No. Silence is not consent. And we see it clearly in any other instance in our lives. If you want to buy a house for 1$ and the person didn't even deign to answer, we all know it is an obvious "no". If someone writes to you asking for anything and you don't answer, it is a no. If you apply for a job and there is silence as an answer you know you didn't get a job. And I'm sure people can come up with plenty of examples about how silence it is in fact a no. In dating it is called "ghosting", by the way.

So why the exception in sex? because it was never about consent, but about plausible deniability of rape. They know that silent because you are scared is a NO. But they can spin it with other people as a "I believed that she wanted!". They know they are lying and many people know that when they say this they are lying, but pretend it is true because that way, they can get away with it and keep doing it. Same with whatever the women were wearing, the time of the day or any other excuse. It all comes down to plausible deniability when in any other situation like stealing or any other crime, the very same excuses would be seen as what they are: lies.

By the way, before the idea that silence is a yes, it was the idea that "when a woman say no, she really means yes". Or that "women doesn't know what they want". Same idea of men simply lying about rape. It is a pattern and it shows.

I wish there was a register and whenever a man claimed that silence is "yes", that were applied to any area of his life. We'll see then for how long would they keep saying the same.