It surprised me that no one has commented on this yet. It may be that everyone is asleep.

Or it may be that it's so wretched that everyone is struck dumb with silence. Or that it's so obvious that it's hard to craft a suitable reply.

M'yeah... Digg's commenters are intensely stupid on cultural issues. I've discovered that about 90% of them are high school guys with nothing to do all day but "debate" on the internet.

And then I stopped visiting the site altogether when creator Kevin Rose mocked the "male pill" story because, after all, "we" already have a pill that works. That is, it works so long as women accept the burden of taking it for Kevin's sake.

Classy.

somebody said: "The sex was obviously non-consensual. Rape is rape, no matter whether you're married or not."

another person replied to this by saying: "I doubt she said no. "

sick.

One commenter:

If my wife was taking pics of me, while I was asleep, and she was having sex with me.... I would be so god damn turned on, you have no idea. Call it, an Xmas present or something for those 'lonely days'. Although, the wine-bottles shoved in my anus would probably instigate a police call.

Translated:

"Penetrative sex is violation; all other sex validates my manhood. Violate the underclass all you want, but if you womanize me by entering me I'll report you to the patriarchy."

I've been reading this site for months and finally decided to weigh in.

I could barely get through most of the comments (though I do note there are a few positive ones in favor of the doctor being put in prison). I'm glad that woman was brave to immediately call the police on such a vile man.

The Digg comment thread reminds me of the "discussions" at yahoo.com. Recently, I was so glad to see they'd disabled the Discussion option because it seemed most of the comments were racist/sexist/rude drivel.

Megan, the same comment made me cringe. True, she didn't say no. But she sure as hell didn't say yes, either. Someone really needs to pound this fact into guys' heads - If you do not get an explicit yes, then the sex is non-consentual.

I find this beyond appalling. How that beast could even begin to think he could do that is beyond me. I feel so horrible for this woman.

The fact that he was a doctor makes it all the worse...how many other doctors are abusing their access to drugs to take advantage of others?

The comment "i doubt she said no" was the one that stuck out for me too - likely because it was near the top, and i was unable to keep reading down the list w/o my blood pressure rising to dangerous levels.

what is with this sense of entitlement exhibited by so many of those commenters? argh!

I've grown to hate whoever came up with "no means no." Nice and catchy, isn't it? Has managed to make men completely ignorant of what consent actually MEANS, hasn't it?

I said this in another thread. The word consent does not mean "absence of no." The word "consent" means YES.

I'm afraid to go over there. I've been depressed lately.

Ugh.
If you're depressed, prairielily, you're making the right call. I was having a damn fine day, and I kind of feel like thowing up. What a vile story, and the comments are beyond belief.

"And.. why did she marry him? It kinda goes hand in hand that married individuals have sex.."

I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware that being married included an "it's okay to rape me in my sleep" clause. Unbelievable.

And it takes all of half a page to turn into slut-shaming and bitching about child support.
*sigh*

ohhh what a jerk. Although I think one person had it right when they said obviously, this guy was torturing her outside of this incident. I dont this this one popped out of the blue, as in, my husband is such a nice, normal man and then oh, gee hes raping me with wine bottles in my sleep.

and i think whoever said its just high school boys is probably right, i wouldnt let it ruin your day. half the people are probably just kidding anyway bc they dont really understand the seriousness of the situation.

i think some of you might be taking the comments a little too seriously. for example, especially, "I doubt she said no." It is obviously a joke (in the same vein as "I hope he force-fed her dinner first"). I don't think it's a very funny joke, and I don't really think jokes about rape can be funny to begin with, but from what I read of those comments, most people there probably agree that this is a hideous crime.

except for the few that obviously don't, like "And.. why did she marry him? It kinda goes hand in hand that married individuals have sex.."

the one that bothered me the most was:

"If my wife was taking pics of me, while I was asleep, and she was having sex with me.... I would be so god damn turned on, you have no idea. Call it, an Xmas present or something for those 'lonely days'. Although, the wine-bottles shoved in my anus would probably instigate a police call."

