Sleep-sex?

[GollyGosh1]

Have only registered to post this topic after chatting to a friend who is on mn and will probably be reading this, though she won't tell me her 'name'.

Anyway, I was telling my friend how earlier this week I woke in the middle of the night with my husband's fingers all over me, and inside me. Should stress that I'm very happy with him and was very happy for us both to enjoy a sleepy fondle and then, well, go back to sleep! Only the second time this has happened in ten years but it's been fun both times.

Anyway, mentioned this to my friend as thought it was quite funny and was surprised at her response. She felt strongly that I'd been abused (despite being good friends with my husband) on the basis I hadn't consented. We chatted/argued (in a good natured way) for a while and in the end agreed that I'd post this message to see what others thought.

Then, go ahead and properly explore those views.

How exactly is defensible to have sex with someone who cannot give consent?

www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/consent/#a03

Please read the legal guidance Andy.

You don't understand consent at all.

You post as though you hate women. What on earth you think any woman has to gain from claiming she was raped when she wasnt in a court I don't know. She certainly wouldn't benefit financially. Your posts are utterly contemptable and I suspect you are too.

particularly - "The defendant (A) has the responsibility to ensure that (B) consents to the sexual activity at the time in question. It will be important for the police to ask the offender in interview what steps (s)he took to satisfy him or herself that the complainant consented in order to show his or her state of mind at the time."

Consent is not something given in a relationship until you subsequently remove it. It is fluid as has been pointed out.

Consent doesn't have to be verbal, "yes, I want sex". There are many physical ways to show consent. The supposed grey area is when people aren't considerate enough or are too selfish to care that those cues aren't there.

And really there is no debate on this topic to be had. It is incredibly simple. Sex without consent is rape, if you believed you had consent and that consent was reasonable in relation to that occasion then you have a defence to the criminal charge (but the victim has still been raped).

Andy everywhere you go on MN, people seem to "misunderstand" you

what's the common denominator here ?

do you need a clue ?

Whilst I do not agree with Andy, in my experience consent wasn't anything like as clear as that though Offred.

I consider myself reasonably intelligent, yet spent years in a relationship where varying degrees of sleep sex went on despite me being clear when conscious that I didn't want it. My ex varied in his reactions to me being cross about it, sometimes persuading me that he hadn't really been fully aware of what he was doing himself due to being half asleep through to probably his most manipulative belief that if he had got enough of a physical reaction from me in terms of arousal then he was entitled to sex regardless because he supposedly had the physical evidence that I 'wanted it'.

I guess that just shows though how totally different sleep sex can be in an abusive versus a 'normal' relationship.

I'm not sure I understand your post, Mathilda.

Are you saying consent was not clear in your relationship? Maybe not to you, because you were manipulated into thinking it was your "fault" or he wasn't aware of what was happening.
It was still wrong.

Your relationship, at least in that respect, was not normal, sorry.

Not clear to me Lweji no. But my ex would make out that consent wasn't really clear to him either, so he might claim he wasn't fully in control of himself because he would say he was half asleep. I never knew what to say to that, it was as if I couldn't be angry because he hadn't meant to do it.

I can sort of see with hindsight that he should not have done it and he was in control of the situation and himself. But yes there's still a lot of thinking that it must have been to some degree my fault because he was so insistent about it and it wore me down into thinking he must have been right and into thinking even if it was wrong it wasn't that big an issue and I should just deal with it.

But yes, I know it wasn't a normal relationship.

I am glad you are no longer in a relationship with that man, MW

Andy, why do you want to use a board that's meant to be a safe space for women to get relationship advice as a platform for 'debate'?

Yes I am very glad of that too MFC.

But sometimes I think my experience shows consent isn't that clear to either side though, because maybe he really was half asleep too?

MW, don't doubt yourself

Obviously in abusive relationships consent is deliberately made confusing.

Indeed. That is the whole point. If it was cut and dried then women would run very far away after the first instance. That is what these abusive men rely on, and it serves them very well indeed.

By the abuser

But legally, consent is a very simple concept to grasp.

I just don't get how people can be so sure that a man in this situation does know exactly what he is doing. When I was in the relationship I once asked my GP about it and they thought it was wrong of him, but they couldn't actually explain to me exactly why they thought he was still responsible for his actions whilst half asleep. I accept I will probably never know, and I am not in the relationship anymore, but I just don't get how people can be so sure.

People make it complicated sometimes trying to grasp what they believe are grey areas. Normally if they come from a perspective of feeling it's a man's right to sex that a woman has to actively reject.

X post Offred, I see what you mean about consent being very clear legally.

If he stuck a knife in you when he was half asleep, would that mitigate at all ?

No, he would still be up for attempted murder.

Why do you need to be sure about whether the man knew what he was doing? That is somewhat irrelevant to whether or not you consented.

However, from your description i would say he did know what he was doing.

Because it would have been worse if he knew what he was doing, although yes I guess it's not relevant to whether or not I consented. But if he truly had no idea of what he was doing, it was hard to blame him forit. So it would just become something unavoidable that happened, as opposed to him doing something against my will.

Matilda, that is true of much abuse that goes on in abusive relationships, from financial abuse to full blown physical violence.
Somehow the victim is led to feel there is a grey line, that she was somewhat responsible and he didn't really mean it.
However, it's largely clear cut from the outside.

Just because it's not clear to the victim, it doesn't mean that it isn't abuse.

For example, where I live, domestic violence has become a crime that does not depend on a complaint by the victim to be prosecuted. It helps to have their testimony, but if there are independent witnesses or evidence it can still go to court. Because the law recognises that the victim is often not capable or willing to view itself as a victim.

I'm not sure what the law here is about rape and consent, but if the same as in the UK, it would mean that OP's friend could report this event as sexual assault and it would be prosecuted, if the OP didn't lie about the events. Regardless of what her reaction was to, what was in effect, sexual assault by her partner.

But yes, had he stuck a knife in it would have been a different story