Photograph by Muhamad Iqbal Akbar on Unsplash.

This op-ed was originally published in The Straits Times on 29 March 2025.

The conversation started with “There’s always two sides to a coin”, and “Of course there’s still no excuse for a man, even if a woman is standing there stark naked, acting drunk and not wanting to cover up”.

Like everyone in Singapore this week, it seems, I was having a chat with some friends about Mr Chia Boon Teck’s blatant victim-blaming. Mr Chia, who has stepped down as Law Society vice-president, had questioned a rape victim’s actions and cited her occupation as an actress-model in his now-deleted LinkedIn post. It sounded like JT (not his real name) and I were broadly on the same page.

But then the conversation took a different turn. JT felt that “in some situations, women have a part to play which they will refuse to acknowledge”. His examples were “people who dress and act provocatively”. He agreed that this did not mean they asked to be raped, but he felt this “predisposes” them to being raped.

I was perplexed. He seemed to agree that that was no excuse for a man to rape a woman, yet he still felt she had a “part to play” in her rape. Anecdotal evidence of other conversations in Singapore this week indicated he is not alone.

I asked JT how it predisposed the woman to being raped. “Are they required to dress in a certain way so that a man doesn’t get the wrong assumption that she wants sex? I mean whatever she wore, if she says ‘no’ and he forces her to have sex, that’s rape, plain and simple. Whatever she wore… Do women bear responsibility for the possibility that a man may get an idea she’s ‘easy’ because of her dressing and behaviour?”

JT is a very smart, educated, accomplished man with strong virtues. I like him. We spar on occasion but it’s a discourse, not an argument.

I pursued my line of enquiry: “It’s OK to change your mind. It’s OK to decide ‘actually I’m not feeling it with him – I want to stop’. Are we saying that’s not OK?… Because rape is simply that: Did she consent or not?”

‘But why test the waters?’

He agreed that a woman was entitled to change her mind, but he said that “men can be evil, and (use her) actions as an excuse to (interpret it as) a ‘yes’, especially when they think they can get away with it. I feel that a sensible woman shouldn’t test the waters like that, even if she won’t be punished legally for it.”

I was beginning to understand why he saw women as bearing responsibility. I tried a different approach: “I get that we would want to be careful so as not to get robbed, or into an accident or raped. But we shouldn’t frame it in our minds as women being predisposed to it or playing a part because that carries the implied view that they are to blame in some way… If a man doesn’t respect her ‘no’ and rapes her, it’s all on him.”

JT agreed readily that it was legally rape if there was no consent, yet he felt the woman was only blameless “in the eyes of the law”. He was still holding on to some vestigial blame. Using the analogy of a robber breaking into a house that the owner left unlocked, JT said that “relying solely on the law to prevent rape has its limitations. Just like policing the estate cannot prevent all break-ins”.

We were getting somewhere now – I now understood that in his view, women needed to do their part to be safe and not expect rape laws to protect them from being raped. That was the nub of his “blame” on women.

I realised I had to show how thoughts like these translate into rape myths and victim-blaming: “Yes, but when there are break-ins, the fault is on the robber. The problems relating to victim-blaming stem from these rape myths, which are untrue beliefs that lay blame for the rape on women. Untrue beliefs. Like a woman is asking for it when she dresses sexily and flirts in a bar.

“The issue of whether that woman is considered of low moral values is a moral judgment an individual chooses to make based on their own set of values. But whatever the view of the morality of the woman, are you saying she does not have the right to say ‘no’ to sex after all that? Just simply that: Does she have a right to say ‘no’?”

It was a breakthrough moment. “Agreed. Of course she has the right to say ‘no’,” said JT, but something still nagged his mind: “Practically speaking, won’t you advise the house owner to lock his doors?” This housebreaking analogy was really being worn thin!

But I saw where the gap between us lay and made an attempt to bridge it: “I get the point that she shouldn’t have made things worse by ‘leading him on’ or flirting so outrageously with him. He got turned on. He expected this was going to lead to sex.

“Then she got totally drunk and now cannot agree to sex. Or now she suddenly changes her mind and decides she wants to go home. Every which way you look at it, she cannot consent (if drunk) or she actually said ‘no’. ‘No’ just means ‘no’. She doesn’t want sex. If a man then forces himself on her, in what blessed way is that OK? He can be angry with her… but can he force sex on her? That’s wrong. Morally and legally.”

Why myths are a problem

I placed these rape myths in context: “The reason why these rape myths are a big issue with rape, and why there is all this pushback against rape myths, is that … (police) were using that to start assuming the woman consented to sex – because she dressed sexy, because she flirted, etc. They gave victims a hard time during interrogation…. And defence lawyers used rape myths like this to try to persuade a judge that ‘look, she went on a Tinder date, she dressed like this, she flirted with him – obviously she consented to sex’. And judges (who believed in) rape myths allowed such questioning and would sometimes agree that she must have consented simply because of such things. The rape myths had these far-reaching consequences. When actually the issue is, was there consent? (You) cannot assume that just because a woman dressed sexy, she wanted sex. You cannot assume that just because a woman flirted like that, she wanted sex. You have to establish consent or lack of consent.”

It seemed only right to bring it home with a housebreaking analogy: “When a house owner is careless and gets robbed, nobody vilifies or rakes him over the coals in the police station or at trial for leaving his door unlocked. The focus is clearly on the blameworthy criminal, not the house owner. Rape victims are not treated in the same way. That’s why victim-blaming is so wrong for rape victims.”

The penny dropped. JT replied: “I see your point. If the police give (rape victims) less respect than they should, and the defence lawyer tries to twist his way into (arguing that the accused is innocent), then the law has to be stated that way, and that attitude done away with.” Eureka!

I ended our exchange with another housebreaking analogy – after all, it had served me well: “The goods in the house did not belong to the robber. He had no right to take them. The woman’s body did not belong to the man. He had no right to use it for his pleasure.” And with that, JT and I were on the same page, and still friends.

Another friend, PL (also not his real name), interjected with a real-life example: “(Just) wanted to share this; the house down the street from us got burgled last year and my next-door neighbour said they were asking for it because they spent a small fortune renovating the house a few months earlier!” You can’t pay good money for a better or more well-timed example of ludicrous victim-blaming to drive the message home!

The pushback against victim-blaming does not mean that women should not take steps to safeguard their safety. That is just common-sense practice. But regardless of whether she did or did not do so, a survivor of rape does not bear any blame for her rape. Victim-blaming arises from rape myths, and rape myths are a result of misogyny and sexism. There is no place for such attitudes in Singapore.

And the justice system should focus on the perpetrator. That is why the Chief Justice has put in a new framework to ensure survivors of sexual assaults like rape are cross-examined in a way that elicits evidence that is relevant to the case, and that rape myths are not perpetuated in the courtrooms.

The law is changing. As a society, we need to change too. I learnt from my conversation with JT the value of open conversations like this: We must engage, learn and change harmful attitudes.

The trauma inflicted on survivors of rape is severe. It does not require bruises and battery to inflict harm. The psychological and emotional harm caused to survivors from having their bodies used by someone else – without their consent – is often worse than the physical harm. Survivors need help, empathy and understanding from the people around them and whom they turn to for help.

Let’s banish one more rape myth: According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (based on data on reported cases of serious sexual crimes from 2014 to 2018), the incidence of false reporting in Singapore was only 4 per cent. In almost every case, survivors are telling the truth. It’s time we listened.

Sugidha Nithiananthan is the Director of Advocacy and Research at AWARE.