined by which pair of underwear they put on that morning.

Sexual Violence Centre Cork: 1800 496 496 or text 087 1533393

National Rape Crisis helpline: 1800 77 8888