I don't even know what to say to men who have such a total lack of understanding of what sexual assault is that they think it's something sexy that could happen to spice up their lives a bit.

I took something different from the article. This rapist weirdo husband was arrested, tried and sentenced to ten years in prison! That is incredible progress. There will always be horrible creeps who do bad things, and there will always be idiotic juvenile posters, to whom imo feministing sometimes pays too much attention. But the collective judgment of society is expressed in its laws and the carrying out of the laws. Australia has decided that marital rape is a serious crime. The judge didn't say, well, you're a doctor/ this is marriage/boys will be boys. She didn't buy his tale of mutual perversity, she didn't shame the wife--she believed the wife and she punished the perpetrator.That's the big picture here.

somecat--I'm with you!

" "I have no confidence that you were telling the truth when you gave evidence," Judge Shaw said, describing his behaviour as predatory."

Cheers to the wife for calling the police pronto, cheers to the judge for not beleiving any of his weak, manipulative drivel.

Have been reading this site for a few months now and it always brings me some news I haven't found elsewhere, so thank you feministers.

This is exactly why I stopped reading sites like Fark and Digg. There's pretty much no maturity in the forums. You can't express a female-positive notion without a bunch of them being like "OMG what about MENS RIGHTS!!!one11"

You know, I used to date a guy like this. He told me how he would touch me in my sleep and that I really liked it. I was younger at the time and a little confused, but now that I think about it, I'm surprised that I stayed with him as long as I did. In the end, he admitted he made it all up (I know...WTF! He apparently made up stuff all the time.), but by that point I had already forbidden him from touching me in any manner, given that he'd boyfriend-raped me on multiple occasions (you know, where the girl doesn't really want to, but the guy begs and begs and won't let you sleep until you let him "do his thing", so the girl just kind of lays back and gives up? It's just a term I've coined for my own experience.)

A couple years later, and a therapist later, I'm much better. I like to think of him as a "learning experience", although I'd prefer to forget him altogether.

This is my personal favorite:

"It seems like in the US today women get to choose:

exactly when and how to have sex (or it's rape)
what type of birth control to use (the guy has no say)
whether or not to have an abortion if she gets pregnant (the guy has no say)."

Wow, I totally agree! (By the way, this guy's screenname is "nixonrichard" so that was a pretty good indicator right there)

teddy10:

Yeah and a few comments below that someone replied "That may be the most intelligent thing I've heard on this board" or something. Ugh.

Digg is the most inane web site on the internet. It sucks because it's a great concept -- the people decide what's important and newsworthy. Unfortunately, "the people" who use digg are generally white, racist, misogynists. Check out their video podcast -- "Diggnation." It's a couple of wannabe fratboys drinking beer joking about girls and minorities, interspersed with the most popular video game websites and whatever.

Digg is often heralded as a success story of the power of Internet 2.0 or whatever. It's the most exclusionary community possible, though. Even look at their story categories -- Sports, Technology, and Gaming make up 50% of their userbase. Don't these people realize that they will never be a mainstream success marginalizing people who aren't already in power? Look at the new Internet success stories -- Google, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr. None of these sites really had any new technology to offer, but all of these sites are welcoming to all genders, races, and social classes. The founders became insanely wealthy because of their tolerance.

I'm sorely tempted to post an extremely snarky response to the idiot who posted the "I doubt she said no." comment. Something like...

Here's a list of other things that won't say "no"
(and that it's therefore, by your logic, a-okay to f*ck):
1) Apple Pies
2) Robots & Machines
3) Animals
4) Corpses
5) People in comas
6) Infants & Children under 2 years of age

Just remember these 3 simple truths:
"Yes" to one thing = "yes" to everything.
Absence of "no" = "yes"
If they don't say "no," anything goes!
[/sarcasm]

boyfriend-rape? interesting. If thats the case that has happened to me alot but I am not sure I would call it rape. I def didnt need therapy for it. It's an interesting concept though i suppose, although perhaps one with a far too slippery slope.

katie:

It's just the word that I use to describe my experience. I was really conflicted for a while because I never said "no" but I didn't really consent either. I mean, I told him "no" like twenty times before he would start, but then I'd just give up pretty much. Not "rape" in a typical sense, but it describes how violated I felt.

