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But critics insist that the move will only open the door to more false accusations.

“Of course a woman needs to be protected by the law even if she looks like a Barbie doll,” Svenja Flasspohler wrote this week in a newspaper. But, the writer added, there is a danger that “men are accused out of revenge … or regret for the consummated act.”

Of course a woman needs to be protected by the law even if she looks like a Barbie doll.

No case is dividing Germany more than Lohfink’s, whose punishment by the court has not only outraged critics, it has also generated a storm of accusations against her.

In social media and among outspoken pundits, she is being portrayed as a platinum-blond seductress and attention freak who falsely accused two men of rape. Others counter that Lohfink — a German media personality known for her scantily clad photos — is being unfairly treated specifically because of her free-spirited public persona.

The case goes back to 2012, when Lohfink first accused two men, identified only as Pardis F. and Sebastian C., of rape. She claims that they drugged her, had sex with her and filmed it all while refusing her pleas to stop.

The video was later distributed on social media, although various sites have now taken it down. According to German media outlets that saw the video, Lohfink can be repeatedly heard saying “Stop it!” and “No!” in the footage.

But in January, the court ruled that an analysis of the video and other evidence suggested that Lohfink had protested only the filming and appeared to consent to the sex. That determination, according to Martin Steltner, a spokesman for the Berlin prosecutor’s office, had also taken into account the fact that Lohfink had initially accused the men of wrongful filming and distribution of the sex tape and only later accused them of rape.