A man has been found guilty of raping an intoxicated woman in the back of a ute after he and his friend discovered her lying on the street after a night out in Melbourne's CBD.
Harley Palise said he was "just going with the flow" after the woman, who cannot be named, called him "sexy" and touched his body once inside the car in June 2018.
But a jury, following a three-week trial at the Victorian County Court, on Friday found the 30-year-old floor sander guilty of two counts of rape.
Palise's barrister, John Kelly, previously said the woman had consumed cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol while partying at a Lonsdale Street nightclub earlier in the night.
This could have left her feeling "disinhibited", he argued, but would not have meant she was too intoxicated to consent.
"We do things when we're disinhibited that we may not do when we're sober - that's just human nature," Mr Kelly said in his closing submission.
"You might think in this day and age we operate very differently - it's the age of dating apps, booty calls and hook-ups.
"She ingested drugs and alcohol ... but if you are satisfied she could communicate in the car ... (and) that she was able to initiate contact with him, then it stands to reason she was not so intoxicated as to be incapable of freely agreeing to sex."
The court heard the woman returned to her home at Mernda, in Melbourne's northeast, missing her jacket and engagement ring before later discovering bruising on her body.
But she could not remember the alleged rape.
"Absence of memory does not equate to an absence of consent," Mr Kelly told the jury.
Prosecutor John Dickie argued that the woman was "not in a fit state" to consent to sex after she had consumed drugs and alcohol.
"When she entered the ute, you were well aware she was intoxicated or affected by drugs," Mr Dickie asked Palise during the trial.
"No, that's not the case," the 30-year-old tradie replied.
Mr Dickie also asked Palise if he thought it was an "odd situation" to be invited into the back seat to have sex with a woman he had just met and whose name he didn't know.
"It was overwhelming, yes," he responded.
"It was a shock. I was just going with the flow."
Judge Scott Johns will sentence Palise, who has been remanded in custody, at a later date.
