It’s taken centuries to establish that women aren’t silently longing to be raped by men. By the Victorian era, a significant bulk of scientific research claimed to prove that a woman could not be sexually assaulted against her will by one man, mostly because she just needed to cross her legs to repel them, or utilise “the tremendous power of the pelvic and abductor thigh muscles”, as detailed by historian Joanna Bourke in Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present.

In fact, it was thought that “merely by vibrating”, a vagina could “ward off attack”. Such mighty power! If these vibrations – or muscles - were to fail to prevent assault, then the woman was at fault, declared a weighty line up of lawyers, doctors, academics, scientists and religious leaders. Or it could be that despite protesting, in truth, she - or her mischievous subconscious - were “willing” and even eager to be violated.

Illustration: Simon Letch. Credit:

“Asking for it.” “You know you want it”. “Yes means no.” Blurred lines.

As late as the 1970s, police asked victims if they had orgasmed during rape. As for drinking – well if women drank, they were somehow more responsible for being raped, while if men drank, they were less responsible for their actions.

And this week, even though, at the conclusion of a defamation trial, Justice Michael Lee found that “Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins”, on the balance of probabilities, the hoary, stubborn myths still scattered like cockroaches on social media and far-right sites. This was despite – or perhaps because – Lee’s careful judgment had blasted pesticide in their faces.

Take this gem, from The Spectator Australia (I won’t link to it because – well, you’ll see. Note: it is not satire). Given Higgins was drinking and had kissed Lehrmann, “[I]t is reasonable to conclude that [Higgins] was not averse to having sex with Lehrmann. In other words, the act itself would not be repugnant to her. And why would it? Most women enjoy it … “date rape”, particularly in the circumstances of the Lehrmann/Higgins matter, can, as the law stands, be little more than a misdemeanour. Sex is not some act intrinsically horrifying to women. How traumatic can it be for someone, not a virgin, who embarks on a drinking spree with a man whose clear intention is to have sex, to wake up to find that, yes, they did after all have sex? In the sober light of day, she may reflect that she wishes she hadn’t done it. Issues of personal hygiene and so on aside, for many women, presumably, it’s rather like buyer’s remorse, not entirely dissimilar to deciding the day after a shopping spree that she doesn’t really like that black strapless dress after all.”

Yep, this was published. In 2024.

I hope the women in that pundit’s life can have a wee chat with him about how women agreeing to drink with men who may fancy them is not consent, that it’s nothing to do with personal hygiene (!) or whether or not one is a virgin. That survivors don’t tend to feel like they’ve been on a shopping spree. That even if this was a date (it wasn’t) it’s long been established women can be raped on dates and in marriages. That rape is not sex but violence.