marantha I know where you're coming from with that and I think it was raised quite early on in the thread.
I want to thank you for your last post, in that I know on MN it is very hard especially when you are "fighting a corner" to step back and reconsider what you are actually arguing. I think it is very important that you have done that.
I also think that there is a problem with people naming rape for what it is, unless it is a "stranger" type violent rape. This causes a lot of problems for many women. Firstly as if they won't name it to themselves, they can go around knowing that something isn't/wasn't right but not being able to confront it properly as they can't bring themselves to name it, and then it can be hard to deal with it and move on. And secondly, as it makes society at large have a starting point of "hmmm, well is this actually rape, or not?" and then that ties into all the rape myths and to women not getting justice.
In this case a woman said no and her husband penetrated her. It is quite a cut and dried situation. but if people won't accept that that situation fulfils the definition of rape, which it does, then where does that leave women in less cut and dried situations. Nowhere, that's where, and with no-one to talk to, no-one believing them. It's a disaster.
I firmly believe that if women actually were able to talk openly about their experiences of rape and sexual assault, it would become "demystified", and things would improve. At the moment most women who are raped never tell anyone, and this thread shows why.