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.

that is precisely why this is a feminist issue.

if men inside marriages were called to account for "just sticking their penis in" and it was recognised as the formality of rape that it essentially is, then maybe women would not feel they have to lie back and let sex happen to them despite not really wanting to.

too many women seem to think that it is ok for their partner to treat them as a possession. that it is somehow their duty as a wife to allow their husband to have sex.

if each and every time something like this happened both parties were clear that a boundary had been over stepped then maybe fewer women would feel so obligated to just lay back and think of england.

I also feel it would have a knock on effect with wider society as men would evolve with a greater knowledge of real sexual equality.

Quite Gigantaur. The first man who raped me didn't think he had. Seriously, he really didn't understand why I was upset. The second man treated me like a blow up doll because he knew I wouldn't make a fuss. I think he did know actually. But if it were a really socially unacceptable thing then he may have thought otherwise. Or I may have had the guts to have shouted out.

ISNT/Proles - I think it's partly that but I think a lot of the reaction on that thread was because her daughter was in the room. I really think that if she hadn't been, the thread would have taken a very different turn

exactly.
at the moment we know that it is pointless to kick up any real fuss.
they know that it is our word against theirs. that even in very violant rapes it is difficult to reach a conviction and the process that is required to even get to a stage where a conviction is possible is so harrowing that they know we simply don't want to do it.

rapists know that they are safe as they hide behind the fear this misogynistic society has bred.

if each and every act of rape, be it the violant man in the bushes or the husband who penetrates despite being told no, if each and every time that man is hauled in front of someone and made to account for his actions or at least have his actions given the term it deserves. RAPE! then maybe we can change the views held by so many in society.

I hate that there are people who feel that simply by the act of having previously accepted or even enjoyed sex with someone somehow means you must be accepting of all future advances.
but for me to hear women airing those same views so angrily. it deeply upsets me

I didn't see the other thread. Maybe it is something to do with and idea that women can't be trusted to know their own minds, or something?

That the woman must say what happened, it is then up to external sources to decide what name to give it.

So many women come on here on the rape threads and say "xy and z happened, I'm not sure what to make of it" and when someone says "well that was rape then" there is an almost audible sigh of relief. That they haven't been imagining things, or over-reacting. That xy and z really was wrong and also not their fault.

I hope that Anchors can find some RL assistance, with this and with everything else that is going on. I understand if she doesn't want to post on here about it, which is a terrible shame.

Good luck Anchors

That was supposed to be a friendly encouraging smile, not a cheery one, sorry.

Dittany

Academic feminism has become a site of anti-feminism unfortunately.

Most of the really good theorising I see is happening online...

Not here presumably

or is available in books.

presumably not the ones written by those awful feminist academics

There aren't many universities where feminism is a political force at the moment - it's been taken over by postmodernists, liberals and unfortunately anti-feminists.

Portofino - thanks for coming back to the thread and apologising.

i dont think its helpful that how the word rape is percieved by society.
like-you cant tell people youve been raped-
because if you do-its like-youve suddenly become a second class citezen.
its like-its you in the wrong-
you end up feeling small and embarressed-for something thats not youre fault.
i find words like"rape victim"awful-
its like-being kept in one place and harder to move on[can you see what im trying to say?]
i find the words "rape surviver"also horrible-its like-i dont know-you was raped but youve survived it-but the very fact that youre being called a rape surviver somehow makes you a "tainted"person-can you see what i mean?
and what is this surviving rape?
how do you know that someone has survived it?
well apart from the fact that some people get murdered when/after being raped-
society doesnt allow people to "mend"from rape-
if because of the rape-you end up with problems like-panick attacks/eating problems/
psyc probs/drink probs/drug probs/prostitution/low esteem ect ect ect-
you are further victamised even more!
what about the people who have been raped but they spend the rest of their lives just putting on a front cos they know/frightened
that society is telling them to "get over it"!
is this surviving?
im sorry-i dont want to upset anyone or start a argument-or offend anyone.
we re not much further now than we was x years ago.

marantha - you might find the Stern review into reporting rape will explain why many of the views on this thread are different to your views.

You asked about "believing". This extract from the report is good:

Many victims and organisations who work with victims told us what they wanted from the system. To see the person who had harmed them convicted of a crime was, for many, a very worthwhile outcome. But almost all of those we spoke to told us they wanted more than that. They wanted to be treated well throughout the process, to be listened to, to be believed, to be kept informed. ?It is probably more a need for complaints to be taken seriously than a punishment result,? we were told. ?A conviction is less important than the treatment of the victim overall. Survivors of rape say that if they are treated with respect and dignity they ?can cope with an acquittal?.? Victims wanted to know that their experience had been understood and its effects acknowledged. They expected that the professionals who dealt with them would also be knowledgeable and informed. They wanted some recognition of what had happened to them, and if the case was unable to proceed because of problems with the evidence, they wanted to know that the fact they had reported it would be helpful in some way, maybe to other victims. A conviction did not loom as large for many of them as these other matters of proper treatment.