"boyfriend-rape": It depends. A guy nagging you endlessly for sex is not a rapist, in general. But sleep deprivation *is* a coercion tactic used to get people to agree to do what you want.

My husband has nagged me for sex while I'm trying to sleep, and I've given in so I don't have to hear the whining, but I don't consider that rape any more than I consider it theft when my kids whine for cookies until I give in. However, if he kept waking me from my sleep over and over to beg for sex, that would be a coercion tactic, not a persuasion tactic, and then it would be rape. Personally I am far more traumatized when he brings up some bullshit reason to have an argument while I'm trying to sleep than if he whines for sex; calling my giving in to shut him up him raping me seems to both trivialize rape and to disrespect my volition (I *could* choose to put up with the whining, just like I *could* hold my ground and not give my kid a cookie.) But whining at someone who is trying to fall asleep is not the same as repeatedly waking someone who *is* asleep; one's just obnoxious, the other is plainly crossing a line.

It's amzing what rocks people crawl out from under on the Internet. The idea one poster expressed that this guy had to rape his wife anally with wine bottles because she wouldn't put out in the marital bed was as horrifying as the presumption of ownership (I mean, who jumps from "he's sexually frustrated" to "he has to stick wine bottles up his wife's anus?" That's so clearly *not* an orgasm-inducing sex act that it's obvious it's a rape-power thing, and it wouldn't have mattered if she was Maribel Morgan's Total Woman, saran wrap lingerie and all.) You gotta wonder, if these guys heard that a wife was sticking wine bottles up her drugged husband's ass and photographing it for sexual kicks, would they be as nearly sympathetic as they are to this rapist? I mean, wine bottles are accessible to women and men have anuses too, so it's perfectly plausible to imagine a woman doing this to a man; would they find it nearly as plausible that he wanted it or that she had the right to do it?

yeah i wouldnt say i felt violated, just annoyed. no moreso then if i was nagged for anything else by anyone else.

My definition of sexual assault (from WCASA, I think) is "any unwanted sexual attention or sexual contact committed by force, manipulation, or violence. Sexual assault is a crime of violence, anger, and power, not sexual desire. Rape is the enforcement of domination and control. In our culture, sexualized violence, sexual violence, and violence-by-sex are so common that it should be considered normal. Normal: an expression of the sexual norms of the culture, not the violation of those norms. Men rape because they feel that they have a right to rape and will get away with it.
88% of men who reported an assault that met the legal definition of rape were adamant that they had not raped.
47% of them said they expected to engage in a similar assault in the future.

Surely everyone remembers this story about Dr. David Hager doing almost exactly the same thing with his (now-ex-) wife.

Ugh. I still feel violated every time I think about my ex. I remember often I would just turn over and cry when he was done. And he honestly had no idea why.

It wasn't just me having to put up with his nagging. It was the fact that I was just treated as an accessory to masturbation. Ever seen a Fleshlight? That's pretty much what I was to him. If I didn't comply, he thought it was pretty darn inconvenient of me to ask him to go to another room if he wanted to get off, and often he just did it right next to me while I was trying to sleep. One time, he made me shower with him because I lost a bet. I had to start locking the bathroom because otherwise he would sneak in and watch me and it freaked me out. Ugh. He always acted like he had a right to touch me whenever he wanted to just because I had let him touch me before.

Maybe a better term to use is sexual violation (although to me, that's what rape is). The point was that he was not a rapist by normal definitions, but because I was his girlfriend, he thought that he was entitled to certain rights when it came to my body and his "needs". That's why I say boyfriend-rape.

What a complete freak of a man. Hopefully, he will be locked away for a very long time.

I'm also kind of stunned that sleeping medication is so strong you could sleep through that. ^^;;

I used to take sleeping pills, and one time I slept through my alarm BLASTING rock about four inches from my head for 45 minutes. It was so loud that the girl in the room next door eventually came in and turned it off because she couldn't study and it was giving her a headache.

So yes, I can definitely imagine the medication being that strong.

