sex while asleep

[silver999]

my partner woke me up by having sex with me, I was really shocked at what was happening and not sure what to do or think about what has happened.
I told my friend but she just laughed about it, any advice? thanks.

I'm new to here and these threads make me laugh- after the thread departs from the premise of the story the OP leaves and the rest end up tearing up an issue that the poster left long ago. Every-one is entitled to an opinion without being lambasted even if the OP stopped reading it long ago!

If i was woken like this i would probably have beaten him with the bedside lamp

We have no idea whether the OP is still reading or not. I hope she's not. I hope she's OK and has found some RL support from people who don't think this is hilarious.

A knee in the nads normally stops this sort of behaviour - just use the excuse you were asleep and didn't realise what you were doing.

newby2

what I took from your post -

1. You find threads about a woman being sexually assaulted by her partner funny

2. You think that its ok to have differing opinions about what does and does not constitute rape.

You sound great.

I fail to see how such statements as "my partner woke me up by having sex with me, I was really shocked at what was happening" and "I [..] didn't want it" leave any room whatsoever for confusion.

As someone else pointed out, you enjoying a particular sexual practice does not make it OK for someone to impose it upon someone else without consent. It was clearly not reciprocal, there is no grey area here.

silver - I hope you're alright.

If someone has a genuine sleep disorder they can so many many things, including illegal things (that may be taken into account when deciding on a course of action). Just as PTSD / PND might be mitigating circumstances when it comes to crimes such as assault / theft .... and that eg. dementia might be a mitigating circumstance when it comes to leaving a shop with goods not paid for.....technically theft but doubt the police will consider proecution and prison as appropriate.

I am sure we will find several on MN who have experience of family sleepwalking, having night terrors etc. I do not think anyone will dispute that the person so affected 1. is not fully concious of the "decision" to se.g go downstairs and cook a meal / play / go outside in pj's .2 if anyone tries to interact with them they often do not respond . 3. they have no memory of it the next morning. I know my DD's certainly didn't.

So could it be just possible that some people, men and women, do sex related activities while in this altered sleep mode ? There certainly are quite a few people in steady relationships who live (and sometimes struggle) with this as well. And yes.. I have no doubt that just as with any other disorder / illness there are people who "pretend" to have this disorder to excuse
/ mitigate actions which they actually DO have control over.... I am not that niave to blindly believe evey claim.

I will now be quite explicit in my explanation that I am NOT defending rape / rapists. I have every reason to distrust men generally given my 10 years of childhood " hard core experiences" with DF and his "friends" as well as having experienced sexual assault as an adult ........ and no doubt had I at any point taken revenge while in the throes of adult PTSD this would be held as mitigating circumstances for the illegal actions I certainly thought about .... and no doubt some MNetters might have empathised wih me in that !.

I will be saying no more here as it is up to silver who is the only one who can make the judgment relevant to whatever partners explanation / attitude is and has been in regard to the incident. If she or anyone else wishes to discuss sleep disorders with regard to sexual activity perhaps another thread might be more appropriate .

I hope you are ok silver, I really do , with whatever you decide to do.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. This is a very touchy sibject for me, and I didn't want to cause offense.

In the absence of the capacity to give or deny consent, the OP is the only person who can downgrade this from rape.

Sorry again x

Nizlopi- I was pointing out that the thread had been left long ago by silver and left a cat fight between people who feel it is rape and people who think it isn't.

I'm lucky enough to have never suffered any kind of abuse but would have kicked his sorry arse out.

newby2 and that's... funny? A group of people arguing about what is or isn't rape, whilst a person who made the OP has vanished (hopefully she has gotten help)... that's funny to you? I fail to find the humour in this thread at all. I really hope Silver is somewhere safe with people who are going to be supportive.

