WTAF? (SEXUAL ASSUALT/RAPE)

@Atethehalloweenchocs yes, in psychology that's called Fundamental Attribution Error. Applied to sexual assault cases, it's when you insist a victim had some control over becoming a victim, bc you simply can't accept that you might fall prey to the same fate without having any ability to stop it at all.

However, I really don't think asking whether she felt signs/symptoms – or acknowledging that she did, and those were perhaps brushed under the rug because who would suspect their husband was a monster basically – qualifies as either FAE or victim blaming. People just want to know, out of sympathy, paranoia or curiosity. Nobody is blaming her. The fact that she had symptoms makes her even more of a victim imo, not less. You've mentioned yourself that she did feel physical symptoms.

I did see posts saying "I don't believe she didn't know" but those posts are possibly a different breed. I think it's a bit emotive of PP to conflate those with any posts simply asking about physical signs.

Plus, in relation to the general population, there probably aren't many husbands like him, but based on the news / online communities, in terms of absolute numbers there are a fairly large number of husbands like him. It's a thing. In my country, a few perfectly middle class men were caught engaged in unconscious wife swapping too. So it might even be a good thing to flag that there were symptoms, only ignored, for potential victims' awareness.

No @mindfluff my last post was a cross post with yours and in response to some of the earlier posts. But I think @Freefall212 said it really well

I think it is a horrying thought to think that could happen and one would not have any awareness of it and people are questioning how that could be given their own experiences - not really doubting hers.

This is how we deal with horror - comparing it to what we know because it helps us feel we could look out for the signs and stay safe. Seems like in this case she has reported some symptoms which we can now see as signs, but we cant fall into hindsight bias that she should have known, and the process of asking these questions carries with it an implicit assumption that you can do something to avoid abuse. Its that which is so damaging to victims who often say stuff like this to themselves too. Any signs she had could have been explained away - we dont know if her husband had rough sex with her or how often to explain her pelvic pain. As a PP has said, being absent minded is often brushed off by doctors. But can also happen for a lot of different reasons.

I don't think it is victim blaming as much as women would like to think that if 90 different men had sex with them while they were drugged, they would somehow know. I think it is a horrying thought to think that could happen and one would not have any awareness of it and people are questioning how that could be given their own experiences - not really doubting hers.

Are you seriously naive enough to think only these 51 men are rapists in the UK? .0001%? Well, I guess you're happy in THAT world.

In the real world, estimates are anywhere between 1 in 3 and 1 in 6 women are raped or sexually assaulted in their life times. And as it's not those same 51 men raping everyone, there is a hell of a lot more than .0001% of the male population who are rapists, or rape apologists.

"The woman said she had flashbacks and that the drugging could have been the reason behind her frequent fatigue and ‘‘absent-mindedness’’.

Doctors often dismiss health concerns of women and find ways to explain them away rather than investigate their cause. Absent-mindedness and fatigue were symptoms I raised with a doctor and his response that it's something that happens to women my age, and to deal with it.

How could she have known these symptoms along with her pelvic pain (and any other symptoms she complained of) were because her husband was drugging her and allowing men to pay to rape her. She was unconscious.

There's so much victim blaming in this thread, it's horrifying. Those who are doing it should be ashamed of themselves.

I would be interested to know how they define rape in those numbers.
Do they include coercion? Emotional manipulation? If not, I suspect those numbers are far higher.

What about the ‘boyfriend’ who thinks he is being kinky by pushing you back on the bed when you’re not expecting it and you don’t say no?
Is it classed sexual assault if your boyfriend’s mate comes and feels you up while he thinks you’re sleeping but you don’t protest or do anything, you just freeze?
What about the guy who lies about who he is to sleep with you?
Or the husband that sulks with you for days on end unless you just give in and do it to keep the peace?

All of the above have happened to me. And I suspect this is not unfamiliar to most of you.

I think the true numbers are far, far higher.

Because no doubt she resisted his advances . What makes some men think they have entitlement to women's bodies ?

Completely agree with this 🙌

@egowise 'i don't think it's victims blaming you question'- why do you need to question anything? Why do you think yourself so important that your questions about this woman's rape deserve an answer.'

If you were quoting me (which you might not have been), you misquoted as I said "to wonder if/say that there were physical symptoms or signs". "Questioning" slyly implies one is undermining the victim's credibility, but that's not true at all, as I was only repeating the victim's testimony herself that she noticed physical signs.

I don't think myself important, but the female gender important I suppose... I'm a woman, and afaik most users here are women. It's not the first time I've read about this husband drugging wife thing. So far I've read about it in my home country, in the UK, and now in France. It's clearly a thing / an online trend in certain communities.

My mum first mentioned one of these horrific cases to me a while back and the first thing we both wanted to know was if there were signs. Why? Because we're both women, and we want to know what to look out for, for ourselves and other women.

