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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Dh keeps doing something I don't like in bed

560 replies

Moochicken · 02/09/2013 22:10

Without wanting to go into too much detail, dh keeps doing something during sex which I don't like. I ask him not to and after a few minutes he does it anyway.

It doesn't happen every time but he did it again last night. He apologized after and said he won't do it again (he says this everytime) and now he can't understand why I'm still pissed off.

How seriously would you take this? If I said no and stopped sex he would listen and would never force me to do something but I still feel uncomfortable that he basically ignores my wishes.

OP posts:
MrsWolowitz · 04/09/2013 07:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AnyFucker · 04/09/2013 07:21

yes, janey is rapidly gaining that lofty status of one to ignore

CailinDana · 04/09/2013 07:33

It's worth noting too that the people who have claimed we're overreacting have absolutely no useful advice for the OP beyond "tell him to stop" which the OP has already done, repeatedly. They seem to want to ignore the fact that the OP's husband can't understand why she has a problem with him doing this over and over and over - he thinks it's no big deal. And what they're trying to tell her is that yes, he's right, it's no big deal. Great, so the OP has to just put up with it because her feelings don't matter.

curlew · 04/09/2013 07:40

I just find it so depressing that there are so many women who have such a low opinion of men that they think they can't possibly understand something simple like "Please don't do that again, I don't like it" It's all part of this narrative that says that men are uncontrolled sexual beings that it's up to women to contain and civilise. Which most men would justifiably find deeply offensive. And which a minority of mencan exploit to their own advantage, with the "yes means yes, and no means maybe" mindset.

Ledkr · 04/09/2013 07:42

These threads always depress me.
They illustrate how much crap some women will put down to "me being like they are"
Then the accusations of over reacting to anyone who suggests that certain behaviours are unacceptable.
Makeshift doubt that we've come as far as we like to think.

Ledkr · 04/09/2013 07:43

Men not me obviously

turbochildren · 04/09/2013 07:49

I have now read most of the thread. I don't agree it's got into a frenzy. Many have shared their similar experiences and are worried that this is the beginning of a slippery slope for the OP, based on the information she has given in her posts.
Some have then adviced that she should just say no a bit more clearly, which doesn't make sense, as no means no. Someone then pointed out that it doesn't because women are fickle. He did need to be pulled up on that. The OP has been adviced to look at other aspects of their relationship, as blatant disregard of her no during sex may also shine through elsewhere. That is sensible.
All in all, rather reasonable advice, based on experience from many.
I agree with the poster who talked about the importance of naming things. It gives sense to feelings, validates your own point of view and helps tidy the brain.
For the OP, strong words describing what's happened must be difficult to read. I hope it has allowed her to find strength to tell her DH that next time his finger wanders, he will just have to take a cold shower.

turbochildren · 04/09/2013 07:51

Sorry, cold shower comment a bit flippant. I hope he will listen and show himself to be a decent loving man.

curlew · 04/09/2013 08:04

ledkr- snap!

Fairenuff · 04/09/2013 08:21

I think if he was repeatedly sticking his finger in her eye, everyone would agree that it was a no-no.

The people who claim to not be able to see how sticking it in her anus is unacceptable have their own agenda I think.

Ledkr · 04/09/2013 08:30

curlew you said it much better Grin
The thing is, I've had to leave two long term relationship/marriages so I know it's not the easiest thing to do.
LTB is often overused on mn and suggested when it would be an over reaction or very difficult.
However I think it's symbolic of how determined women are to keep moving forward in demanding fair and decent relationships.
A partner repeatedly sticking his finger up your arse for his own enjoyment (because that's what it is if he's been told
she doesn't like it) is not a fair or decent relationship.

sassy34264 · 04/09/2013 08:32

I've been reading this with interest the last 2 days.

I'm quite shocked at how many posters put twists and turns and argue over words, in order not to label it what it is. Sexual assault.

I can only surmise that they have experienced it with their loved ones and don't like to face the harsh truth. I can't think of another reason. Confused

If you flipped the situation, and imagine it was you who had put a finger up someone's bum and they had expressed their dislike, what would be in your mind to do it again the next time?

They were just a bit shocked the 1st time.
They may like it if i keep doing it.
Maybe i wasn't lubricated enough, but if i were, they would like it.
I know they don't like it, but if i keep doing it they may start to like it.
I know they don't like it, but if i keep doing it they may get tired of saying no.
I know they don't like it, but it turns me the hell on.

If anyone can enlighten me to innocent thought processes that may be going through his head?

I'm pretty sure if it is repeated over and over then they aren't just thinking nothing and wandering in there with no thought in their head

I can't think of a single justifiable reason, that would make me do it to my dp, once he has said he doesn't like it.

It's pure selfish, disrespect - your body should be mine to do what i like with- mentality.

