To ask if you and your DH/DP have foreplay before PIV sex?

[Thistledew]

So many depressing comments come up on threads about women who have woken up to find their partner having sex with them to the effect that "well maybe he was confused, he could have thought you were happy to have sex with him whilst you were asleep/half asleep".

Do women who post these comments not see foreplay as part of having sex? For me and DP, sex always starts with kissing and even with the most passionate quicky, some sort of mutual squeezing/stroking/fondling of erogenous zones.

For me, there is no way that my DP could be confused as to whether I was consenting to sex or not. My lack of enthusiastic participation would be a real giveaway.

AIBU to think that there must be lots of women having pretty crap sex if they don't even expect kissing to start with?

Am I missing something or do some women have the ability to go from zero to turned on instantly? Or do you just have men with really small dicks so you don't need any sort of lubrication before they stick it in?

I don't think anyone is debating that thistle unless I missed something upthread, in which case I heartily apologise.

Rhonda - from a legal perspective, the elements for the offence of rape would have been made out on the first occasion. The fact that they may not be made out on the second occasion does not retrospectively imply consent to the first occasion.

OP you have lost me. I really cannot work out what point you are trying to make or what your last post to Rhonda was even adressing

Im honestly not sure about that. Im not quite sure I've got what you are saying anyway its a confusing sentence?

I can see circumstances where a woman is scared of her partner and won't say no if she was awoken, but then would she say no if awake to start with then?

Hiya cat I've got to go now, I'll watch the thrad though.

How are ya?

Actually, scratch my last response. Both occasions were rape. You have to be capable, at the point when consent is given, of giving explicit consent to having a penis, finger or implement inserted into you. He didn't obtain consent whilst you were awake and capable of giving it on the first occasion, failing to say no on the first occasion does not amount to consent, he didn't obtain consent when you were awake before the second occasion, ergo, he didn't obtain consent. Being reckless as to whether or not you were consenting, in a situation where you are not capable of giving explicit consent at the time of the act, does not make it reasonable to assume you were consenting.

I admit that it would be difficult to secure a conviction in that scenario, but that is how the law would see it.

The thing is though Thistle, this isnt a court of law, these are real people asking the opinion of other everyday people. It is highly unlikely that a woman is going to go to the police reporting rape because her husband ONCE did this to her, that is not the answer she is looking for on these boards. She probably wants a way to deal with it, a way to make sure her husband knows she doesnt find it acceptable, and some comfort in knowing that she isnt the only one that has been upset by it, and yes perhaps, to hear that not ALL women find it wrong.

It is an invidious argument to say to a woman that she is not entitled to consider her violation a rape because she failed to do enough the first time to stop it happening.

You can see why people feel that it is victim-blaming to say otherwise.

I don't think that those of us with healthy relationships what our/partners actions considered from a legal POV, all of the time.

Tbh i wouldn't want a relationship as 'correct' and 'polite' as some conduct theirs on here.

But surely, having the confidence to call it rape, to know that the law considers it to be wrong, is more helpful than telling her that it is all a grey area and that some people think that being upset because of it is an over reaction.

There is usually nothing to be gained by trying to minimise feelings of upset and violation, especially when the behaviour that caused it is defined by the law as wrong.

Thistle so basically rape is wrong? Yes who disagrees with that?

Many things are defined as wrong by the law, but many people do not want to go to the police, and blow their family apart. They want to sort it out without that.

I find some of the replies on threads to be very worrying with the anti-men attitude from certain posters.

I shall never forget a thread on relationships where someone had slept with a one night stand, got mightly pissed off when he tried it on again the next morning, and was advised to go and report it as rape... it then transpired that the woman didnt go and report it... but went back again with this bloke a week later!... quite willingly.... and was THEN going to go to the police....

And the most alarming thing to me on that thread, was the number of women who were baying for the blood of this bloke.... I wonder if so many would have been that enthusiastic about encouraging her to go and report this if it had been their son that she slept with.

"You can see why people feel that it is victim-blaming to say otherwise"

Lack of education and bounderies works both ways. If a boy is brought up in an abusive/DV home, he is also a victim/product of his environment. Both parties need re-educating and need to understand what may be wrong with their reactions/ actions. Branding people as sexual abusers and rapists can be over the top.

Tbh, i find the feminist boards don't take the up bringing/lack of education/awareness of many 'disadvantaged' etc groups into consideration. Working class men/boys are also victms of a class biased society.

Thebody - nobody disagrees that rape is wrong, but several people do disagree with calling something that the law defines as rape, rape, and several people do disagree with telling a woman that actions against her amount to rape, where there is no clear-cut likelihood of the perpetrator being convicted.

Birds - my ExP was the victim of an abusive childhood. It didn't mean that he didn't know it was wrong when he was abusive to me. At the end, he admitted so much himself. It was just easier for him to continue to be abusive to me than to seek the counselling he needed. Being a victim of abuse is no excuse for becoming a perpetrator of it.

I personally would quite like to be woken up this way and am apparently quite responsive in my sleep. However if this happened and I wasn't happy about it I would make sure my partner was clear that I didn't like it. In my mind any further time he did it would be rape but not the first time. Legally that is probably wrong but in my opinion within a sexually active relationship that is.how I would feel.

Op read your op. It doesn't say rape is wrong. Its says women can't possibly enjoy this and if they do you feel sorry for them as their dos must be shit in bed or 'small dicks'.
You imply only what you feel is great sex can be. Other posters have inferred anything else is abuse. That's not saying rape is wrong, its saying anything I don't like is wrong.

No, legally it is not wrong, because "you quite like it". You consent.

Unless you told your partner that you would like to do it before the first occasion, he was taking a bloody big risk. But the fact of your actual consent makes all the difference to why it was not rape.

Um...liking something isnt consent

"Birds - my ExP was the victim of an abusive childhood. It didn't mean that he didn't know it was wrong when he was abusive to me. At the end, he admitted so much himself. It was just easier for him to continue to be abusive to me than to seek the counselling he needed. Being a victim of abuse is no excuse for becoming a perpetrator of it"

No it's a reason for it, until you are taught otherwise. Not everyone is on the same level as those that use MN.

It's no different than posters who ask if it is alright to leave their baby in the house and nip somewhere. They are wrong, legally and in law are committing child abuse, but they are not child abusers.

In the same vein the immediate labelling of the men in these situations are not helpful. Label the behaviour, but not the person, so cease with the cries of 'rapist'

You will find that most people don't analyse their actions to that level, to be 'guilty', as such.

DP - re-read my subsequent post. I admit that my OP, whilst having a grain of truth about it, was deliberately inflammatory in order to provoke debate about what it means to consent to sex, and how we signal that consent. The thread has dealt with this and moved on, as threads do.

I don't care if its moved on. Yourself and other posters seem to have double standards. You think you way is ok, any other is wrong.

Doing an act on your partner when they are not in a position to consent and have not given you prior explicit consent, is, in my view, and in the eyes of the law, wrong

Thistledew If I decide tomorrow morning to wake my DH up with a blowjob, I'm sure neither of us will care about your view or the eyes of the law.

I'm hardly likely to ask him to sign and date a consent form before noshing him off...

There is a difference between men and misogyny. Misogyny is negative for working class men as well as women. Calling it ''man hating' on 'anti men' is unproductive and ignorant. Hideous victim blaming from some mn on here. But this just proves the point that we are socialised by Our misogynistic society because victim blaming is not a positive thing for women yet women are doing it!