Donna Rotunno, in a New York Times interview, essentially victim-blamed any woman who's been sexually assaulted.
“I have not [been sexually assaulted]. I would never put myself in that position,” Rotunno told Times reporter Megan Twohey on an episode of The Daily.
Rotunno, who is defending Weinstein in his sexual assault trial in New York, openly victim-blamed women who don’t take the correct “precautions” to avoid rape or assault.
“I’ve always made choices from college-age on, where I never drank too much, I never went home with someone that I didn’t know — I just never put myself in any vulnerable circumstance, ever,” she said.
She added that women “need to be very prepared for the circumstances they put themselves in,” including situations such as going home with someone after a date, she said.
Rotunno suggested that women can be so unclear about “their intentions” that men should ask their partners to sign consent forms before having sex.
“I think men also need to be very clear about their intentions. If I was a man in today’s world, before I was engaging in sexual behavior with any woman, today, I would ask them to sign a consent form,” Rotunno said.
When Twohey asked if Rotunno was being serious, the defense attorney responded that she was being “dead serious.”
“Because how easy is it for two people to engage in behavior and a day later, two days later, five days later, 27 years later — somebody says, ‘You know what, that’s not what that was,’” Rotunno said. “Why not? Take all of the question out of it, make it easier on everybody.”
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