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.

Im not sure what term i would be comfortable with , its difficult. Im way past feeling ashamed, why the fuck should i ? I didnt realise this until a recent experience.

An aquaintance i know i suffering abusive treatment ( including sexually ) spoke out about it and started to seperate from her husband. She wasnt beleived on the basis that ,,

Her husband was a nice guy, all his family and freinds said so.
If it was that bad why didnt she leave earlier
She was attention seeking and trying to turn people against him
How can a man rape his wife ?
And, he didnt " look " like a rapist.

I bumped into another aquaintance and she bagan to talk about it, expressing the above veiws. I was outraged and challenged this. I also asked whether my ex husband " looked like a rapist " and whether i looked like a victim.

She was uncomfortable , but funnily enough, i wasnt, im not a pervert or a rapist.

Gigantaur Isn't the issue, being stabbed is fairly unequivocal. For rape, you need to demonstrate that a reasonable person would have understood that the sex was not consensual - now that is is open to interpretation - and what people have been arguing about for the last 24 hours..

Dittany I'm perplexed by your hostility towards academic feminists. I finished my PhD over a decade ago - but I always found most of the academic feminists I met bright, able and interesting - and open to other women's views - regardless of their academic leanings. Incidentally, I don't have a PhD in feminism - I actually have a PhD in a social science, but I used a feminist framework to construct a critique, and was well read, especially around science and technology and space.

I wouldn't have thought you need a penis to commit a rape - I'm sure a man can rape someone with his hand/a bottle or whatever - so I have to confess, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I quite like Catherine Mackinnon - especially found her idea that testimony about sexual abuse is pornography staring the victim as very powerful. But come on... there are lots and lots of good feminist writers out there.... you need to get out more I think.

thankyou.
yep-a person should be seen as a person not be defined by their experiance-
unfortunatly a lot of society dont see this.

yep-domestic abuse surviver is equally as horribe[the words]

no no no-sleepypjs-i wasnt refering to you or anyone else on here.
i was refering to what i see in society.

id like to point out that i have great difficulty in writing posts-often when i write them-people sometimes think that im refering to them/taking a dig at them-and ive often got in trouble for this.
but when im writing posts-im thinking about what people have said-and what im thinking about what i think and how i feel society sees things.i find it very hard to keep on what one person has said-and it gets a bit mixed up-sorry.

i also find it hard to put myself across sometimes-and this might seem like im being rude or angry-im not.

i did turn up here one day very angry-but since then-this group has grown on me-
i dont always agree-but i find a lot very interesting.
i truly dont want to offend anyone or upset them-just interested in other peoples views and trying to put my views across.
sorry-going off on a tangent-ill stop now.
as ive said before-i do have a condition-
so please bare with me.
im interested in what others have got to say-
and i hope that because the way i am dont put others off of hearing me also.
we all matter.

Well everyone of those 'basis'es (not sure if that's right abbreviation) can be debunked.
Do people ever stop to consider their views may be wrong?

A man may appear nice to family and friends but treat wife like dirt.

It can take a bit of time to muster courage to leave -especially when confidence eroded by ill-treatment.

Attention seeking- hmm. Can think of better ways of getting attention.

How can a man rape his wife? It takes so little imagination to picture that he CAN!

What on earth does a rapist look like?!

marantha, but a real person in a real situation was here yesterday and you've only decided which side of the fence you're on now her husband has admitted he heard her say no. Despite her being asleep when he penetrated her.

You could have taken your debate elsewhere.

marantha I am geninely overjoyed that this thread has helped you to this position:

".. 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.."

I agree , women SHOULD talk about it, fuck being ashamed or feeling tainted , and bollocks to this shit were fed from our parents / tv / books whatever , that rapists are hooded beasts lurking in the night. And bollocks to these ideas of men need sex and if you dont keep your man happy you cant be surprised if he goes else where.

I dont know if anyone else ever feels like this , but i often feel a bit cross that i had parents who didnt teach me about boundarys, that my body was my own and no one had the right to touch me if i didnt want to, ect ect, and that my place in the world wasnt to please men all the time.

