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

A relationship that bad would result in divorce. To accuse him of rape is imo, a power play or an advancement of conflict, not the just reaction of an innocent victim.

 

Or it could be the reaction of a woman who felt helpless against possibly years of similar abuse. I don't personally recommend that as a solution, but who am I to know how much of a selfish, stunted, bastard her husband was?

 

I would hardly call it "rape" if she WANTS to have sex with him at some times but not others.

It seems we as a society have been re-writing the definition of what "rape" is understood to mean.

 

No, just you have done the rewriting.......you seem to want it to be decriminalized.

 

I think it's actually a little more complex than just simply whether something is criminalized or not.

Laws don't automatically just "make something illegal", like many people simply assume. You can make something illegal, but that thing might actually constitute a group of things that are different from each other, and you still may not be putting that person in prison directly because you know what they did, but rather based on some evidence; so the question then is what is the required evidence we are going to use and how are we going to respond to that evidence. That is something many people don't seem to want to think about and seem to want to just leave it up to a jury to interpret the law you have made. It is complicated, not simple.

I've argued that we can and should assume the violation to the woman is far less if she has already had consensual sex with that man in the past and will continue that romantic relationship in the future.

So, if it's far less worse than an "ordinary" rape, what then should we call it?
I argue that "rape" is not the appropriate and fitting word.

When most people here the word "rape", they do not imagine that the woman was already in a sexual relationship with the man, and not only that but continued to stay with him after the fact.

That's really more of a domestic dispute.

 

No, despite your defense of rape it's still rape....


There is no such thing as an ordinary rape......it's just you trying to minimize it in the hope someday it will be legal

 

Men do not have any inherent right to à woman's body based on precedent.
It is about time that was understood.
She has every right to say "no, not now" and is not required to be providing sex on demand.
If he wants that he can find someone and pay for it.

 

I say no.

Go back and take a look at how the laws were worded in 1900.
My view, I believe, fits within those parameters. They talk about "carnal knowledge", which really indirectly implies the man has not already obtained that "carnal knowledge" from the woman (or has not recently). The rape laws almost always made an exception if she was his wife. That might fall under a different crime. The wife would have been likely to be able to obtain a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, and then it would not have been legal for the man to have his way with her again. (Typically she might move back in with her parents or go into hiding until the divorce was finalized, if she really feared him)

The traditional view was that some type of violent force or unlawful threat had to be made for the husband having sex with his wife to be a crime. For example, if she appeared to police with her body battered with bruises and lacerations, the husband would be likely to be taken to jail.

The big part of the reason why rape is bad is because she has NOT consented to having sex with that man.
So it gets a little more complicated when she has consented, numerous times, but not the latest time he had sex with her.

Because she has consented to sex with him.
Just not the specific time in question.

We can assume that it is not so absolutely a horrendous violation if she has been happy having sex with that man before (and assuming, of course, what he's doing to her is the same normal sex she liked before).

That is totally a different quality of violation.
The reason she is objecting to sex is not because she overall does not and never wants to have sex with that person.

Her reasons (which we can imply) matter. It's not merely simply all just based on her yes or no.

For example, if a prostitute has had sex with a client two times before, and then she's willing to again, but he doesn't have any money and he has sex with her despite her objections, the authorities are unlikely to treat that like a normal rape. (Well, at least in conservative circles)

 

Old fashion conservatives might have a slightly different view, when that man is her husband and it is seen as unacceptable for him to search for sex elsewhere.

 

You seem to be trying to conflate two different type of situations together that are very different. Even if you want to view them both as "rape", one of them is very much far worse than another.

"No, I'm not feeling it today"
versus
"Help! No! Get off me! I never want to have sex with you! Somebody help! Aaagh!!"

 

In my opinion this is yet another example of the Social-Progressive Left focusing on and over-obsessing over Microaggressions.
Over something that very often borders on being a part of a domestic dispute between two persons involved in a romantic relationship.

