A huge group of women took to the streets in Ireland after an alleged rapist was acquitted of all charges against him thanks to his lawyer’s argument that the 17-year-old girl’s underwear signified she “asked for it.”
Women marched in Dublin and other Irish cities in Ireland on Wednesday, holding their underwear high above their heads, to protest the court’s findings and what they see as blatant victim blaming and slut shaming, shouting “Clothes are not consent,” the Daily Beast reported.
The defendant’s lawyer, Elizabeth O’Connell, suggested to the jury that by wearing a thong, the young victim was “open to the possibility of being with someone and that the person she became attracted to ended up being the defendant,” according to the news site.
“You have to look at the way she was dressed,” O’Connell said in her closing argument. “She was wearing a thong with a lace front.”
The defendant admitted in open court that he kissed the victim and that she suddenly “became funny” and asked him to stop. He said he was too intoxicated to remember if he penetrated the victim.
By the victim’s account, the defendant dragged her by her throat into a secluded area away from the party venue where they met and raped her. She said that she told her assailant, “You just raped me,” to which he replied, “No, we just had sex.”
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