MAry B - that is horrible. I'm so sorry you had to go through something like that, and I'm glad he is now your ex.

What you describe sounds like sexual assault to me, in fact, several of the comments on this thread sound like they are describing sexual violation.

Without trying to sound like the women's self-defence instructor, remember at all times you don't owe anyone sex.

If you don't feel like sex, then there shouldn't be any sex. Even if you're married, live together, whatever.

That's my public service anouncement for today!

re: boyfriend rape. Mary, I was once in a similar situation.

I was in a FWB relationship with this guy and wanted to end it. I just wasn't that interested with him any more, and decided that anyone who was going to put the sorts of claim on my time that he was was going to have to date me. I tried to end it on the phone but after a long drawn out conversation, he convinced me to go over to his place because he wanted to resolve the matter face-to-face. So I stupidly got in a cab and went.

Not long after I began explaining why I wanted to end it, he started groping me. Everytime I told him to stop, because it's awfully difficult to speak one's mind with an unwanted hand in one's bra, he would stop, then start up again a little later. He was trying to convince me that we could do the dating thing, despite me arguing that I didn't believe he would follow through.

It grew to be very late and I had to work the next day. All I wanted was to go to sleep. He promised me that if I stayed over he would let me sleep and not touch me. I stupidly believed. He continued to bother me, groping me every few minutes, trying to undress me, for over an hour, with me saying "no, i want to sleep" every time he tried.

After awhile I didn't see an alternative. I stopped pushing him off, didn't say anything, and let him have his way. I cried during and after, which he completely ignored. As I left the next morning, he had the gall to suggest I give him a call sometime so we could go out on a date.

For awhile afterwards I felt violated; I was disgusted at myself for being weak and giving in. It was many, many months before the possibility that it was rape crossed my mind. I had thought that while I had never said yes, I had stopped saying no and stopped fighting him off, so it wasn't rape.

I still don't know how to define what happened to me. What I do know is that what he was doing was more than just whining for sex. It still upsets me enough that my hands shake as I'm typing this. It still shames me enough that this is the first time I've ever spoken of it. Perhaps it's not rape, but it's certainly sexual assault.

plenilune, you are a brave person.

I hope it helps to tell that story.

You are certainly justified in feeling angry/sad/hurt.

It sounds like you had sex with someone when you didn't want to, and they knew you didn't want to. That sounds like rape to me.

You are not at fault here.

Sometimes the fact that someone know their attacker, that there was no violent coercion, there was no dark alley/stranger/knife/gun stops them from seeing unwanted sex as rape. Anytime you don't want sex, and sex occurs, there has been a crime committed.

Thank you for being strong enough to tell your story.

MaryB, katie, plenilune - Thanks for talking about this. This is one of the reasons that conversations about "rape" get so...weird. The word could describe so many things. For instance, I know the ex who entered me in my sleep, w/o permission, who wasn't supposed to be there, raped me. But what about all the times I gave in because a) I was afraid I'd get hurt if I didn't 2) I was made to feel like I "owed" it 3) it was easier than dealing w/ the alternative? MaryB's ex sounds like an abusive f*cker. Whatever else we may want to calll his actions, he had manipulative reduction of another human down. I've been there. It's been some years, but I carry it w/ me. God knows, I want the power dynamic that leads down that path to GO AWAY....

However, if he kept waking me from my sleep over and over to beg for sex, that would be a coercion tactic, not a persuasion tactic, and then it would be rape.

i wouldnt say i felt violated, just annoyed.

Thanks everyone for clearing this up for me. Force is rape not persuasion and seduction.

Just wanted to chime in that, yes, it seems like the women describing "boyfriend rapes� are indeed talking about sexual assault. I think it is remarkably brave that these women are able to face what happened to them and see the reality of sexual violence, despite the fact that people on this blog have disparaged the way they have identified their experiences.

I think if the numbers of us who have been raped via verbal humiliation or taunting or verbal coercion admitted publicly or even to ourselves that we were indeed raped then we'd have to admit there was a much bigger problem than we care to face—perhaps.