What I think many other people may not understand is that many of these Social Progressives see it as the norm for women to go around having sex with various different men whenever they feel like it, going back and forth between different men at the same time. If that is the worldview that you see as the norm, then of course this perspective, that the woman should have to provide consent on each occasion or it is rape, makes total sense. Because committed monogamous relationships are not really the norm in this worldview.

If you have committed your life to a person, and decided to have a family with him, you are not going to be eager to go to authorities and accuse him of rape immediately based on the first indiscretion.
But that's just not the worldview that those who insist this is rape have.

 

This is not 1900 as mentioned in your previous post.
It really is simple.
Today à man does not own à woman, neither her body nor her mind.
It is only in her right to give it.
It is not in his right take it.
There is nothing in the marriage vows that promise sex on demand.
There is nothing in the social contract either.
We are générations away from 1900 have seen women fight for the vote fight for the country, assume positions in life equal to men. Even become world leaders.
What makes you think she should have to surrender her physical being on demand?

 

You live in France. Tell us, in that society, what percentage of sexual interactions take place inside marriage?

"French couples are abandoning the formality of marriage faster than most of their European neighbors and far more rapidly than their U.S. counterparts:
French marriage rates are 45 percent below U.S. figures. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the marriage rate in France was 4.3 per 1,000 people, compared with 5.1 in the United Kingdom and 7.8 in the United States. The only European countries with rates lower than France’s were Belgium, at 4.1, and Slovenia, with 3.3."
French marriage rate plunges as population, birth rate rise | The Seattle Times

Seems like marriage in French society has become pretty passé.

 

What does that have to do with womens rights to say no within à marriage or indeed any relationship?
Nothing.

 

No, despite your defense of rape it's still rape....


There is no such thing as an ordinary rape......it's just you trying to minimize it in the hope someday it will be legal

This is 2022....not 1900 , sadly for you...

 

Pixie said: ↑
Today à man does not own à woman, neither her body nor her mind.

LOL and a big WOW! You sure don't mind when YOU go OFF TOPIC...

Bet ya can't give a good reason that marriage rate has anything to do with rape...

 

The court system is not very good at sorting out "He Says" from "She Says".

"Oregon v. Rideout was a trial held in Marion County Circuit Court in 1978 in Salem, Oregon. John Rideout was accused of raping his wife, Greta Rideout, the first man in the United States to be charged with raping his wife while they were still living together.[1] The trial was the first in Oregon relating to marital rape since the state revised its rape law in 1977 to eliminate the marital rape immunity.[1] Following a jury trial, John Rideout was acquitted.

" John became the first man in the United States to be charged with raping his wife while he was still living with her.[5] There were other cases of marital rape charges brought before the courts in the United States prior to this, but they did not involve couples who had been cohabitating.[5]

Trial[edit]
Charles Burt represented the husband, John Rideout, while Greta Rideout was represented by Marion County District Attorney Gary Gortmaker. Burt is quoted saying, “A woman who’s still in a marriage is presumably consenting to sex…Maybe this is the risk of being married, you know?...If this law’s interpretation isn’t corrected it will bring a flock of rape cases under very bad circumstances…The remedy is to get out of the marital situation.”[6] He was found not guilty by a unanimous jury composed of eight women and four men on December 27, 1978.[7]" Wiki

IMO, the sex was almost certainly non-consensual, but Greta continued to live with the perp and eventually even went back to him after a separation. There is no perfect remedy for some relationships. Divorce lawyers, however imperfect, are probably the best solution possible.

 

Deleted

 

It possibly very much has to do with your perspective and worldview.

If something has become the norm and is widespread, then it will seem reasonable to you to have rules that apply to the norm.

All this fuss about consent was never even really a societal issue back when almost all sexual relationships only took place inside marriage, or if they did not they did not do so openly.

As society has "progressed", it has created new problems and new issues. So ironically now more laws are needed to deal with the era of "sexual freedom", and any men having sex are worried about things that men in the past did not have to worry about before. "Will this woman accuse me of rape if I do not want to see her again?", "Can I go to prison if this woman accuses me of slipping off the condom?", "Am I absolutely totally sure this woman has given me her explicit consent, even though multiple indicators already exist that she is doing so?"