As an aside- does Contarian remind anyone else of lundy's Mr right?
I can't remember the exact surmising, but it was something along the lines of - this man thinks you are in danger of falling over from your own stupidity and he needs to save you. Hmm

I'm sorry the op feels chased off her own thread, but if you want someone to tell you he is being a bit naughty but all men do it, you are on the wrong website.

I hope you have a light bulb moment from reading all this, rather than (if you would have had the response you were after) put up with misogynist crap for years.

CailinDana · 04/09/2013 08:52

Thing is though Fairenuff, I don't think anyone has said that it's not unacceptable. The fact that he shouldn't be doing it is agreed by everyone as far as I can remember. What people are objecting to is the terminology being used - rape, assault etc. The reason for that I think is down to how society tends to view rape and assault, as something done by a stranger in a dark alley. What most people don't seem to realise that around 90% of reported rapes and assaults are carried out by someone known to the victim - boyfriend, husband, brother, uncle, father - and that the "classic" stranger rape scenario is extremely rare.

It suits rapists that women don't realise that incidents like this can be classed as assault. It is extremely beneficial to rapists that women themselves will call other women "hysterical" if they refer to it as assault. Society has women very well trained to believe that it's normal for men to disregard their feelings and use their bodies without their permission. How handy that a man can do this and then have a woman say he's "just pushing his luck." Great, so the man can continue to use the woman's body how he pleases and women will defend him.

Society (or the patriarchy if that's how you think of it) seems to have trained women to circumvent their own empathy. I think there are very few women in the world who would disagree that having a finger put up you bum when you don't want it is pretty horrible and degrading. And yet we still have women minimising that, claiming that just because the OP and her DH are married that you have to overlook that sense of degradation and treat is a though he just forgot to turn on the dishwasher. At what point I wonder do these women think they give up their right to bodily integrity? At birth? When they're married?

valiumredhead · 04/09/2013 09:02

Sassy, hopefully the OP's light bulb moment will come when her counsellor also tells her what her Dh has been doing is assault.

Lweji · 04/09/2013 09:09

The people who keep making unwanted things to their partners (during sex or otherwise) know their partners don't like it and don't want it.
You'll have to assume that they get off in doing somethin the other doesn't like.
It becomes about power over the other person and not sex.
"see, you said no, but I keep doing it and I get away with it, because I dominate you"

That's one reason why it's abuse, being sexual assault and rape forms of it.

GettingStrong · 04/09/2013 09:32

The people saying it's sexual assault have not lost their sense of proportion. No one is urging her to go to the police now, it is just a case of trying to encourage her to be aware of and accept this for what it is. Maybe she will be able to get the relationship back on track, maybe she won't, but it is still sexual assault regardless. It is not 'technically' assault, it is assault.

Naming it for what it is is so important. I was one of the many who had no idea that some of the things an ex of mine did sexually would have counted as sexual assault. Not until he did some things that were glaringly obviously seriously sexually abusive, even to me who was trying not to see any of it. In the end I talked to the police about these things, but when I talked to them they asked me whether the relationship was controlling and what my definition of 'controlling' was. Through the course of that discussion I found out that the things I was classing as 'a bit controlling' the police were classing as sexual assault. I literally had no idea.

Rooners · 04/09/2013 09:40

Like Lweji said...it's not even so much the fact it's sexual, or what he is doing.

It's the fact that he is doing ANYTHING that you have told him you dislike, regardless of your protests, that is the red flag here.

There is no justification for it. He is getting off on being in charge of your body. He knows it makes you unconfortable. He is doing it anyway. That makes him unpleasant and not a good person.

And as someone else said - what if it were reversed? What if you liked to give him head and he said, no, I don't really like that - you would stop doing it, right?

So what makes him carry on doing this to you?

I also think the fact it is anal penetration is a bit of a red herring, an irrelevance - it's confusing the issues. People are reacting to that, as though that were the issue - we all know that some couples like to do this, some do not. It's not about challenging old fashioned prejudice.

It's ALL about the fact you said please don't, and he just went for it.

I am so sorry this is happening to you OP. Please do look at how he behaves with regard to your feelings in other respects. I hope you are alright x

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 04/09/2013 09:58

Those were my thoughts as well sassy.

"My wife has repeatedly told me she doesn't like me doing this to her, but I'm going to carry on because...?"

I just can't see how you can finish that sentence in any way that makes sense.

perfectstorm · 04/09/2013 10:05

It isn't theft by finding, technically or otherwise, to find a pound coin in the street and keep it. An essential element to the crime is a failure to take reasonable steps to identify the owner. There are no possible reasonable steps, and thus no crime has occurred.

It isn't battery, technically or otherwise, to pat someone on the back. An essential element to the crime of battery is that the application of force is reckless on the part of the person applying it. Without that element, it is not the offence of battery at all.