I have had sex with my husband when I didn’t want to and knew that was not rape; and a boyfriend has also raped me that I weakly said no to and then gave up because of verbal coercion. Even though there is not an easy answer for holding perpetrators accountable for this or likely much legal recourse to follow currently, the least we can do is respect and believe in the truth of our experiences and those experiences that people share with us.

I'm surprised but I also am not that so many of us have had experiences where we were "gave in" to sex with our boyfriends/husbands. I also had many of these experiences with both boyfriends and with people I thought were my friends. I think its important to include the fact that if you do say yes but don't want it and its clear that you didn't want it (like many of the stories say no countless times) should be classified as rape or sexual assault/violation. Even if you're situation fits the guidelines you can make the decision whether or not you will get the help and justice you want or if you don't think it was then that would be your choice.

It seems like in the US today women get to choose:

exactly when and how to have sex (or it's rape)
what type of birth control to use (the guy has no say)
whether or not to have an abortion if she gets pregnant (the guy has no say).

He's right. Women can always choose when to have sex. Men can't say no; if they do, women use their magical powers to coerce them to have sex with them anyway.

That was great Alon! Great snarky/sarcastic reply. I am under the impression that you are male, so I doubly appreciate your irritation at the comment.

The myth of women's magical powers seems funny, but so many people buy into it, and it's damaging to all.

Yeah, I am male... and I have serious trouble settling the dissonance between comments like the ones the MRAs are making here and the fact that the human race is supposed to be intelligent.

Re: boyfriend rapes

I think the hardest part for me to deal with during our relationship was the fact that we got along great during the day. He was nice, sweet, took me places, etc. In fact, we used to be best friends. But then once it got dark, he would change into some sort of sexual animal with "needs". And every time I said no, he just made me feel so guilty. But when I'd give in, I would feel so awful afterwards and during. I mean, the thought of this foreign thing inside of you....ugh.

When we first started going out, I was 17, and he was 27 (and when we first met, I was 15). His age and experience were two pretty powerful things. Sometimes I still blame myself for what happened, because I am a pretty strong young woman most of the time, and I let this go on for more than two years. Anyway, finally figuring out what he did to me was rape lifted a burden of blame off of me.

i think some of you might be taking the comments a little too seriously. for example, especially, "I doubt she said no." It is obviously a joke (in the same vein as "I hope he force-fed her dinner first"). I don't think it's a very funny joke, and I don't really think jokes about rape can be funny to begin with, but from what I read of those comments, most people there probably agree that this is a hideous crime.

I recognize that many of the comments there are supposed to be jokes, but they're the sort of jokes that suggest, to me, that they don't think that it's that serious. Call me crazy, but I don't think it's okay to crack jokes about the fact that this woman was violently raped by her husband while she slept. I don't think it's funny or appropriate to laugh at or joke about it when, say, a kid is murdered, or when someone finds out that her mother has cancer, and I don't think it's funny to joke about a woman who was raped by saying things like "pictures?" It's disgusting, quite frankly.

I'm a first time poster and I just wanted to point out the bravery of those who have posted their stories of sexual assault.

It's really strange to me, but until just now, reading these comments, I never thought of one of my past experiences as rape. My high school boyfriend used to be physically violent with me. I lived in a very small town, in a very sheltered community and never thought of it as abuse because he would never hit me with a balled fist. A few times he slapped me hard enough to leave a mark on my face, but mainly he would either just grab my shoulders and shake me or push me around.

Once when he was fingering me vaginally, he put his fingers in me anally really forcefully. I didn't tell him no because I was afraid. I tried to back away from him, but he cornered me in the truck cab and I was really scared. I bled the next day and was afraid he might have hurt me permenantly.

I really don't know why I'm sharing this now. It seems kind of odd to write something on a website that I've never told anyone else, but I just got really emotional reading some of the comments on Digg's and had to post something.

