The woman who accused him of raping her was lying and he did not know why, a 20-year-old student told the jury at his trial in Dunedin yesterday.
The man, who has interim name suppression, gave evidence on the third day of his trial in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
The Crown alleges the man raped the woman in the basement of a Dundas St flat during a party on May 9 last year.
He faces two counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one of sexual violation by rape.
In response to questions from Crown solicitor Robin Bates about why the man's versions of events the night of the party differed so much from the woman's, the man said she was not telling the truth.
"I don't know [why], but a drunk girl can do anything; they can say anything."
Earlier, the man told his lawyer, Brian Kilkelly, he "would never rape anybody".
He agreed he had led the woman to the basement to find somewhere quiet to talk, but denied he held her against a workbench while he sexually violated her.
Rather, he said, she had jumped on to the workbench and pulled off her stockings as far as she could, and then pulled him to her.
He said the woman had several times said to him: "We really shouldn't be doing this" and pulled away from him, but then initiated further sexual contact, which he had found confusing.
He told Mr Bates that after she sent a text to a friend, which he now knew to say: "Help me.
I don't know where I am", she had again approached him and initiated more sexual contact.
He had first chatted with the woman because she seemed "out of place" and "awkward" at the party and it seemed the nice thing to do.
They flirted and kissed and she consented to everything that had later happened in the basement.
"I never forced her down; I never pushed her.
"I'm not a forceful person."
He told Mr Bates he was mistaken when he told police shortly after the complaint was laid that the woman was crying when she left the basement.
In fact, she was fine when she left him, although she appeared to be upset when he saw her with her friends a short time after, he said.
"She might have been crying, I don't know.
"Her mood was changing so much down there," he said.
When Mr Bates put it to him that he had already decided when he took the woman to the basement he was having sex no matter what, the man denied it.
"That is incorrect.
"She could have left any time she wanted.
"I was not stopping her."
The man was the only witness in the defence's case.
The judge is expected to sum up the case today.
