Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

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

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

Is this rape/sexual abuse?

137 replies

QuickNameChange1 · 12/08/2008 17:46

Please picture the scene and give your opinion...

a woman is having sex with her husband. After a while, she asks him to stop as she just cannot get in the mood. Instead of doing as she asks, he carries on alhough "speeds things up" so that he still gets what he wants out of it.

5 minutes or so after she asked him to stop, he does.

Is this still classed as rape/abuse?

Sorry for the name change, wanted to ask this anon.

OP posts:

QuintessentialShadows · 12/08/2008 21:52

Susie hijack. I have just returned from a very last minute camping trip.

Roboshua · 12/08/2008 21:52

Mamazon. I think you are on very dangerous ground 'comparing' rapes and stating that 'spousal rape is more painful'.

Bowddee · 12/08/2008 21:54

The OP says -
a woman is having sex with her husband. After a while, she asks him to stop as she just cannot get in the mood. Instead of doing as she asks, he carries on alhough "speeds things up" so that he still gets what he wants out of it.

'After a while, she asks him to stop as she just cannot get in the mood.'

I may be reading this wrong, but this doesn't sound as if the husband forced himself on his wife.

objectivity · 12/08/2008 21:56

I have experienced domestic abuse- never sexual though and my feeling is that this is highly contextual.

If the wife was happy at the start then it is not entirely unreasonble for the dh to assume that she was happy continuing, even if there was a change of heart mid way through and she seemed to change her mind.

We get away with persuasive behaviours with partners in a way we wouldn't risk with strangers so he may have thought he was just being persuasive and that she would enjoy in the end.

If this was a regular occurrence, or if she was visibly upset at the time then that is different and then becomes abusive and controllign behaviour on his part.

How can we know though? So many factors need to be considered.

To turn it on its head completely- she could, in theory, be abusing him by encouraging sex and then turning him down in some odd cruel manipulatively abusive relationship.

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 21:57

But its not that simple with Spousal rape Robushua, whilst the feeling of shame and disgust are the same....it is often mixed in amongst an already abusive relationship anyway....rape certainly isn't a consequenc of a loving and happy partnership.

the woman is probably, as in this case, confused as to what has happened. she questions whether it was what it was or whether her mind was just exagerating. the man certainly tells her she is making something of nothing, he tells her that she should be gratefull he wants to sleep with her, after all she is fat/ugly/stupid/miserable etc etc.

I do agree with you that it is almost impossible to prove enough to obtain a conviction.
I have actually sat on jury service on a rape case and our directions were that not only must we feel that she withdrew consent but that he UNDERSTOOD that she had withdrawn it and meant it.
sadlyit seem's if you do anything but beat him off with a stick he can claim he was unsure whether you meant it or not.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 12/08/2008 21:58

Bowdee

she later said that she continued to ask him to stop and tried to push him off for 5 minutes further until he came.

That's rape.

Quintessentialshadow -

It really doesn't matter why she wanted to stop. Nobody owes their partner an orgasm, and you have no idea why she wasn't enjoying it - but she didn't even need a reason. You are missing the point anyway - whatever her reasons, she told him to stop and he wouldn't. Rape.

traceybath · 12/08/2008 21:58

I think if she asked him to stop and he didn't it is technically rape.

However i suspect that there is quite a lot wrong in this relationship.

Sometimes i'm not massively in the mood but i carry on because i probably will enjoy it or i know my DH will and we'll feel closer as a result. However we have a good relationship and if i asked him to stop he would.

So i wonder if the fact she asked him to stop is indicative of other things being wrong. The OP's account of him carrying on whilst she tried to push him off was really chilling and terribly sad.

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 22:00

that post should have read "possibly even more so" obviously dependant on your own experiance and view.

Im not comparing rape at all, im saying that any violation of a woman is disgusting and wrong. and any violation is as painfull as the next.

Bowdee - if you read further posts by the OP she states that the woman was shouting at him to get off and tried to push him off of her.
i think she made her feelings quite clear.

QuintessentialShadows · 12/08/2008 22:01

Kat. nobody owes anybody an orgasm. I am just trying to understand the scenario. If this is usually a loving and respectful relationship, I would not call it rape. But if it wasnt, then we are on different grounds alltogether I think.

I love my dh, we have a good relationship. It has happened that I have lost the mood during sex, but because I love him, I want him to have a good time, I dont push him off me, I try to satisfy him anyway. It doesnt make me a doormat. But in my opinion it would be the right thing to do, in our circumstances.

I think the question goes deeper than to just this particular intercourse.

Alambil · 12/08/2008 22:05

This is where it being in the context of a relationship confuses it for some people.

