‘I never wore the dress again’ – The shocking reality of why three women couldn’t report rape

A recent rape case in Cork has brought this topic to the fore.

Comments by a Cork barrister defending a 27-year-old man accused of raping a 17-year-old encouraged the jury to view the kind of underwear the alleged victim was wearing as proof that she was "open to meeting someone". The barrister said:

"You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front."

Victims of other types of crimes are immune from scrutiny over what they were wearing, but women who experience sexual violence will invariably have their choice of clothing poured over and judged. I spoke with three rape victims about the clothes they were wearing when they were raped and why their clothing played a part in their choice not to report the rape. Marie* was living in Galway when she was raped by a man she knew.

"It was the first time I wore the dress. It was low a sweetheart neckline, black, and I felt so great in it." "Maybe that's why I was so quick to blame the dress. It was too much, I thought. I was asking for it with this dress. I was ashamed that I had taken pride and joy from the dress that made me get raped."

After the horrific ordeal, Marie moved to the other side of the country so she would not have to see the man who raped her.

"As I packed up my stuff, I was faced with the dress. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, and I will never understand why. Maybe the charity shop? But I couldn't curse another woman, put the same horror on her. I couldn't imagine wearing it ever again. I didn't want to keep it, but I had no idea what else to do with it. So it stayed in a ball, and moved with me, like a weight round my neck." "I still have the dress. I'm not much closer to knowing what to do with it, but I feel tied to it... After 5 years, I finally know absolutely, without doubt, the dress did nothing wrong and neither did I." "The biggest lesson I learned after my rape was that it wasn't about sex, it was about power. That common misconception is what made it so easy to blame myself for daring to feel attractive."

Dublin woman Linda Hayden was raped in Dungarvan in County Waterford.

"A picture of me wearing that dress. A few hours before I was raped, eating dinner in the hotel with my family. A few short hours later my life was going to change forever." "As I had been drugged and raped I wasn't clear in the head for a few days after but somehow I took that dress and my underwear home, washed it, and hung it in my wardrobe."

Months later, Linda gave the dress to a friend who was looking for an outfit for an event.

"I was in complete denial at the time so it never bothered me to see her wearing it. I now know I was in complete dissociation due to the trauma. I did not think about that dress until 17 years later. Now I can't stop thinking about it. It was beautiful, it looked good on me, is that why they chose me out of a lobby full of people?"

Linda didn't tell anyone about the rape for 13 years. Two newspaper articles published on the same day angered Linda so much that she began sharing the story of what happened to her. As a result of her experiences, Linda helped to set up AASVI (Actions Against Sexual Violence Ireland). Angie* was in Limerick when she was raped.

"I was wearing baggy parachute combat pants and a regular vest top and runners. We walked through a field from the pub, on the way to a party in his house, a group of us. Along the way, my combats soaked up water from the field and were drenched to the knee when I got to the house. I started to pass out on a couch, and he said I could use his bed. We’d kissed earlier and so, I declined as I didn’t want him to think I was up for anything." "He assured me I could get in his bed and I’d be left alone. I believed him. Before I got into bed I had a split second where I thought I should leave my combats on, just to be sure. But they were drenched. So I took them off and get into bed. I was wearing a bra and vest top and a little red thong. When I woke up, it was with him forcing himself inside me. He did what he did, and I cried. He apologised to me, and I left." "Afterwards all I could think was ‘you had kissed him and then you got into his bed in a little red thong’. And I knew that no mater what the context around that was, I would never ever be believed." "I never wore the clothes again.  I can still remember the feeling of pulling those combats on while I cried and he apologised, and the unpleasant wetness of them against my skin. I never reported. I knew it was pointless." "I think shaming victims for their clothing is, at this point, deliberately hostile and ignorant and should be treated as such. I think victims who are defamed and slandered in court by defence lawyers should be allowed to take civil action against those defence barristers."

Mary Crilly of Sexual Violence Cork said the organisation is, "outraged but not surprised that in 2018, in this country, a barrister can point to the underwear of a teenager and imply ‘she was asking for it’.

"Worse is that it appears that neither counsel for the prosecution, nor the presiding judge intervened in any way. "The underlying belief is that females incite males to rape them...always the fault of the female, be they children, teenagers, young women, old women.  There have been several powerful exhibitions of the clothes worn by victims when they are raped, they are just clothes -pajamas, tracksuits, burkas, habits, any clothing is deemed ‘incitement, ‘seduction’, ‘invitation’."

Due to the way sexual crimes are prosecuted it can sometimes be difficult to tell if it is the victim or the alleged perpetrator on trial.  As pointed out by Newstalk journalist Ciara Kelly, when do we ever see men's Y-fronts being held up in court?

? WATCH: “I’ve never seen a pair of Y-fronts in court.” @ciarakellydoc confronts solicitor Phelim O'Neill on women's underwear being used as evidence in a sexual assault trial. Listen to the full interview here: https://t.co/WquCMY6GA4 pic.twitter.com/2TN56ZIuex

— Newstalk (@NewstalkFM) November 12, 2018

The current system allows the defence to use degrading and humiliating tactics that play on rape myths. In this culture is it any wonder Maria, Linda and Angie, like many others choose not to report? *names changed to protect anonymity