Rape within marriage

[tabouleh]

Yes unashamedly a thread about a thread.

It is like entering the bloody twilight zone over there.

Jeez there are MNers basically caring more about OP's husbands right to sex rather than believing OP and helping her.

Totally understand if this gets deleted for being a thread about a thread - but if it gets more of the feminist viewpoints onto that thread then great.

ElephantsAndMiasmas I don't view it as being that women can't be trusted to tell the truth about rape at all.
I see it that rape is such a serious accusation that ALL the evidence must be taken into account, analysed, and tried to make sense of in order to get to the truth.
The truth may be that the woman has a genuine claim and the man IS a rapist or that she hasn't a genuine claim and that he isn't.
The point is that you can't just take someone's word for it without investigating further. This goes for ANY crime, not just rape.

Men DO need sex, but it's not understandable if they fuck you without consent. Other non-criminal forms of relief are available such as masturbation (which hurt no-one).

marantha - you and we are not the police. We do not investigate but when someone on comes looking for support because she is devastated that she has been raped then we give support to her because we believe her. Why you don't believe her, I don't know but it isn't important because we're just being compassionate here and fighting her is in no way helpful to anyone.

love the way marantha is ignoring my posts, best leave her to it.

You missed out a few things, ISNT

"The rapist should be covered by stranger; daytime; knife; near busy road; The victim should be married; small children; on the way to the library; do voluntary charity work; be dressed in sensible clothes and with sensible shoes;SOBER & INDEED HAS NEVER DRUNK OR DONE DRUGS, HAS HAD SEX WITH A MAXIMUM OF ONE MAN IN THE PAST (NOT THE RAPIST), HAS NO HISTORY OF ABUSE OR RAPE. The situation should be that the man has struck before in the same place (to doubly confirm that in this case, for once, the woman might actually not be lying...) AND PREFERABLY FOUR INDEPENDENT MALE WITNESSES"

oh, wait, is that still valid in this country?

I was reading a book by Helena Kennedy the other day, and she mentions that judges used to (until fairly recently) be required to direct the jury that women often lie about rape.

Thank you Elephants, Stewie, ISNT, Gigantaur, MrsRisotto!!!!

ISNT & E&M - we need to include - has never told anyone she might like to have sex as obviously this means that she will always want sex, with anyone. (Thinking of that gang rape that was acquitted because in the past she had said she'd enjoy group sex).

Marantha - that's right, and if we were the police, I would make sure that we interviewed Anchor's husband as well, I wouldn't slam him in jail on the basis of an online thread. BUT amazingly we aren't the police, we are in the position of listeners to Anchor, and as we have no reason to disbelieve her account of things I think it's polite to give her the credit of taking her at her word.

Do you go onto the SN threads and say "How are we to know whether your child has SN and that you are a carer? You could be lying and it's only the internet so we'll never know!"

"and didn't make eye contact with the rapist at any point".

"and was not and had never been a prostitute or other sex worker" (in this case it's theft, not rape don't you know?)

"and she screamed, said the word "no" (no other word will do), struggled and was injured in the attack"

Of course, even in these circumstances it's possible that she was - unbeknown to herself - secretly wanting sex and was giving off non-verbal signals to that effect, which the generous rapist only responded to to give her pleasure.

Or that she initially said yes to surprise sex with the aforementioned knife-wielding stranger on the way to the library, but then change her mind halfway through/felt guilty afterwards/worried about what her husband would say and lied about it to the police.

"has no mental health problems at all, and never had"

and that she continued to actively resist throughout the attack.

if she made the mistake of going quiet at any point he might have thought she'd changed her mind and now wanted it.

Oh fgs. Is any of this useful to Anchor or other women facing confrontation in sexual situations in their marriages? This isn't a debate, it's lots of people shouting about how RAPE is RAPE and we shouldn't try to analyse situations because he's a RAPIST and all rapists are exactly the same and there's no point in trying to understand.

YES it was rape. I don't think anyone's saying it wasn't, it's legally definable as such. She posted for support, does anyone have any useful advice on how to get past this or how to deal with it, or what they would do, or if they have been in a similar situation?

Alternatively just keep posting about how EVIL men who rape are and how Anchor's DH is the SAME as every other RAPIST. Because that'll make her feel much better and less confused about how to handle the situation

snoozathon - that is exactly what quite a lot of people have done actually. Said it wasn't rape. As they did on the original thread that was deleted. That's why we're still banging on about it.

I did read the thread, it struck a real chord with me and I wrote a long reply, which was lost in the ether due to the thread's deletion.

I agree that many people were focusing on the DH's right to sex, which is wrong. Also there are people posting on here who are being insensitive to Anchor's situation.

But if this is a support thread for Anchor, why are you rehashing all the obvious stuff about rape and getting involved in silly debates?

Anchor was careful to share much of her story inclduing her low libido, depression and happy marriage, I came to the conclusion it was best to write about her actual situation rather than constantly yell 'rapist' as so many are doing here. I think he made a horrible error of judgement and obviously upset Anchor, but hopefully they can talk about it, make it clear it can never happen again and begin to rebuild their relationship.

In some ways rape is always the same, but in many others it is a totally unique experience within marriage and needs to be dealt with differently. Not less seriously but differently and with sensitivity.

Yes it is indeed bullshit to say that rape can't exist within marriage- thankfully that law was abolished 20-odd years ago.
I mean, if a woman is doing the washing-up and her husband makes a pass at her, she firmly refuses yet he pushes her to the ground tears off her clothes and has sex with her against her will, that is rape-married or not.

TheButterflyEffect Just read your post, it sounds similar to what happened to the OP but I don't want to assume that as you obviously posted it briefly and didn't go into details. I have had similar with my DH and I suppose technically could call it rape but wouldn't, he was an idiot thinking that it is sexy to be poked with an erect penis when you're half-asleep - erm not in my world or most women's, but he knows that now, even if his penis was offended at not being an attractice prospect

I think what makes Anchor's situation complex is her depression and growing revulsion for sex with her DH despite loving him, and feeling guilty because of it. I think there are all sorts of sexual problems in their relation ship which they need to work through, and I hesitate to say this was a culmination of anything, but it may be the watershed moment that allows them to have a frank, possibly angry and upset discussion about where to go from here in their relationship.

But you see, StewieGriffinsMom, that's how people tend to think of rape, something that includes physical violence.

We should get out of this thinking, though, because it is possible that a victim can just 'freeze' if you know what I mean.