A territorial court judge has found a 26-year-old man guilty of sexually assaulting his female friend after an evening of drinking, dancing and soaking in a hot tub.

Though Ashton Reed Rosenthal and the woman shared a bed following the hours of partying, Judge E. Dennis Schmidt ruled the sleeping arrangement did not imply her consent to be sexually assaulted by him.

“Knowing Ashton would, at some point, crawl into the same bed does not imply any impropriety or consent, it was simply a matter of sleeping arrangements, and people would be quite at risk if the sharing of the bed was thought to be consent to sexual activity,” Schmidt said in his May 27 decision, released this week.

“No two-man tent would ever be safe again.”

The woman had met up with several male friends at a house party last summer where they were DJing and dancing. They’d started drinking by the time she arrived, and she quickly caught up, the decision states.

They all went into the hot tub later on.

Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie said in court that although it may seem, to older generations, that there would have been some sexual innuendo in this situation, there was no indication of sexual interest between the friends.

The woman asked Rosenthal earlier if she could share a double bed with him instead of going home. He used to live at the house and she knew it was his bed because she had been there before.

She went to bed, alone, early that morning, and woke up to Rosenthal sexually assaulting her.

Although she was groggy and intoxicated, Schmidt said it is “uncontroverted” that this occurred.

While defence lawyer Melissa Atkinson was essentially asking the court to “impute a form of consent” because of the activities of the evening, Schmidt said there were several problems with doing so, because the activities were not sexual.

“(Consent) cannot be something that is implied or guessed at or hoped for by a person because of what might have happened during the course of an evening or at some other time,” Schmidt said.

“The invitation to share the bed for that night was not a sexual invitation, it was an invitation of necessity.”

Lisa Steacy, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (CASAC), said today from B.C. she was “heartened” to hear about Schmidt’s decision.

“Sexual assault is the most gendered crime – by and large it’s men sexually assaulting women – and it’s also one of the crimes that has the most abysmal conviction rate,” Steacy said. “Less than one per cent of all sexual assaults result in conviction.

“We always think it’s useful when a judgment is rendered that takes the woman’s complaint seriously and doesn’t frame it as he-said, she-said, and serves to hold a man accountable for sexually assaulting a woman.”

In several recent high-profile cases of women sexually assaulted while intoxicated or partying, the blame has been placed on victims for somehow inviting the assault.

For instance, in Steubenville, Ohio, in 2012, a 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at a party by two boys, and the incident was documented on social media.

Media coverage of the ensuing trial focused on the boys’ good grades and promising football careers, and lamented the loss of their futures while the victim was often simply described as “drunk.”

That same year in Maryville, Mo., an intoxicated 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at a party, then left in freezing temperatures on her front lawn.

After the incident became public knowledge, she was bullied and threatened by classmates and harassed by members of the community. Her family eventually left town.

This is why Schmidt’s ruling is refreshing, Steacy said.

“Often, women’s behaviour is scrutinized as the reason (for assault): ‘Why was she there? Why did she agree to share the bed with the guy?’” she said.

“But all of those things are beside the point, and I’m glad that the judge recognized that.

“I think feminists, including CASAC, back in the day fought very hard for a definition of consent that was feminist and that got written into the Criminal Code. It has to be explicit agreement to engage in sexual activity.”