No I didn't mean funny literally, of course I didn't. There was no reference to finding the subject matter funny. Crikey! As I said before I'D KICK HIS SORRY ARSE OUT!

these threads make me laugh

Tazzle, there may be very rare cases where people have some type of parasomnia, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility BUT having come on MN and seen these threads numerous times, I now know that there's a whole class of men who think it's just fine to have sex with their sleeping partners, and in many cases, unsurprisingly, this is connected with other types of abuse. These men do not have parasomnias, they just don't give a shit about consent, even worse, they do actually seem to be drawn to non-consensual sex and fondling, one can only imagine for reasons of power and domination.

That 1 in a million chance it's due to a sleep disorder doesn't outweight the obvious abusive cause of most of these incidents.

What you would be looking for would be a long history of the disorder, plus other activities performed in their sleep. Plus you would be looking for someone who was actually asleep at the time (not chatting etc) of the act so who would probably not remember it, not some wanker who knew exactly what they were doing.

By raising the possibility, it's throwing needless doubt on this story, for no real reason given there's a very obvious likely explanation and a very improbable one.

maristella Thankyou, you didn't offend me. It is a touchy subject and I absolutely agree with you. Only the OP can say if she feels she has been raped or not because it is so very personal.

I think everyone is sensitive about consent, but is very dodgy ground because it is personal to the individual. Such a difficult subject and i think it is very easy to say the wrong thing and be blase about something that causes people so much distress.

I do think it is quite dangerous to cry "rape" just based on one OP, but it does sound like she found the whole thing intimidating and upsetting and I for one am very very sorry that she maybe didn't get the support she needed from this thread.

I certainly wasn't trying to trivialise it and i have been giving it a great deal of thought today. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose the reason i woudlnt find it a problem between me and my DP is that i know that he 100% loves and respects me. But if i am totally honest, i can't imagine he would even want to do it.

I have only ever come across this in one other place and thats on porn sites, they seem to have whole categories of "sleeping" porn and i wonder if this is where it comes from. Its not nice

nizlopi, i think newby was being ironic rather than actually finding it funny

Thank-you Lucy. Consent is an interesting issue. So is the sleep disorder. Hoping Silver is finding some support.

Thank you mumsyblouse . I do agree of course that most of the situations that arise are indeed clearly men being abusive and that will be made quite clear by what is said about the relationship and the reported actions / atitude of the person carrying out the act. In most other theads on this topic I would not have entertained for one moment asking the questions I did about the circumstances here...but if their relationship had previosuly been very good and this was (as it appeared to indicate) totally uncharacteristic then maybe, just maybe, if there was some other possible explanation ( not excuse) then the apporpriate help might be able to be accesssed for both people concerned.

This might be the first time for this occurence but if as you say, there were any other sleep disturbances such as sleep walking, sleep talking, sleep apnoea etc, perhaps from childhood, then it may be an indicator of the possibility. At the time the person is normally unresponsive and may not be actually able to hear / respond approritely .... just like most sleepwalkers or someone having night terrors.

I have never heard of sleep porn lucyellen but I suspect thats more a concious decision and linked to fantasies rather than something that is a source of (extreme) distress for some.

Given that there are three people on here with personal experience of it maybe it is not quite sooooo rare ..... Few people want to shout about it, most are extremely embarrased / ashamed of it . If anyone wants scientific / legal links I have a few and will pm to those who pm me.

sorry again to silver999... If my intention came across as non supportive of you , you have my deepest apologies.

Someone who has a sleep disorder wherein the actively have sex and who shares a bed without informing their partner of this is a rapist. A caring, compassionate adult with such a condition would make it clear to anyone contemplating sharing a bed with them. Choosing not to share this information means they don't care whether or not they rape someone.

Rape is the absence of consent. You can not consent whilst you are asleep, hence it is rape. It doesn't matter how many rape apologists post with utterly ridiculous scenarios or insist that their relationship is EXACTLY the same as everyone else's and therefore their way must be right. The law is clear: sex without consent is rape.

If you are too ignorant or stupid to understand this basic fact then you probably aren't smart enough to be having sexual relations.