My husband raped me - I'm not saying this with my eyes closed...

If he was a stranger, he'd be a brute who can't take no for an answer.

If you're punched by a stranger, they're a brute.

If you're with someone though and they hit you or continue sex when you CLEARLY tell them not to, then somehow, messages must have been mixed or you wound him up so he "has" to finish, and it's cruel to stop him....

WHY?!

It's ridiculous to say that an attack from a stranger is worse because it was brutal. Yes, it's horrendous, yes, it's scary and leaves scars - but so does rape in a marriage or relationship. Just because there's no beating or held-at-knife-point going on doesn't mean it's less scary or brutal.

Bowddee · 12/08/2008 22:07

Mamazon, I've found the post that says she tried to push him off, but nothing about shouting.
So, yes, an abusive relationship. But I still don't think it's rape.

QuintessentialShadows · 12/08/2008 22:07

That is why it is important for the OP to think about : Has it happened before? Could it have been a misunderstanding? Is the relationship otherwise one of love and respect? Is there other bad things, verbal abuse, rowing, etc in the relationship.

electra · 12/08/2008 22:08

Yes it is rape. You said no.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 12/08/2008 22:11

yes - I agree, I love my H, and if I lose the momentum I usually do something to get him to finish quickly and have a cuddle. However there have been times when I just don't feel like it and H respects that.

He would never carry on if I clearly said no - whereas this woman's H did. That's the point - not whether she should have carried on because she loved him or whatever.

laweaselmys · 12/08/2008 22:11

erm, I asked a trainee lawyer about this once and legally it's not rape, if you consented initially it can't be withdrawn. Basically rape is defined as the act of penetration without consent, and because at the time of penetration there was consent then it wasn't rape.

You could definately argue sexual assault. And I would hope in this situation if legalities were involved they would recommend that route.

Alambil · 12/08/2008 22:12

and therein lies the problem

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 22:14

i asked the same earlier Quint.

I was raped repeatedly in my relationship. it was often just as brutal as any stranger rape.
other times i lay there and allowed it to happen, even though he knew i didn't want to and had made it clear that i didn't, but i knew that to allow it to happen it would save me a beating asnd have it forved upon me anyway.

to me i classify the second type just as much a rape as the first, more violant type. we were both fully aware of the fact that i did not want to have sex, but he forced himself upon me anyway. he may not have used violance but if it were not for teh threat of violance it would not have happened.

When i left him and spoke to people about what had happened during teh relationship (it has taken me years to speak openly with anyone face to face about it) they asked why i allowed it to happen for so long - yeap allow...like i had a choice.
they couldn't understand why if it were a stranger that had broken into my home i would have gone to tehpolice but not against my childrens father.

the answer is simple. if it had been a stranger then people would have been symapthetic, i would have been believed.
if i had told people about my partner then there would be a doubt, a suspicion that i was over reacting or just being plain spitefull.
To have it happen is bad enough but to not be believed is possibly the worst thing i can imagine in the world.

traceybath · 12/08/2008 22:18

Thats awful mamazon - i hope you're managing to deal with what happened.

Sadly few rape complainants are believed or they're held accountable in some way.

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 22:19

less than 7% of all rapists are ever convicted.

Roboshua · 12/08/2008 22:19

Mamazon. I am always uncomfortable when people try and say one sort of rape is 'worse'than another. Obviously there are a whole gamut of issues with regards to rape within a relationship and as you say alot of this down to the betrayal of trust etc. etc and is symptomatic of an abusive realtionship. However (and sadly I speak from experience) a stranger rape is equally damaging but possibly for slightly different reasons. There may not be a betrayal of trust but as in my case the sheer terror of truely believing you are about to die was the most over riding issue. In fact the most over whelming feeling was of relief that he hadn't killed or maimed me followed by an on going terror that he would return to finsih the job.

Alambil · 12/08/2008 22:21

My own barrister said I must have asked for it or suggested it somehow Mamazon, when we were at court for contact... says a lot really

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 22:24

it doesn't help that the majority of judges are male. Im not saying that all men feel that such behaviour is ok, of curse not. but there does seem to be a difference between what a woman deems is acceptable and when a man feel it is ok to say no.

dittany · 12/08/2008 22:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mamazon · 12/08/2008 22:25

we only need to watch the news. a woman had her compensation reduced becasue she was drunk and therefore somehow liable for her own rape.

ginnny · 12/08/2008 22:25

I didn't mean to say that what the OP's husband did was right, just that it seems odd to push him off just because she 'wasn't in the mood' anymore.
Obviously none of us know the full details of their relationship, which makes it hard to comment on.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Swipe left for the next trending thread