Alon - help out an old lady - what is MRA? Men's rights advocates? I didn't see that on this thread...

andrea - for what it's worth, I hate to admit it but I didn't realize that my ex raped ME until another man said so (he stopped when I woke up and started yelling at him, we'd been together all ready, he must have been confused...on & on, because I had the idea that the word "rape" applied to ONE set of circumstances when it is one word used for MANY things). I also had a BF that never "hit" me...but tossed me around, shoved me. I often felt guilty about how I used to be so weak, even though no one ever SAW me as weak. I thought I was the only one. I am glad to know I am not alone but so sorry that this STILL happens. I PROMISE to raise my son to respect all PEOPLE and respect boundaries.

tink:

Thanks for sharing your story. I think it's important that more women recognize that rape is not just when you verbally say "no", and it's not just when a stranger jumps out of a bush, and it's not always a physically violent attack. There are men that think they have the right to violate a woman whenever they want, simply because they are in a relationship with her (I think I even saw a comment on the Digg website about how a woman's vagina was a "man's plaything" once they got married...uuugh).

It took me at least a year after I ended my relationship to call what I went through "rape", and before that point I was so confused because I knew I had been violated in some way, but I had so much guilt because it felt like it was something that I could have prevented, and I didn't.

Definitely want to give my agreement and support to those of you who've posted about the "boyfriend-rape"...one thing to remember, is that since rape is coercion, "giving up" as a result of coercion *is* still rape, imo. Having unwanted sex to avoid someone depriving me of sleep or safety is just a less extreme version of unwanted sex to avoid someone stabbing me with a knife. Both cases are, technically, choosing sex over something else the person could have inflicted on me. (In fact this is one reason women used to be publicly blamed for rape--they chose to have sex instead of die defending their "purity".) Of course I'd rather the second one be more serious from a legal standpoint; there really should be degrees of rape based on the coercion method used.

Inky -

I honestly wish we had more varied language available. And that all the acts we now lump under the word "rape" be considered, at minimum, socially unconscionable. It's funny, the one guy I really DEFENDED myself against was one that would not let me SLEEP. Punched HIM in the stomach, heh. I loves my sleep.

Seriously though, the only answer I have been able to come up w/ for "how do we change this" is to make a full-on commitment around son-rearing. Anyone have other ideas? Ones that won't take 20 years to manifest fully?

And I seriously don't know what an MRA is.

tink:

MRA = Men's Rights Advocates...I think.

I think it's a great idea to start change by setting our sons straight, not only by telling them but by letting them see by example. Also, it's important for fathers to do the same thing, since same-sex parents tend to be the more influential role models.

To address this sort of sexual violence, which clearly happens to many, many women, we can also speak out about our experiences in terms of being violated and dehumanized and the effects that those experiences had on our lives. I tend to be outspoken-- I've even told my boss and other people at work that I'm a rape survivor. The more we commit ourselves to speaking out about the truth of our experiences, the stigma for all women will naturally be reduced or at least challenged.

And lovelies like Alon, who refuse to admit that women have a right to their own bodily integrity, will eventually fade into dust...

Wait -- tracked back and it looks like Alon Levy was being
sarcastic when he alluded to "women's magical powers"?
this is the problem with humor and blogs, emails...anyway, sorry if you were being sarcastic earlier-- if not, I refer you to my previous comment.

I'd like to clear up something I said in the light of other people's comments.

If a person is fondling you against your will, and you say "no", and they still do it, that's a violation. If it leads to them having sex with you and you told them "no", it's rape.

If a person is intentionally depriving you of sleep in order to demand sex, it's rape.

If a person is physically threatening to you in any way, it's rape.

But if they're lying next to you in bed, not touching you, and going on and on about how it's going to be so *hard* for them to get to sleep tonight because they're *so tense* and they *just wish* you'd be willing to do something to help them with it because they're going to be *so tired* tomorrow if they can't sleep and blah blah blah... they are not raping you. They are whining. They are being really frickin' annoying. But if you decide to have sex with a person doing this because it is the quickest way to shut him the hell up, you were not raped.

If you were afraid that if you didn't agree to have sex, he might hit you, you were raped. But if you were just irritated and gave in the way you would give in to whining for a cookie, that is not rape.

