He backtracked on Thursday, after his proposal was roundly criticized.

“While my intentions were sincere, I did not expect it to be seen as a huge mistake that has offended many women and no less men who considered it insulting,” Mr. Imran said.

The idea that sexual assault victims share responsibility for the attack — redirecting blame from the perpetrators who actively chose to carry out an assault — is widely considered a myth with destructive consequences. Many activists say it is a major reason that so many sexual assaults are not reported.

Mr. Imran’s comments were quickly condemned by activists and other politicians.

Wan Azizah Ismail, a deputy prime minister and the minister of women, family and community development, said in a statement that she welcomed the apology but that the senator should go through gender sensitivity training “so that the causes and consequences of violence against women can be better understood together.”

“To blame women for the bad behavior from men is not acceptable,” she said.

Sisters in Islam, a women’s rights group in Malaysia, said in a statement that “men should police their own thoughts, words and actions and not take crimes committed by men against women lightly.”

Nor were men happy with their depiction as out-of-control primates unable to control themselves.

“As a man, and I would like to think a full-blooded male, I find it preposterous and even insulting that you think that men are so easily seduced into committing a crime of a sexual nature,” Dharm Navaratnam wrote in an open letter published in The Malay Mail.