Just because you believe someone (without "evidence" in the court setting sense) does not mean you are somehow convicting a man of rape and sentencing that man.

Right - I am going to try to set out why I think that believing a rape victim is of paramount importance and why the prevailing attitude in this country led to a serious failure by the Met.

I'm not sure if you are aware of the John Warboys rape case?

Here is the IPC report into it from which I quote below.

In February 2008, John Worboys, the driver of a London black cab, was arrested and
subsequently charged with a large number of serious sexual offences.

His modus operandi was to tell lone female passengers that he had either won a lot of
money on the casino or lottery and invite the passenger to join him in celebrating his
good fortune. Worboys would often show the passenger a bag of money which he stated
contained up to £80,000.

Worboys would then offer the passenger a glass of champagne, which had been previously mixed with substances and this would very quickly render the passenger unconscious. On some occasions he would also offer the passenger a tablet to take at the same time as they were offered the drink. Worboys would then subject them to a sexual assault.

A Detective Constable became the officer in charge of this case on 29 July 2007. His
first entry on the crime report made on 30 July 2007 includes the following statement:
?The victim cannot remember anything past getting in the cab, it would seem unlikely that a cab driver would have alcohol in his vehicle let alone drug substances?.

This appears to be indicative of a mindset that had already been formed ? that a black
cab driver would not commit such an offence.

This mindset would have meant that the
cab driver, rather than the victim, had been believed, and would inevitably have damaged
the victim?s confidence in the police handling of her allegation.

ISNT You know where I'm coming from, I'm glad you do cause I'm not to certain myself .

How can I explain it, not sure I can really.

It's as if I see rape as being something that has to be decided by a court by a jury in a trial setting.

BUT see a man putting his penis inside a woman without her consent and knowing this to be the case as wrong (always).

But that is not the case Marantha.

if i stab you then you have been stabbed. it will need an investigation and a court and a judge and probably jury to decide if i should be convicted of that stabbing, but either way you have been stabbed.

he put his penis inside her without consent and so she was raped.
whether or not she chooses to go down teh route of criminal charges o not does not negate the act of rape.

sparky - I don't think you will upset anyone or start an argument or offend anyone.

You always say in your posts: "can you see whay I am trying to say"?

Yes sparky I can - your posts are like a kind of poetry (seriously)

I see what you are saying about "rape victim" and "rape survivor" IIRC there was a thread about thie recently and I am sure many were in agreement with what you are saying.

Many preferred "person who has been raped" as the PERSON is special, individual and not to be defined by their experience.

agree entirely sparky.
i also dislike domestic abuse survivor for similar reasons.

Sorry for the offence caused by using Rape Survivor.. Sparky and others.

sparky - that is a beautiful post and says exactly what I feel :)

i couldnt even read this whole thread because it made me so mad, marantha or whatever your name is you obviously havent got a bloody clue what you are talking about and need to seriously need to listen to yourself. gianteur love ya always

Great post sparky.

Re "rape victim" "rape survivor"- I know that a lot of people have real problems with those phrases and can very much understand why.

Rape needs to be demystified. People need to talk about it, women need to talk about it, then it will become clear how common it is, it will become clear that it is not just "stranger rape" that "counts".

It will also become clear that ordinary men can be rapists, and rapists can be ordinary men, that they're not a kind of armed hooded bogeyman.

It will become clear that a seemingly traumatic rape might be "got over" surprisingly easily, that a seemingly less traumatic rape might leave the woman in tatters for the rest of her life. That you can't as an external onlooker judge how someone should feel, react, how long they should take to "get over it" and so on.

Only when people start talking about it will we start to get anywhere. This thread here - there will be some women reading who have husbands who do things that they are not comfortable with - reading what has happened here might help them think "no - when he does that it is wrong" - and that validation can be a big help.

Sorry I'm starting to ramble.

Gigantaur OK, what you're saying here is that if a man has sex with a woman against her will it is rape? If so, in agreement with you.

Regardless of whether or not it goes to court and is labelled as such. Yes, OK, I understand that.

MrDrOwenHunt well I recommend you do read the whole thread because you shouldn't make judgements on a few bits of it. It evolves, people evolve, people change their minds.