In the old days, if a woman wearing provocative clothing took a man into a bedroom, no one would question whether the man had adequate consent. The man did not have to worry about the possibility of being accused of rape, in that situation. These days, all bets are off.

Now women can claim they were raped, and if anyone questions why they did not scream, they are accused of being misogynistic.

 

Well, the wife does have that remedy available to her.

Hmmm.... So she went back to live with him, even after allegedly being raped by him.

Yet some people want to treat this like a normal "rape".

 

And wives and husbands retain their right to self defense after marriage.
Lorena Bobbitt proved that this can be a 'win win' solution.

"Attack
The incident in which Lorena Bobbitt severed her husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis occurred on June 23, 1993, in Manassas, Virginia. Lorena stated in a court hearing that, after coming home that evening, her husband had raped her. After he then went to sleep, she got out of bed and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. She then grabbed an 8-inch carving knife on the kitchen counter, returned to their bedroom, pulled back the bed sheets and cut off his penis.[2]

After this, Lorena left the apartment with the severed appendage and drove away in her car. After a length of time driving and struggling to steer with one hand, she threw the penis out a window into a roadside field. She eventually stopped and called 9-1-1, telling them what had happened and where the penis could be found. John's penis was found after an exhaustive search, and after being washed with antiseptic and packed in saline ice, it was reattached in the hospital where he was treated. The operation took nine and a half hours.[3] John went on to star in two pornographic films in the 1990s,[4] and stated in 2018 that his penis is "back to normal".[5]" Wiki

 

And in the old days when men treated women like possessions and assumed rights to sex on demand and raped them, women were not believed.
I cant do anything about your confusion , or your sélective examples of the unfairness of why men can't have sex whenever they want. Marriage is not a licence for sex.
If men don't like the relationship they are in, leave it.
It really is that simple.
Reread the OP. It mentions he raped her repeatedly. Not just once or twice. It is natural thatcevery time he forced her, she would be less invlined to concede. He doesn't sound very appealing ...in fact à huge turn off.
It is time some men learned how to relate properly to women drop the "it's my right" stuff and treat women with respect. If you don't know how to stop seeing them as possessions, then have a chat with a marriage counsellor.
One reason couples live together before marriage is to come to such understandings before final commitment.
To avoid going around this again, I am out.

 

Well, I think you are making an argument from extremes. That is not exactly what I claimed. Maybe you are trying to compare what I am proposing with the worse way things were in much older times?

Anyway, does it really matter so much if women are believed IF THEY ARE PICKING THEIR HUSBANDS ??
She PICKS the man who has sex with her. See the big difference there? No man can have sex with her if she's never approved it.

If you've married a man and decided to embark on a life-long sex life with him, is it really so unimaginably horrendously terrible if he rapes you, as you put it? Argue that's bad if you want, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as rape. The penis went into her before, she was happy. The same penis goes into her again, she's not feeling like it.

Do you really expect us to believe that is "JUST AS BAD" as rape?

What's so horrendously terrible about sex on demand? You wanted to have sex with him before. Just LEAVE...

This is funny one you have made there.

I think many conservatives would raise a few eyebrows at that statement.

If marriage is not a license for sex, what exactly do you think it is???

See, once again it is evident that you come from a Society that is post-marriage. Marriage is almost a meaningless thing to you, an outdated social institution.

 

Married or not. It still has to be consensual between both parties, if one refuses (female 99%) then it is rape.

 

Your understanding of marriage is at best superficial.
First there are many marriages where sex is not possible due to disablement, érectile disfunction (growing at à troubling rate) , or work pressure. Sex is not indispensable. One can have à very successful marriage without it.
Nor as has been discussed is marriage à golden ticket to sex on demand. No relationship should ever erode the individual freedom of anyone.
Rather, marriage is à partnership where you can trust, build, share, defend and make mistakes without réservation.
If conservatives marry to get a free pass to sex on demand, they have completely missed the whole meaning of the commitment.
Their assumption is a bad hangover from trading daughters in order to keep a dynasty.
And finally if you want sex on demand go buy it and stop assuming you can get it for free.