Woman claimed her husband repeatedly raped her, jury says he is not guilty

A woman in Iowa claimed her husband repeatedly raped her on several different occasions.

This is what Gina Battani told a jury about what happened to her:

She was in the shower, rinsing shampoo from her hair when she felt his hands on her. She pleaded with him to leave, to stop touching her in places she didn't want to be touched.

"Shhh," she heard him say.

She tried to get out of the shower, but he blocked her way with one hand, continuing to touch her with the other. Again and again, she asked him to stop and let her out.

When he did, she grabbed a towel and started to leave. But he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her hands to her side so she couldn't move. He walked her to the bed they once shared and pushed her, face down, onto it.

She was in the shower, rinsing shampoo from her hair when she felt his hands on her. She pleaded with him to leave, to stop touching her in places she didn't want to be touched.

"Shhh," she heard him say.

She tried to get out of the shower, but he blocked her way with one hand, continuing to touch her with the other. Again and again, she asked him to stop and let her out.

When he did, she grabbed a towel and started to leave. But he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her hands to her side so she couldn't move. He walked her to the bed they once shared and pushed her, face down, onto it.​

Iowa woman accused her husband of rape; almost no one believed her (desmoinesregister.com)

The jury decided that he was not guilty. It took them less than two hours to reach the decision.

The woman had this to say about the verdict: "Because he was my husband, no one seems too concerned about what was happening."


Some thoughts:

The woman DOES have an obligation to her husband. It might not be every night, but the woman should give him what he wants at least two times a week... or at least once a week.

This isn't some strange man. She DID choose to marry him. She did already choose to have sex with him. Is it really so terrible having sex with him again?

In a marriage there is an implied contract and implied sexual consent.
If she really doesn't like what he is doing to her, maybe she should seek a divorce. Or even at least a legal separation.

There are many who would question whether it is even actually possible for a man to "rape" his wife. That certainly can be a grey zone. I would say yes, it is possible for a husband to "rape" his wife, but it's definitely not anywhere near the same type of rape as what most people normally think of when the word rape is used. There are many different situations and many different degrees of rape. This was a very low degree of rape, towards the bottom, close to the border of not being rape.

How can a woman stay with a man, and keep claiming rape? One rape, yes, but you keep staying with that person, living with them, sleeping in the same bedroom with them, and then you want everyone else to believe that they keep raping you?

When you MARRIED someone, that tells the whole world that you are consenting to sex.
A husband should be "entitled" to one free "rape". Afterwards the woman better leave if she does not want to be the subject of his advances.

She can get a divorce and withdraw her consent at any time. This type of behavior would certainly be legal grounds for a divorce, which is a moot point because no fault divorce laws exist everywhere now.

If this happened in a very conservative area where women stay at home, and the women have few other options outside a marriage, I could understand how that might be a little bit of a different situation, but there are very few places like that now.

If the husband used severe physical force and physical force to compel his wife to have sex with him, or physically hurt her, that could be a different situation, but is not what happened in this story.

The jury was correct in voting not guilty. Even though there are a lot of Progressives and Feminists these days who would vehemently disagree with the jury's decision.

Marriage should be a way to protect the man from allegations of rape. He marries her in the presence of many witnesses so the whole world knows she is agreeing to sleep with him. She shouldn't be able to make the legal accusation against him that he raped her.

 

Don't be silly.
She doesn't give up her rights to do what she wants with her body. She doesn't become a sex slave. That isn't either implied or stated in marriage vows.
This idea is positively medieval and one reason so many accuse Middle Eastern men of abusing their wives.
She wasn't in the mood. Big deal. Maybe he should take a cold shower and stop forcing her.
Unbelievable.

 

It's going to bring chaos to the institution of marriage and leave men -- even decent men who keep sex only within the confines of marriage -- with no solid protections. Which is exactly why the jury chose to find this man not guilty. He should never have been charged in the first place.

Why isn't this woman leaving him if he really did rape her? Why did she bring it to a court of law?

Maybe she has decided to finally divorce him and wants him locked up so she can take the house?

 

This is an issue best left within the marriage, for the two of them to resolve themselves, perhaps with the help of a marriage counselor.
This is not a case where the government should get involved.

If she is dissatisfied, she needs to get a legal separation and probably move out of that house... certainly out of the same bedroom at least.