I genuinely couldn't imagine my husband (or any man in my life) doing this to me ever, but then those women probably felt the same. We were both in agreement that the men were absolute scum and the women were not to blame. Us feeling paranoid about the men around us, and wanting to know how we could be vigilant (for lack of a better word), didn't mean we were victim blaming the women.

Perhaps there were victim blaming posts but I think it's a huge reach to say wanting to know more about such cases – because it could be any married woman – is victim blaming.

Posting this again:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/15/the-sexual-assault-of-sleeping-women-the-hidden-horrifying-crisis-in-britains-bedrooms

Imagine it. Meeting that poor woman and saying to her - "Men get raped as well you know, love".

"It's OK love, Not All Men are Like This"

That is you, you IDIOTIC, vacuous, Gen Facebook virtue-signalling, fuckwit NAMers.

In short, the signs and symptoms do happen/show up, but are not attributed to the right cause for obvious reasons (trust). The poor woman must have been living in hell while conscious even before she found out, even moreso now.

//

This is a really good point. Most of us would never in a million years come to you this horrible conclusion because we trust our husband loves us and would only ever protect us. Many symptoms or after affects could easily be brushed off.

Like a pp said the level of premeditation and planning is so fucking frightening

There was a story a few years ago about a husband raping his unconscious/sleeping wife and recording it and a thread created on here about it, I believe it was the police who informed her after finding the videos on his laptop when they were investigating something else but you had the same policing of language with NOT ALL MEN and posters reminding everyone that men get raped too.

And then there were also posters calling the woman a liar and that there's no way she can't have known someone had had sex with her, that she must have known because they personally themselves know they've had sex, or or that because they personally wake up the second someone comes in the room they wake up.

The type of poster who chooses threads like this to raise awareness that men get raped too never never seem to start their own threads or discussions about males who have been raped and raising awareness or organising to plan ways to support these men and it feels likes it's more about stopping women highlight there's some very shitty dangerous men out there.

And the grim reality is some of the men who rape, are actually someone's seemingly lovely dh, someone's perfect son, or the lovely heart of gold upstanding member of the community, rapists come from every single type of background.

It's absolutely disgusting how people come on posts like this purely just to NAM and to victim blame.

'i don't think it's victims blaming you question'- why do you need to question anything? Why do you think yourself so important that your questions about this woman's rape deserve an answer.

A woman has been brutally assaulted for many years, you have no right to answers to any questions. People's trauma is not for anybody to question.

And for the NAM BS shut up. You ONLY shout this when women speak out. You don't really care about men who are victims when you only speak about it to shut women up.

It's funny how the majority of women have been assaulted and harassed, but yet somehow people think it's not a majority of men who do the assaulting.

I created a separate thread to discuss research related to male victimization / female perpetration to take it off this thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4834508-male-victimization-female-perpetration

? I'm confused. The woman herself says she experienced physical symptoms and signs, so is your post directed towards her...?

To be clear, I don't think she knew (and even if she knew, that obviously doesn't make it her fault at all), but I also don't think it's victim blaming to wonder if/say that there were physical symptoms or signs. Or are, as this isn't the first such case I've read about.

The symptoms make the wives more of a victim if anything, and not less.

Stop comparing what you think you know to this situation all the people saying she must have known. You have a complete failure of empathy and are blaming her. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I was wondering the same thing, then I saw that the article said:

"The woman said she had flashbacks and that the drugging could have been the reason behind her frequent fatigue and ‘‘absent-mindedness’’.
Medical examinations found she had been infected with four sexually transmitted diseases."

In short, the signs and symptoms do happen/show up, but are not attributed to the right cause for obvious reasons (trust). The poor woman must have been living in hell while conscious even before she found out, even moreso now.

*I do not believe she didn’t know she was being drugged and raped.

She probably didn’t realise that it was strange men but she must have felt that she’d had sex and/or the effect of the drugs.
Its not normal to be practically unconscious and not realise it when you wake up.*

Wrong.

90 men that we know of.

Multiple STDs man. Poor bugger, she'll never recover from any of that.

Some people posting need to have a day off like

Far more men rape than we like to think. Quite often they don’t even realise they have. Studies show this (I linked upthread). You see threads on here all the time where women realise they’ve been sexually assaulted some time after the fact and other posters don’t even agree with them then. Marital rape is still legal in many places and only criminalised here relatively recently. Consent is massively misunderstood. Women’s agency is not respected.

Can't believe the posters saying, "This happens to men too, don't pretend it doesnt", on a thread about a woman who was drugged and gang raped by NINTEY men, and had it filmed.

Why was that the most important thing you took away from this woman's horrific ordeal, that it happens to men as well?

Unfuckingbelievable.