I would definitely call what happened to plenilune rape. The difference between the guy who assaulted her and the situation I'm thinking of is that my husband doesn't touch me without my permission. If he wants to lay in bed whining about how he can't sleep and how he wishes he could have sex with me, I consider that an obnoxious attempt at persuasion, not coercion, because I *can* say no and enforce it.

On the other hand, he has been known to either wake me, or prevent me from sleeping, because he wants to have a stupid argument. *That* I consider borderline abusive. Screaming at someone who is trying to sleep because they did not go to the gym today like they promised is unacceptable no matter how many times they've promised they'll go to the gym and then not done it. I find when he pulls this kind of stunt to be seriously upsetting and traumatic, whereas the whining for sex is more like dealing with my two-year-old. Yeah, whatever, dude, here's your cookie, now be quiet. I'm not afraid, and I think fear is a necessary part of coercion -- if you're perfectly certain that you *can* say no, and you can enforce it, and all that will happen is you will have to put up with annoying noise, and you're not afraid but you just don't feel like being annoyed, then you were not raped.

So I don't want to make people think I am saying that physical force is required to commit rape or that if you ever said yes, you were not raped. I am saying that there *is* a difference between giving in because you are afraid, or because you are being fondled against your will and you can't get them to stop, or because they are deliberately keeping you awake, and giving in because it is less annoying to do so. Sometimes in a relationship we do things we don't feel like doing because it will make a partner happy, or because it will make them shut up, and if that thing is sex I don't think it automatically equates to marital rape. It depends on the situation. I'm a lot more willing to consider something rape if the woman felt threatened or frightened or overwhelmed or despairing than if she was just annoyed.

I don't believe in the existence of magic, Brightapplsword. Except, of course, the magical ability of women to control the world and make everyone believe that men do. When you manage to have hardly any representation among world leaders and still control the world, there must be some magic involved in there.

And Tink, an MRA is indeed a men's rights activist. There aren't any here, but the comments on the thread Samhita links to are filled with them, apparently.

Good god. The article was disgusting: especially since it's over here (I'm a NZer) and not in the US. Those comments aren't even worth commenting on by now.

What has made me feel kind of unwell and teary is reading the stories on here.

I think Alara made a good distinction. It's hard to define, but it's definite.

I told someone on another forum I did not think she was raped. I felt awful, and said that this was based on a very incomplete account. Also that it was clearly abusive. But she described it as her agreeing. Her saying yes. She didn't mean it, he knew she didn't mean it. It was disgusting and abusive but I think using the word rape erodes a concept that it's hard to defend even when it's a virgin dressed conservatively raped violently in the middle of the day.

Plenilune, do not feel bad your hands were shaking. MY hands ARE shaking.

I am just overwhelmed by the number of people who feel they were... passive-aggressively raped? It revolts me and reinforces my feeling of unfairness when people try and argue statistics with me.

This is a really interesting thread. First, I want to say to Mary B and others that I'm really sorry that you had to deal with that shit and I'm glad that you've also had the courage to get counsling, heal, and speak out.
I've realized that I may have never clearly defined rape to myself. Which is quite strange because I've had to deal with it in the past.
When I was 12 I went to a college party and was pushed into a dark room and raped by a stranger. I never told anyone until many years later.
When I was 15, I fell crazy in love with a fucking sociopath! This guy used my trust and love to manipulate me until I was completely submisive, quite a feat considering that generally I was quite an opinionated and even defiant person. So he repeatedly used my feelings to extort unprotected sex. He was just so fucking cruel. (and of course cheating on me with multiple people! I am so lucky not to have any STD's). By the time I got to college, I can say that he was definetly raping me. He would climb in my bedroom window at night and I awake to him on top of me. I broke up with him and It continued to happen. So I finally took action, by bribing him with money and a one way airplane ticket to leave the state. I should have called the cops!
Now this has taken years of therapy and I'm still not as confident as I would like to be.
At any rate, I've just described three situations where I was coerced into sex. The first and the last I do not hesitate to call rape. But what about the second, the situation in which I willingly gave into sex, not because i wanted it, but because I was afraid of "loosing him" or hurting him or because I didn't deserve to refuse? Absolutely that was emotinal abuse. But was it rape? I don't know! I'd like to know what other people think. The only hesitation I have to calling it rape is that Its already so hard to prosecute rapists and in such a situation it would be much more difficult.
One more thing: I am so uncomfortable relating all this information for the world to read. Sad, I know.

