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Spousal Rape - Crime of Rape, or Not ?????

Can a man be criminally/legally charged with raping his wife?

  • Yes. Absolutely.

    Votes: 57 71.3%

  • No. Definitely not.

    Votes: 4 5.0%

  • Case-by-case basis. Not that black & white.

    Votes: 17 21.3%

  • Other- please explain

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Total voters
    80
Rape is rape, it doesn't matter if you're married. No means no, period.
 
How utterly insane. A marriage license does not negate a woman's right to control her own body. Husbands are not entitled to sex against their spouse's wishes.
 
Jerry said:
It's one thing to prove sex occurred, but it's another to prove that the sex was rape. How do you do that?
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It would simply come down to a matter of whether the jury believed the alleged victim (or not).
 
I wonder if the GOP has learned anything from the Akin debacle. If they are smart, they will disown Mr. Black before his hideous immorality is made national news and taints their party image.
 
rathi said:
I wonder if the GOP has learned anything from the Akin debacle. If they are smart, they will disown Mr. Black before his hideous immorality is made national news and taints their party image.
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He also called birth control "baby pesticides"
 
rathi said:
I wonder if the GOP has learned anything from the Akin debacle. If they are smart, they will disown Mr. Black before his hideous immorality is made national news and taints their party image.
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Right, because the republican image is so pristine right now ;)
 
Dragonfly said:
Yahoo!



So there it is.

Man and woman are married.

Can a man rape his wife? Can he be charged with the crime of rape? Sentenced and sent to jail?
That kind of rape.

Is there such a thing as spousal rape?

Does no mean no in a marriage?

Or is DICK Black's view reasonable and valid?
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answering the question just like you asked it:

Can a man be criminally/legally charged with raping his wife?
the only answer is yes absolutely in this country

now is all rape, rape? of course not.

statutory rape and types of what they call date rape laws need better defined. Some most certainly should not be rape in the sense of sex offender for life and yet some of it should.
 
Wow! Are Republicans this determined to become an all white, all male political party? The next Republican Convention will be a crowd of 2000 Rush Limbaugh clones.
 
"I do" does not mean "I consent at all times", that simple. Marriage is a contract, it is a partnership which brings with it all of the compromises, concessions, and yes, disagreements which sometimes involves one person not wanting to be intimate at the same time as the other. Rape is rape whether there is a marriage or not.
 
Can a husband assault his wife?
Of course, and rape is a kind of assault.
 
Bodhisattva said:
You are dancing... rape is illegal. Show where being in a marriage allows rape to be legal.
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If it's written in the contract then there it is. Are you going to go around and witness every marriage and listen to the vows? Are you going to scrutinize every pre-nup? Are you going to eavesdrop on every conversation? If a man or woman promises to rape their spouse then it's in the contract.
 
Jerry said:
At-will marriage, similar to at-will employment. While doing the job, you have duties and obligations, but you can quit any time you like. If you don't want to have sex with your spouse, then imo you should leave the marriage.


These laws are for when the couple does not agree. Remember we're talking about spousal rape, meaning one party wants sex and the other party does not. If you marry under the auspice that you would give yourselves to each-other, and then one person changes their mind, the law allows this to be grounds to terminate the marriage.
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At this point we're not talking about rape...

So any time you hear 'doesn't have sex' you assume it's intentional?

I'm thinking along the line of stuff I have experienced: 'health issues prevent arousal' and 'marital problems causing intimacy to be more difficult' and various other things. You're still leaning toward 'it's intentional' or 'it's done to hurt'.

I hope you're not really thinking that if one partner develops a health issue and is unable to perform (etc) that the other partner can declare that as a reason for divorce. See - this is what I mean by 'not having sex' isn't necessarily the same as 'withholding affection'

Two people can be going through serious issues that make sex simply not possible or likely - and still be very affectionate and loving. Vice versa.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
At this point we're not talking about rape...

So any time you hear 'doesn't have sex' you assume it's intentional?

I'm thinking along the line of stuff I have experienced: 'health issues prevent arousal' and 'marital problems causing intimacy to be more difficult' and various other things. You're still leaning toward 'it's intentional' or 'it's done to hurt'.

I hope you're not really thinking that if one partner develops a health issue and is unable to perform (etc) that the other partner can declare that as a reason for divorce. See - this is what I mean by 'not having sex' isn't necessarily the same as 'withholding affection'

Two people can be going through serious issues that make sex simply not possible or likely - and still be very affectionate and loving. Vice versa.
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I don't even know why you're thinking of medical problems. That has nothing to do with anything. This is about willful refusal.
 
Why would Virginian men demand this sort of law? Do Virginian women specifically avoid sex to the point of provoking forceful sex upon them from their married husbands?
 
Jerry said:
I don't even know why you're thinking of medical problems. That has nothing to do with anything. This is about willful refusal.
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Entirely circumstantial - if I'm not in the mood I'm not putting out. Simple. I'm not obligated no matter what and neither is he. Who wants to even have sex with their partner if their partner isn't in the mood? The idea is a turn off (and I'm a sex addict in therapy for chrsit's sake) I don't care what the reason is. Now if it goes on for years and years and it's not for an understandable reason - and the marriage just erodes - then you have affection withholding.
 
So apparently, 2 members here have voted that a man can NOT criminally rape his wife ???????????????????
 