I think it's really interesting that you have invented crimes where none exist as a way of minimising the reality that someone inserting their finger repeatedly in the anus of their spouse, when they know that spouse hates it and has repeatedly said so, is criminal behaviour. It's also telling that you choose to compare an offence so serious that it cannot ever be tried before magistrates, but only a Crown Court judge, and the minimum sentencing starts at a year and goes up to life, with a relatively minor property crime.

I also find it interesting that you say equivalently awful things have happened to you hundreds of times (really? People violating your body in such a deeply degrading way after you have clearly told them you hate it, and they know this and do it again and again anyway?) and it's just men "pushing their luck". Firstly, if that is indeed so then I am truly sorry you've had such experiences and I very much understand how you are more comfortable framing them to yourself as just boys being boys, and no big deal. But nobody has the right to ignore the very clearly expressed wishes of anyone over their own body. To argue that they do is to support a culture in which a group of young boys could digitally violate a barely conscious girl in Steubenville, and then be outraged when they were convicted of raping her. No, it isn't legally classed as rape in this country when someone digitally violates someone else. It is in other countries, sometimes, but not here. But it very much is an offence, because ignoring a clearly understood no - not even failing to obtain consent, but IGNORING a clearly understood NO - while penetrating an unwilling person is a crime. A clear, and very serious crime. And if you think the police and CPP wouldn't prosecute it if they knew and he was honest about his actions, you're living in a dream world. There is nothing "technical" about his actions being criminal at all.

It's depressing that so many women are convinced men are just predatory animals who will always want to force women to permit their bodies to be used against their wishes. Ironically, given the squawks of extreme feminism, I think that's an utterly man-hating approach. I don't share that view of men at all. I don't think all men are selfish, sociopathic arseholes ruled by their dicks. I think they're human beings with the same capacity for empathy, love and mutuality as women. Arguing that a man choosing to ignore a woman's clearly expressed "no" is just "pushing his luck" shows a deeply ingrained contempt for half the human race as well as a deeply internalised inability to allow women autonomy over their own bodies.

I asked my (sweet, kind, loving and empathetic) 4 yr old son for a hug yesterday as he played with his lego. He politely told me he didn't feel like it, and I said okay. He nodded and then said matter-of-factly, as he fixed various godawful guns to his Star Wars ship, "you never have to have a hug when you don't feel like it. And you can't make someone hug you if they don't want to either." I've been instilling this in him all his life, and so have the mothers I most like with their kids - boys and girls. No, you don't grab another kid's hand and yank them about when they protest. No, you don't try to force affection on someone who says no, because they have the right to decide when they feel like being touched, just like you can't force someone to play with a game they don't want to because their feelings matter as well. You have to respect what other people want. No, you never have to kiss or let anyone touch you when you don't want it. And so on, and so on. At this age, it's about teaching them respect for others and themselves, and trying to make them less likely prey for abusers. Reading this, I think it may actually be rather more. Because it seems someone failed to teach OP's husband this very basic lesson early in his life... and various other posters here, too. What basic empathy failure must it take, to think someone can force this on someone else and it's just no big deal? And are these people failing to teach their own children these lessons, too? That men will always "push their luck" and a woman's job is to try to stop it and not "get hysterical" when she fails? If so, I am glad my child is a son, I hope my pregnancy is another son, and I can only assure the mothers of daughters that these sons will be raised to very much respect their own and other's bodily (and emotional) autonomy.

If someone tells you not to touch them in any way they dislike, you don't. If you tell someone not to touch you, they don't. If what they are doing is sexually penetrative, they need to be reasonably certain they have consent first. This stuff should not be rocket science. It's deeply disturbing to me that so many people apparently struggle with it. And as several professionals have indicated, these struggles are not shared by law enforcement or the courts.

In Ottawa, in Canada, a six month poster campaign cut reported sexual offending by 10%. The campaign was aimed at men, and the tagline was "Don't Be That Guy." Educating men on consent, and why it matters and what it means if they ignore it, has been proven to reduce sexual offending. Reading a lot of the comments here, I think many posters need to see the material, too.

runningforthebusinheels · 04/09/2013 10:39

Sassy, caillin, perfectstorm: excellent posts.

I find it disturbing when posters argue so vehemently that sticking a finger up another persons bottom is ok when they have seriously told you that it is not ok. I don't recognise that there is any defence for this - not a single one. "Pushing his luck"? "Bad manners"? NO! It is what it is - a sexual assault.

I think the Ottawa campaign is a good one.

OxfordBags · 04/09/2013 10:42

Some very important and wise stuff being said on here. The OP might not be able to face up to the truth yet, and that's her right, but this thread can stand for what is being said about rape apologism and so much more.

Perfectstorm has brought up several very important points, in a superb post, thank you.