I agree with your first statement Emily ..... BUT maybe it IS the first occurrence.

Personal experiences and scientific observations / tests with regard to sleep disorders are not utterly ridiculous.

I am very well aware of the law thank you.

Resorting to insults is of course demonstrating that you are smart !

I think narkypuffin put it well - "Some people seem to think that women exist in a state of perpetual consent unless they explicitly state otherwise."

To me there is big difference between waking up to a bit of "morning glory" making itself apparent, and deciding what to do about that, to finding yourself having sex without your knowledge....

First occurrence only happens once. You do it again. You are a rapist. The law is clear on that.

tazzle : you clearly don't understand the law when you write this: "..but if their relationship had previosuly been very good and this was (as it appeared to indicate) totally uncharacteristic then maybe, just maybe, if there was some other possible explanation ( not excuse) then the apporpriate help might be able to be accesssed for both people concerned." It doesn't matter what the mitigating circumstances are, sex without consent is rape. Mitigating circumstances can have an effect on sentencing but they do not change the status of guilt.

Just look at the shit Ched Evan's victim is currently dealing with because so many people refuse to believe that a woman who was drunk couldn't possibly be a victim of rape.

I am no rape apologist, I have experienced the situation I talked about with regards to parasomnia.

I have also woken up being raped.

Before experiencing parasomnia I would have considered it rape, no exceptions, however I realised that there is a very small chance that it might not be intentional.

Rather than grasping at straws to excuse this man's behaviour, I actually hope that there is even the slightest chance that it wasn't done intentionally, because then at least she'll have that.

Please don't lump me in with that awful term.

Rabbit, out of genuine interest, how do they diagnose parasomnia with regard to this kind of thing?

Millions of people sleep walk, talk in their sleep and have night terrors. I have a sleep disorder. I really think it exeptionally unlikely, but if this happened to me, and I thought my husband had a sleep disorder leading him to have sex with me without consent, then I'd get him to the doctors the next day, and never ever again sleep in the same bed as him til he had treatment and would lock the door. And he would equally agree to all that because he would be so horrified at himself.

So what if someone has a disorder? You owe it to your partner not to molest them at night (unless you've discussed it and agreed you don't mind). If I thought in my sleep disorder I was behaving like this, I would feel physically sick and immediately get treatment. I just don't get why anyone would explore this possibility unless there was a massive history of parasomnia and absolutely no indications of the usual of men just seeing women as something to be touched whenever they feel like it, even if they are not awake enough to consent.

There seems to be a case of crossed wires going on between some posters. The essential issue in this type of situation is consent. Any sexual practice is acceptable as long as all the people participating have consented. Thus, things that might be considered brutal and violent without consent - being tied up, whipping, etc - are all just another form of sex play when everyone genuinely consents freely and when everyone has the opportunity to withdraw consent at any time.

Thus, if your partner knows you like being touched in your sleep, and knows that you will genuinely enjoy being woken up by sex and he does that, then it isn't rape, it's just another form of sex play that both partners have enjoyed. The essential thing is, your partner knows you are ok with it. Really, the only way to know in this sort of situation, ie when one partner is asleep, is to ask in advance, ie to say "How would you feel if I woke you up by being inside you?"

If the partner doesn't ask in advance and just does it, they are running a massive risk. Any person with any ounce of decency would realise that. The idea that a normal, caring man would look at their sleeping partner and not worry that just entering them would upset them is really hard to imagine. A genuinely loving partner would wake the other partner up, perhaps with some touching, and see if the other person was in the mood before starting. Just assuming that the other person is ok with sex and then just going ahead without even checking first is a bizarre thing to do, and not a mistake you would expect a caring person to make. There are some feeble reasons that might explain this behaviour but they're all so unlikely that unfortunately in this instance the most probable thing was that the OP's partner just felt like sex and took it and didn't care about the OP's feelings.

I'm so sorry that happened to you OP and I hope, if you are still reading the thread, that you are doing ok.