It wasnt their fault , they didnt know better themselves , they were fed the same diet of crap. Id really like to see this being taught in schools, i really would.

For what it is worth, I agree, a person should be seen as a person. But so often woman, it appears are not
I may be going off tangent, but along with the awfulness of people challenging Anchors experience, what I have found to be distressing is the scenarios put forward, of husbands needing sex, interpretation of a naked woman as somehow meaning she wants sex and lots of other awful scenarios.

I think I have somehow got tainted by thread, by having to absorb it -it has had a negative impact. Everyday sexism has psychological ramifications for all women. That is why I felt so sick.

"In one study, college students kept track for two weeks of everyday sexism, including traditional gender role stereotyping, demeaning and derogatory comments and behaviors, and sexual objectification. The women's reporting of more sexist incidents was associated with their increased anger, more depression, and lower self-esteem."

the boundaries thing can be tough

i am v adamant in not making dd kiss or cuddle anyone if she doesn't want to - i remember being a small child and you were everyone's for the touching, harmless stuff but again setting you up for boundary issues and thinking of others first

that said

we live v far from family and are visiting this year for the first time in 2 years and it is hard, especially with the v oldies not to push her to let herself be cuddled or kissed when she doesn't want to

:(

dignified - what you said to your friend - brilliant.

Agree with your last post as well.

I don't remember anyone telling me that sex was supposed to be enjoyable either, TBH.

It was all about pregnancy and STDs, from an education POV, and from friends it was all about what you'd done, not about whether you enjoyed it or not.

All very strange.

Girls are still taught that they "own" sex and it's something to give or withhold, and boys learn that sex is something they should pursue relentlessly as an end in itself, and that for some of them it will mean crossing a line.

Maybe. I haven't really thought about that before so feel free to disagree

TheButterflyEffect I am not so sure.
It's getting late but I remember reading something a while back that even confronted with hard evidence about something people wouldn't shift their opinions if it did not fit in with their mind set of how things should be.

It was a revealing piece of reading.

I interpreted it as people's mindset about a particular subject being like a stack of cards. Each card containing an idea about the subject.
And even IF one particular idea was shown absolutely to be true, it wouldn't be removed because that would mean that a person's whole view about a subject would be shown to be wrong i.e. the rest of the cards would fall.

It's late and I'm rambling.

I meant false, one idea shown to be absolutely false.

dittany, agree 100%. Anchor was consistent, reasonable and polite. It's great that people have had their own personal vision quests on this topic but a real person was treated atrociously when she was at her most vulnerable. "Oh I had had some wine", "Oh I didn't realise the man agreed he heard you said no" - pathetic. She deserves a real apology.

SGM - in Scotland the offence would be sexual assault by penetration. To my mind, a man forcibly pushing a bottle into a woman's vagina against her will would be rape. However, I'm think I'm right in saying that the penalty for rape and assualt by penetration is the same... maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know Susan but since you posted a link to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 earlier I feel you have the information you're looking for at your fingertips.

Marantha - glad you've had a rethink about this issue.

This thread has been very upsetting at times (and that's just for me, and who the fuck am I to get upset about it?) but I've learnt a hell of a lot, good and bad.

ditanny I think the reason you don't get much from talking to academic feminists is that you have a personal style that comes across as rather abrasive - I realise that's probably not your intention. I think if you took more time to step back and consider how your phrase what you want to say, you were less personally critical, and you allowed other to develop and explain their own interpretation of texts, you might find academic discussion a bit more fruitful. For example... instead of you have got that wrong - you could try "That's an interesting interpration of ..... could you tell me a little more about how you arrived at....."

I do sympathise - it's a long while since I have done any serious research, and one of the reasons I wanted out, was because I was looking for a more practical setting to work in.

TheButterflyEffect I think your latest comment was addressed to me. Sorry if wrong.
If so, it's late and to be honest don't know if we agree or not -too tired to think.
I'd like to think we agreed, though.
This thread has been a bit of a rollercoaster of sorts for me and I'd like to leave it on a goodish note not a sour one.