The defendant, who is on trial in the Dunedin District Court facing two charges of rape, posted on Snapchat in the days following the October 2022 incident.
"Hey guys it’s time I tell the truth of what I’ve done," he wrote on his story.
"I’m turning myself in guys. I have raped [the complainant]."
But the defendant later told police he had done so only to placate the woman.
His counsel, Marc Corlett KC, stressed to the jury two elements were required to prove a charge of rape.
The complainant must have not consented to the sexual activity and his client must have known that at the time.
The court heard the defendant was oblivious to the woman’s distress in the aftermath of the incident.
Mr Corlett suggested that was telling.
"What did the defendant think immediately after? He hadn’t done anything wrong," he told the jury.
"Why two days later did he think he’d raped the complainant and what did he understand that to mean?" Mr Corlett said.
The complainant told police the man came to her Dunedin home and they spent time together before things became more intimate.
She said she made vocal objections, though, when it became uncomfortable.
"I told him to stop ... and he kind of ignored it and kept going," she said.
The woman said she opened the curtains but the defendant quickly closed them then continued the alleged sex attack.
"He grabbed both my ankles and pulled me towards him. He just ignored everything I said," the complainant told police.
"It was like he was not going to stop until he was satisfied."
Crown prosecutor Craig Power said there was an obvious inference for jurors to draw.
"It must’ve been very clear to him she was not consenting ... No reasonable person in his shoes could’ve thought she was consenting," he said.
"He was just in the mood, it appears."
When the complainant was cross-examined yesterday, she agreed that the man had stopped when she asked, backed by a message she sent to a flatmate at the time.
Though she later clarified he had resumed the sexual activity for about a minute despite her protestations.
The pair spoke by video call the next day when she voiced her displeasure at what had happened.
The woman acknowledged the defendant seemed surprised when she mentioned rape.
"He was like ‘I feel so bad; I’ve never done this before; it’ll never happen again’," she said.
The complainant said she made it clear she wanted to cut contact with him but he sent her flowers, then later delivered a graduation gift while in Dunedin.
Mr Corlett suggested she had asked the defendant to pay for food and for help with her rent in the days following the alleged rape but she said she could not recall such requests.
The woman accepted she had previously had consensual sex with the defendant and said she had wanted to solve their dispute privately but things escalated when others found out about her allegations.
Mr Corlett told jurors the case boiled down to one question.
"The issue for you will be: what was he thinking at the time?"
The complainant’s flatmate will give evidence today and the defendant’s police interview will also be played for the jury.
The trial is scheduled to conclude this week.
