Which was all Mr Timberland's fault, really. He phoned the Cow and somehow manipulated her onto the subject of The Trial, and its coverage in the media, and how each report he read was swaying him more and more in uMalume's favour.
The Cow spluttered. "What???" "You're spluttering!" remarked Mr Timberland. "I'm, I'm, I'm... not!" managed the Cow, before launching into a tirade about the recent utterances of uMalume, and What These Signified. Mr Timberland was unimpressed. "You're doing what the media's doing," he remarked calmly. "You're taking random potshots at things he's said; you're not looking at what's been happening, and commenting on that."
The Cow spluttered again. "Of course the media is latching onto what he said!" she gasped. "If you had a former Chair of the AIDS Council undoing decades of donor-funded labour by shrugging off the chances of HIV infection from unprotected sex with an openly HIV+ person as 'minimal', that's newsworthy! And completely irresponsible!"
Mr Timberland sighed. "It probably is minimal!" he said. "Unless you have a STI, or have repeated encounters, the chances are probably quite negligible. For normal sex, that is. And he's claiming that's what it was."
"Well, lucky then that you don't share my bedclothes!" the Cow harrumphed. "With that kind of attitude, no wonder HIV incidence in SA is what it is! Besides, uMalume's idea of normal sex might involve an inert female body, but if a doctor could pick up 48 hours later that sex had taken place, there were clearly signs - abrasions, bruising, whatever - all of which increase the chances of transmission. And are you believing his claims of being STI-free - assuming he made such? Syphilis, for example, becomes asymptomatic with time, but remains very much there! And having multiple partners increases your chances of transmission - something uMalume has admitted to, quite freely!"
Mr Timberland muttered something about male to female transmission rates being higher than female to male rates, but the Cow was on a roll. "And fifteen minutes! He claims it lasted fifteen minutes! As if that makes it normal!"
"I thought fifteen minutes was quite good, actually," protested Mr Timberland. "Aha!" crowed the Cow. "That's another reason I'm glad you don't share my bedclothes! But after fifteen minutes of exposure, standing in the shower is going to reduce your chances of exposure? Like a toddler blows germs off a fallen lolllipop!"
Mr Timberland changed his tack. "Well, the complainant hasn't emerged with her credibility intact either! It will be interesting to see how the Judge rules on this one!"
The Cow snorted. "I think the defence were being too clever for their own good on that one! By painting the complainant as a basket case, they're undermining the very crux of the case - consent! If she's the loony-tunes they paint, she's clearly not capable of giving consent, and the encounter then becomes statutory rape!"
Mr Timberland was silent for a minute, then stated, "Well, I'll put money on his getting off!"
The Cow sighed sadly. "Me too," she admitted reluctantly. "I'm sure on a technicality, they'll be unable to prove a case beyond all reasonable doubt. But what really gets me," she continued, "is the way someone who's positioned himself as quite progressive in other ways, has appropriated and reconstructed essentialist notions of 'Zulu culture' to serve his own interests, seeking to downplay his own sense of agency in an encounter where agency was certainly something he exercised."
Mr Timberland chuckled. "But don't we all," he commented.