"One more thing: I am so uncomfortable relating all this information for the world to read. Sad, I know."

Not sad. I haven't been raped, or sexually abused. But I have had an awareness of rape and sexual violence from well before I understood sex.

When I was about 8 a man called from a payphone and asked me to touch myself. I did it.

When my mother came home I lied about giving my name because I was ashamed about having forgotten all my sex-education.

I totally blocked it out until I was about 16, when I realised it probably contributes to my discomfort with my body.

It makes me feel unwell sharing these things.

I had dreams about being raped, sometimes by my father, for years. Sometimes I enjoyed it. This is something I find almost physically impossible to say out loud. I feel dirty and revolted.

tankerton,
What you talk about is why I wish we had more words for these acts. I would agree that there is a difference between giving in out of fear or subjugation vs. giving in out of annoyance. But then we don't always realize that we have a right not be treated like this because we don't think what's happening to us is rape!

AND - while I know what Alara is talking about, what about those moments of "yeh well, whatever, here you go" that happened because one has been so sexually subjugated or indoctrinated that an alternative doesn't even come to mind, even though there is no fear? I would love to see a word for THAT that indicates it's a bad thing - one that suggests it's wrong to just go along because...
of the myth that sex is all boys want...because of the norm that women need to be validated by men...

....

Thanks Alon. Side bar: It's funny (and wonderful and refreshing) to argue so fiercely w/ a commenter on one thread & find the same commenter so delightful on another. I love the complexity of thinking people.

I think part of the problem is that it's such a fluid scale...if we start out with the concept that sex *isn't* rape if you could have said no without the other person harming you in some way, then the whole thing rests on what counts as "harm". Obviously death or injury count, and sleep deprivation count, and most of us would say that mild annoyance doesn't. Where do we draw the line, especially in cases of long-term emotional manipulation? If someone has intentionally worn someone else down psychologically, with the purpose of making them so dependent that the abuser's criticism or frustration is unbearable, then that's a totally different situation than criticizing or being frustrated with someone with whom you have a healthy relationship. I would say in that case the abuse beforehand was a precursor or primer to the eventual rape, and that the coercion is just as real even though it took place over a long period of time. That's just my view though, and I can see reasoning for the opposite side as well.

To Mary B and others on here, thank you so much for sharing your stories. It means so much to hear other women's experiences of what many people see as a "gray area" (or just plain not an area) of sexual abuse. I had a similar experience with one of my first boyfriends in college. We had just started dating and in all our time alone together he would always be pressuring me.

He would just tire me out emotionally and physically. Deep inside I was so skeeved out by the way he touched me and treated me, but I just got so tired of fighting for what I wanted (or in this case, didn't want) that I finally just let him do what he wanted. I guess I should be grateful that for whatever reason my virginity must have scared him off from "closing the deal" but what he did do hurt something so deep inside that it took me a long time just to find an outlet for it. I remember I became so physically ill that it hurt just to walk for days and at first I didn't even understand that the two events were related. The pains didn't go away until I finally told someone what happened--I know it can be hard to believe, but I shit you not, my body held me hostage until I let some of that hurt and confusion out.

Anyway, I didn't mean to write this much, but to make a long story shorter, I lost pretty much all the friends I had at the time after I confided in them about it. They really just didn't want to hear that about someone they also called a friend (my boyfriend was from our circle). I didn't foresee that at all. I guess you could say this was one of my feminist "awakening" experiences. I went through a deep depression and had to go through the work of putting together an all new support system, but I also got so much stronger. I know firsthand how awful it is to live with this violation that is killing you inside but be afraid to trust people enough to speak out about it when it doesn't fit most people's definition of sexual abuse. It is absolutely reprehensible to minimalize someone's pain because what they went through may not be a prosecutable offense. The emotional and physical effects of violation on those who have been violated don't work within legal standards.