“Taking the stand for the first time this week in the rape trial, Mr. Zuma cast himself as the embodiment of a traditional Zulu male, with all the privileges that patriarchal Zulu traditions bestow on men. Mr. Zuma, who turns 64 this week, said his accuser, a 31-year-old anti-AIDS advocate, had signaled a desire to have sex with him by wearing a knee-length skirt to his house and sitting with legs crossed, revealing her thigh. Indeed, he said, he was actually obligated to have sex. His accuser was aroused, he said, and “in the Zulu culture, you cannot just leave a woman if she is ready.” To deny her sex, he said, would have been tantamount to rape. Such arguments have stirred a storm here, not because he insists that his accuser wanted sex — he-said, she-said arguments are not unheard of in rape trials worldwide — but because he has clothed them in what he depicts as African mores about sex and male primacy.”
TheStateOf . . . Sexual Assault. What affect should a woman’s alleged flirting have in a sexual assault case?
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