Jerry said:
Before 1993 it was just 'rape', which has been illegal for centuries.
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No, it wasn't. Before 1993, if a woman told her husband "no", yet he continued to have sex with her anyway, then there was nothing she could do with it. He could not be charged with rape of his wife. Even the military had an explicit exception for the UCMJ rape article that protected a man from getting charged under that article if the two were married.
 
roguenuke said:
No, it wasn't. Before 1993, if a woman told her husband "no", yet he continued to have sex with her anyway, then there was nothing she could do with it. He could not be charged with rape of his wife. Even the military had an explicit exception for the UCMJ rape article that protected a man from getting charged under that article if the two were married.
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Yup, you are correct.

The views which contributed to rape laws not being applicable in marriage can be traced, at least partially, to the 17th century, to English common law, which was exported to the US: the views of Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century English jurist, published in The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736), stated that a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife because the wife "hath given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract" (this would remain law in England and Wales for more than 250 years, until it was abolished by the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, in the case of R v R in 1991).[1] The strong influence of conservative Christianity in the US may have also played a role: the Bible at 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 explains that one has a "conjugal duty" to have sexual relations with one's spouse (in sharp opposition to sex outside marriage which is considered a sin) and states that "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another (...)"[2] - and this is interpreted by some conservative religious figures as rejecting to possibility of marital rape.[3]

Prior to the mid-1970s marital rape was not a crime. Traditional rape laws in the US defined rape as forced sexual intercourse by a male with a "female not his wife", making it clear that the statutes did not apply to married couples. The 1962 Model Penal Code stated that "A male who has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife is guilty of rape if: (...)".[4] In 1993, North Carolina became the last state to remove the spousal exemption.[5] On July 5, 1993, marital rape became a crime in all 50 states, under at least one section of the sexual offense codes.[5]
In some states, notably New York - in People v. Liberta 1984 [6] - the courts had been involved in striking down the marital exemption as unconstitutional. The decision of the New York Court of Appeals, delivered by judge Sol Wachtler, stated that "a marriage license should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity. A married woman has the same right to control her own body as does an unmarried woman".
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reinoe said:
If it's written in the contract then there it is. Are you going to go around and witness every marriage and listen to the vows? Are you going to scrutinize every pre-nup? Are you going to eavesdrop on every conversation? If a man or woman promises to rape their spouse then it's in the contract.
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Sex is not written into the contract of marriage. It simply isn't, and the belief that it is, is the major problem here.

The problem people are coming to is mistaking a level of affection automatically for sex. If a couple has been having sex for a number of years within a marriage, then one of the parties refuses to have sex, then it could be alienation of affection. A good other spouse would question why though if this were a sudden change for their spouse. However, if the couple went into the marriage verbally agreeing to either not have sex or to only have sex for children or on certain days of the month, then one of them wanting more sex later down the line but being refused would not truly alienation of affection since they would wanting a higher level of affection than initially agreed upon. They can still get divorced because you can divorce for any reason, but such a thing should not be used against the other spouse who simply wants to maintain that initial level of affection they agreed to in the beginning.

Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. (I've only seen through S.6, so I may be behind.) He wrote up a relationship contract with Amy when they started dating. I can easily see someone like him insisting that sex be scheduled and anything outside the contract is more. There are people like Sheldon in this world.
 
clownboy said:
I understand the question, you failed to understand the answer. There is no marriage contract you sign, what you sign is a license. One of the obligations of that license are that you comply with state law on the matter of marriage. While all states now allow No Fault divorces many do still have At Fault divorces to address when a spouse violates the terms set in law of said license.

Further you show you don't read very well (from the link):
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Note here that the accusing spouse would have to prove a certain level of affection, then prove that it was intentionally being withheld by that other spouse in order to prove that the other spouse was at fault. There are many reasons that a marriage could change and that levels of affection within the marriage might change with time, including availability of sex. Plus, it would have to be based on a change of level of affection. If the couple agreed to a limited level of sex to begin with, then it is not going to be a valid argument that one is willfully withholding sex by not doing more than what they did to begin with.

This would be a case by case. And the law recognizes this. See the note in your own post that says that says it would be wise to seek legal advise before filing for divorce on those charges because it is not as simple as refusing to have sex with your spouse one, two, or even 10 or 20 times. It requires a bit more.
 
clownboy said:
Once again there is a legal obligation to have sex with your spouse. The license can be withdrawn if you don't and you would be at fault. It's part of deal, don't like it, don't get married. Now, does this mean you can't rape your spouse? That's still a debatable legal point and in effect the law is all over the map and unevenly applied because it's a rock and/or hard place question.

However, assault is clearly illegal and carries the same potential for penalty without the rape question even being necessary.
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No there is not. There is only a legal obligation to show the agreed upon amount of affection to your spouse during a marriage. It is assumed for most marriages that a certain amount of sex will be in the marriage, but not all marriages include sex.

Then assault would be an appropriate charge for any rape, according to your reasoning. But since we view rape as having a much harsher psychological impact, we have rape as an actual offense. And it does not have to include physical harm or violence to the person. (And assault does not carry the same potential penalties as rape.)
 
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Jerry said:
Right, so we can get rid of 'spousal rape'. That's all the senator is saying.
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No he isn't. He is trying to get rid of being able to charge spouses for rape at all, essentially reinstating the old exceptions that prevented spouses from being charged with rape. There is not really separate laws for charging married and non-married people with rape. They are the same laws. The change that was made in the past simply removed the exemption of spouses from being charged (or at least husbands).

In fact, if anything, I think people should be complaining that some laws still exempt women from being charged with rape at all. Husbands can be raped by their wives.
 
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