Every time MNers try to discuss and help someone by not pussyfooting around the terminology and facts of abuse, sexual assault, rape and so on, they are called frenzied,hysterical, man-hating, and they are accused of being a 'massive' or group, as though there is a huge, secret selection of MNers who are part of a sinister cabal which practises a deranged, misandrist form of extreme feminism.

Is this true? Is it man-hating and hysterical to suggest that the majority of men understand consent, have no desire to persuade women to do things they don't want, couldn't get turned on by that, and if they did accidentally do something by genuine mistake or misguidedness that she didn't like, they'd never do it again and feel guilty? To suggest that they are mature, caring, empathic, sensible, unselfish human beings who are able to control themselves and do not want to demean or hurt anyone else? That they respect women and see them as full, real, equal human beings? That the majority of normal men just don't pull shit like this?

Or is it man-hating and employing very silly, odd, kneejerk forms of denial and minimisation to say that men can't control themselves, are little more than animals, or are sexually like toddlers let loose in a sweet shop, that they do not understand consent, that it is normal for men to want to try to push boundaries and co-erce women when it's been made perfectly clear to them that the answer is no, hell, that they think it's okay to push boundaries and co-erce evenjust once, that they believe women exist as their sextoys, as mere objects or domestic and sexual servant? That they don't understand what abuse is, what rape and sexual assault are, or that they are commiting them when they do? That they need women to be responsible for their behaviour?

I think this also points out how Feminism actually benefits both men and women, because we want men to be freed of the bad press and stereotypes about them and their self-control and sexual behaviour. Rape minimalisation affects women far, far worse, of course, but it still does men a terrible disservice, reputation-wise.

OxfordBags · 04/09/2013 10:49

GettingStrong - thank you for your post. Your brave choice to reveal that info gives a very clear insight into how abuse, and sexual abuse in particular, causes an abused woman to compartmentalise and minimise and get confused about the reality of her situation. It shows how women cope by telling themselves that it is not really 'that' bad, or by going along with things, or maybe certain things, that they actually really don't want, they tell themselves they have some say or power in the situation, or by relabelling rape and assault as less shocking things, like him being 'controlling'. And it also shows, finally, that even when the victim calls it anything other than rape or assault, when they really believe it's not rape and assault, it actually really is rape/sexual assault, legally and in the eyes of anyone who is not an abuser or a victim employing understandable coping mechanisms of extreme denial.

I am so sorry for what you went through, but glad you know the truth now, for you can rebuild your life with new, better and stronger boundaries and self-respect.

nauticant · 04/09/2013 11:01

It's horrible if a woman is being sexually assaulted in a relationship but it's probably better she's aware of this than being in a state of denial in order not to "rock the boat".

Wellwobbly · 04/09/2013 11:17

I read this carefully:

"OP everyone is right when they tell you that this is sexual assault.

But the thing you might find helpful to think about is that these assaults don't happen in a vacuum.

I imagine that there is quite a lot going on in your marriage that you have been trying to rationalise and convince yourself is acceptable.

For example, I'd be astonished if your husband didn't have a strong attachment to porn. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if you told us that you've never had a problem with it and have even defended porn on other threads.

Neither would I be surprised if there has been a context of your husband overriding your wishes and boundaries or that you have become inured to it over the years and have even convinced yourself that this is relatively normal in most marriages.

Sometimes in situations like this something happens that forces women to see that context in a new light. This can range from sexual violence, infidelity, financial secrets or one apparently discrete act that on first discovery, appears to be aberrant and isolated, but on reflection, really isn't.

It can be very uncomfortable too, especially if you've been bargaining away other behaviours and refusing to see the patterns that were forming.

So I'd urge you to reflect for a while and start 'seeing' your husband in a new light. This is quite frightening because it can mean re-evaluating your position and losing defences you've put in place in order to survive as a woman in this marriage. It can leave you very vulnerable when those cleverly crafted defences start to dissolve - and before you create new ones.

Please don't see these assaults as isolated events. That would be a terrible mistake."

Wow. Doesn't that pick up what has been unsaid, doesn't that cut through all the stuff, through all the layers, to get to the heart of the matter. What counsellors see!

I think Charbon should be given The Venerable Order of Mumsnet

BelaLugosisShed · 04/09/2013 11:59

The fact is that good men, decent men, who are loving partners and fathers, do not behave like this.

To be perfectly clear, my husband of almost 30 years has never :

Tried to coerce / cajole me into something (sexual or otherwise) when he knew, or suspected that I didn't like it.
Attempted to have sex with me while I was sleeping.
Carried on doing something when I've said stop or don't.
Tried to break down any boundaries I've ever put in place, by repeatedly nagging about it.
Sulked/ got nasty or aggressive if I've ever said no to sex, neither has he ever attempted to change my mind.

No means No in healthy and respectful relationships.

I feel sorry for the women who've never known a man to be a decent and compassionate human being and who truly values women as equals.