If she feels the need to keep calling police, a divorce is probably required. (Either that or psychological counseling for her, if that is the issue)

It seems she no longer wants to get intimate with her husband, she views him as revolting. If that is the case, and he cannot accept that (I don't think most husbands could), and if there is no way to resolve this, a divorce may be needed.

I would recommend an immediate legal separation, probably for one of them to move out if they can, marriage counseling and intensive marriage treatment, and then if that doesn't work, divorce. Maybe the husband needs to take better care of his body to not be revolting to his wife.

While they are married and living under the same roof... while they are sleeping together in the same bedroom... this should not be prosecuted as rape.

If it is an issue of severe domestic violence, that could change things... but even then I think law enforcement should be reluctant to get involved unless it is absolutely really needed. If they do not handle things properly, it could unnecessarily tear apart the marriage.

The woman of course has the right to divorce. Especially if the man is forcing himself on her and she can't bear that, that should be legal grounds for divorce.

If he goes to her new home, uninvited, after she has moved away, after she has divorced, and forces himself on her, then that is rape.

 

If she has sex with him, if she already has consensual sex with him dozens of times, why do you think it would be so horrendously horrible if he has sex with her just one more time, even though she said no?
She can leave after that if she wants to. If she's not comfortable with him, her HUSBAND, the man she married.

I'm not saying what he did is all good or great, but there is no need to initiate a criminal prosecution over this. That is just absurd.

(Unless maybe if it was some extreme and violent sex. In that case I could see a need for the man to be arrested and perhaps held in jail for a week or two, but that still should not be prosecuted like a rape. If he physically causes her harm, that could be punished as assault, if there are any traumatic injuries, severe bruising, etc)

Sex within a marriage is obviously very different from sex outside of a marriage, or all the more so from casual sex between two people not even in a relationship. That should be obvious, but is not to many people these days... with most sex in society happening outside a marriage and many people not even seeing any point to marriage. So some people are trying to apply the rules that apply to other sexual situations (so common today) to marriage.

 

First it was “the foetus has more rights than the woman”
Then it was “This paedophile’s sentence was too long” now it is
“Rape in marriage is OK because she has an “obligation”

Says quite a bit about you

 

Protections? Of what? The right to sex on demand?
What century does this come from?

 

Sex anywhere is by CONSENT.
Not demand.
That is what defines rape.
And if he had any respect for her he would leave her alone until she consents.

Honestly. I didn't think such primitive attitudes still existed. This thread sounds like a wind-up.

 

I think K doesn't believe what he posts. He is just trolling for a discussion.

 

That is a kind interpretation that we actually hope is true

 

Is that your advice to women whose husbands beat them? Talk about a troll post.

 

This case baffles me. Part of the marriage contract is consensual sex. If the woman doesn't want to consent, why didn't she leave? Why would she insist on continuing to be married? It seems she's committed a fraud on her husband. No one is saying a woman has to have sex, and if they don't want to engage in it, shouldn't they release their husbands from their obligation to keep and maintain them? This just seems to be more of "cause mommy said so" BS logic that so many women have opted into these days. Well, sometimes choices have consequences. And frankly if it takes a case like this to bring the case home, time to teach it.

 

The man has certain needs. Yes... he should be legally permitted to use "soft" coercion and force against her.

And by that, I don't necessarily mean that is a good thing, or should be socially condoned, but I think the law should be reluctant to get involved in this sort of situation unless it is obviously some severe form of physical abuse.

If she doesn't want that man to have sex with her, she should not get MARRIED to him. She should not stay married to him.

If she isn't willing to have sex with her husband (for long periods of time), that is a very cruel thing to do to him. That marriage is not going to last. It's going to drive him off somewhere else to fulfill his needs.

This is a matter best left up between husband and wife. The government should respect the privacy of marriage. The privacy of the marriage bed.

 

She provided CONSENT when she entered into that marriage. That is something you don't seem to be able to get.
There is a level of consent that comes with marriage.

If the husband is abusing that privilege, and it cannot be resolved, she needs to leave that marriage, signaling that she withdraws that consent.

