Rome - Women who wear jeans cannot claim to have been raped because the garment cannot be taken off "without the active help of the person wearing it," Italy's Supreme Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
The judgment quashed a conviction in the case of an 18-year-old woman who said she had been raped by her driving instructor.
The instructor, sentenced to 34 months in jail by a court in Potenza, southern Italy, had maintained that the woman had consented to sex.
In a ruling supporting this view, the Supreme Court said a pair of jeans could not be taken off easily. It was impossible to take off a pair of jeans if the wearer opposed this "with all their strength", the court said.