I'm not even demanding she should have to get divorced. At the very least she needs to seek a legal separation. That will signal to the world that there is a problem in that marriage and she is withdrawing consent. It would also send a very clear and longer-term unambiguous signal to the man that he needs to back away and respect her space. The two should really separate into separate homes, if it all possible, if the situation has come to that.

If the two are legally separated, and in separate homes, and the man comes into her home without being invited in, I think she is going to have a much stronger case for rape. Maybe not even rape, but something the law might categorize as "sexual violation".

And I'm sorry, if I'm on a jury and I hear that the two have willingly both walked into the same house, the same bedroom, and they're both married to each other, I'm going to be very very reluctant to find the husband guilty or rape. Was the woman "tricked"? How could she be that stupid? If the woman wants to claim rape against her husband there needs to have been very clear unambiguous signals in place that she was not consenting, and these signals need to be something more long-term and concrete that informs the rest of the world beforehand they are not still living together under the same home.

Again, the husband can totally be found guilty of physical assault if there are obvious injuries on the woman or her body is full of severe bruising. If she physically fought him off and he obviously hurts her in the process, it is appropriate for him to be punished. He still should not be convicted of "rape" though, since this was an incident between husband and wife. (For one thing that would send a very misleading message to anyone else who is told the name of the crime he committed, it's really confusing and unfair to him)

 

Marital rape is a very real thing. Your dismissal of it is nauseating. The only thing that is keeping me from using stronger words, is the very small chance you do not believe what you are posting.

 

She said. Vs. He said.

Case should have been dismissed.

 

Yep. A women just needs to have enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

It's not exactly the same thing as "rape" (or normal rape) if it is between husband and wife. Surely you will agree with that.

If we start calling all sorts of different situations like this rape, that is ultimately going to diminish society's conception of what rape is and the level of seriousness it has.
(Something that has already happened in countries like Sweden)
It will be like repeatedly crying wolf.
If you say "That man committed rape", society should not have to guess if the incident might have been something between husband and wife.
Lower level sexual violations should not be categorized together with rape. This is what people mean when they have to use the terminology "real rape", because there are so many people using the word "rape" to refer to other less blatant and lower level situations.

The law should recategorize it under a name like "marital sexual violation".
It should not be classified or called "rape" under the law.

Even better and a more accurate description would be "alleged marital sexual violation". Because most of the time there is no evidence, only her allegations, and we do not know exactly how accurate her accusations her. (Angry women exaggerate the details of marital disputes all the time. They get so emotional they don't even realize they are lying. This is super extremely common. It's the female psyche and biology. Society and the law needs to recognize this rather than just dismissing it as "misogynist")

 

There is a chance you do not understand the exact details of my position. That is why I am trying to go into excessive detail to elaborate.

So you do not make sweeping assumptions. There are and should be protections in place for women. We just seem to disagree exactly what they should be.

Anyway, I certainly don't believe my position on this is a unique one. It is the traditional position. If you went back to the Pilgrims in America, all this would be obvious to them.

 

She retains rights over her person.

You are way off base here.

I'm annoyed we're in a discussion like this with an inadequate amount of information, but it sounds like they have incompatible approaches to marriage.

 

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm being misogynistic, this applies equally (well actually all the more so) to wives who allegedly have sex with their husbands even though the man is not feeling like it.

(We all know that no one would take the allegation seriously if the husband was the accuser, double standards in society)

 

Ridiculous. They are married.

conjugal relations comes with that territory.

She has rights. She can get married to a man, and she can divorce him or separate from him.

No woman ever has to have sex if she has not agreed to have sex. And by that I am not referring to individual incidents of sex, but sex with that specific man in general.

The abuse should be really severe and obvious if government is going to intervene.

If the husband tries to force her into a threesome, or involve her into some extreme and unnatural fetish she has never done before, then yes, that would likely be a different situation. I could see the man being arrested then.

 

When a person, regardless of gender, is coerced/threatened/forced into have sex, even if married, it is still a rape. Marriage does NOT give a person license to physically violate another person.

I could get explicit, but what if one partner wanted something a little 'different', and their partner didn't? Does that also fall into your 'traditional' view of what is or is not permissible?

Marriage does not mean a person has given consent to being used like a blow up doll. My god.....

 

So are you saying that Muslims habitually raped their wives?

 

Sweetie if a man doesn't feel like it, she doesn't get sex.
Don't you have better things to talk about?