Vox Day: “The concept of marital rape is not merely an oxymoron, it is an attack on the institution of marriage, on the concept of objective law, and indeed, on the core foundation of human civilization itself.”
Anti-rape protest in India
Apparently worried that the world might forget what a thoroughly reprehensible human being he is, fantasy author and freelance bigot Vox Day (Theodore Beale) has decided to bring up the issue of marital rape again – in order to assert, as he has many times in the past, that marital rape doesn’t actually exist.
In a post yesterday on his blog Vox Populi, Beale notes with obvious pleasure that an Indian judge recently ruled that marital sex, “even if forcible, is not rape,” thus upholding a section of the Indian Penal Code that refuses to acknowledge marital rape as rape.
Beale crows:
Some of my dimmer critics have attempted to make a meal out of my factual statement: a man cannot rape his wife. But that is not only a fact, it is the explicit law in the greater part of the world, just as it is part of the English Common Law. …
The fact that some of the lawless governments in the decadent, demographically dying West presently call some forms of sex between a husband and wife “rape” does not transform marital sex into rape any more than a law that declared all vaginal intercourse to be rape would make it so.
Unfortunately for Beale, simply declaring that the world is on his side on this one does not make it so. It not simply a handful of “ lawless governments in the decadent, demographically dying West” that see marital rape for what it is. The United Nations has recognized marital rape as a human rights violation for more than two decades. And the world is coming around to this point of view.
While (as of 2011) only 52 countries had laws specifically criminalizing marital rape, many others don’t have a “marital rape” exemption to their rape laws, meaning that in more than 100 countries marital rape can be prosecuted. And that number will inevitably grow.
Here’s a map from Wikipedia showing the countries (in red) in which marital rape is illegal. The countries in black allow marital rape. In the other countries, it’s a bit more complicated. (See here for the details.)
From Wikipedia.
But for now, at least, Beale is happy for another chance to explain the toxic “logic” behind his assertion that “marital rape” is impossible.
Anyone with a basic grasp of logic who thinks about the subject of “marital rape” for more than ten seconds will quickly realize that marriage grants consent on an ongoing basis. This has to be the case, otherwise every time one partner wakes the other up in an intimate manner or has sex with an inebriated spouse, rape has been committed.
Now, by Beale’s logic, a husband is entitled to force his wife to have sex over her screaming objections. Since “consent is ongoing,” in Beale’s version of marriage, a woman could say no or even fight back against her husband’s advances, but none of this would count as non-consent because once a woman is married there is no such thing.
But of course Beale doesn’t want to have to defend what is obviously – at least to anyone with any humanity – violent rape. So he tries instead to restrict the debate to the seemingly innocuous practice of “wake-up sex.” After all, what guy doesn’t want to be woken up with a blow job?
But even this example isn’t as persuasive as he thinks it is. Some people like to be woken up in an “intimate manner,” at least some of the time; some don’t, and you don’t get to override their desire not to be sexually manhandled in their sleep just because you’re married to them. And while drunk sex is not necessarily rape, marriage doesn’t give you the right to force sex on a partner who is intoxicated to the point of incapacity.
And for those who wish to argue that consent can be withdrawn, there is a word for withdrawing consent in a marriage. That word is “divorce”.
No, that word is “no.” There is no such thing as ongoing consent to sex. The fact that you are married to someone doesn’t give you the right to have sex with them whenever and wherever you want, whether they want to or not, any more than the fact that someone is a professional boxer gives you the right to punch them in the head any time you feel like it.
The concept of marital rape is not merely an oxymoron, it is an attack on the institution of marriage, on the concept of objective law, and indeed, on the core foundation of human civilization itself.
No, Mr. Beale, you having the right to do whatever you want to with your dick is not the basis of civilization itself. Civilization, in fact, is built in part on the repression of some of our darkest desires. Part of growing up is reconciling ourselves to the sad fact that we can’t just do whatever the hell we want to all the time; Freud described this as putting behind the “pleasure principle” of infancy and early childhood for the “reality principle” that governs the more mature mind.
Beale seems to be driven not only by a desire for instant sexual gratification, whenever and wherever he wants, but also by a certain degree of sexual insecurity. In a previous post on the subject, he wrote:
If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her! It would make no sense whatsoever to marry a woman who believes that being married to her grants her husband no more sexual privilege than the next unemployed musician who happens to catch her eye.
Beale seems to think that if married women are allowed to say no to their husbands, they’ll desert these poor beta schlubs en masse in favor of scruffy alphas with guitars. At the root of all his arguments against the idea of marital rape is an obvious terror of unrestricted female choice.
In a way Beale’s petulant, self-serving defenses of marital rape serve a positive function, in that they help to remind us how abhorrent the practice is and how nonsensical the “arguments” in favor of allowing it really are.
Every time he opens his mouth on the subject, he helps to strengthen the growing consensus against marital rape.
Posted on May 15, 2014, in alpha males, antifeminism, boner rage, doubling down, empathy deficit, entitled babies, evil sexy ladies, evil wives, marital rape, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, patriarchy, playing the victim, rape, rape culture, reactionary bullshit, red pill, vox day and tagged anti-feminism, antifeminism, india, marital rape, misogyny, rape culture, rape jokes, vox day. Bookmark the permalink. 526 Comments.
So evidently “the lawless governments in the decadent, demographically dying West” is most of the planet. Interesting.
He’s wrong to claim that marital rape is “part of the English Common Law”. Our Courts scrapped it in the 1991 case of R v R http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#Ending_the_exemption
Translated from the original for sanity:
If a person does not believe in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry them! It would make no sense whatsoever to marry a person who believes that being married to them grants their partner voids their partner’s right to withdraw consent.
Interesting that he doesn’t consider that the husband wouldn’t want to have sex with the wife. My ex-husband refused sex, and came up with all kinds of reasons to avoid it. Of course, the real reason ended up being “because I’m having sex with my mistress”. I respected his wishes but it was very frustrating. If your SO turns you down occasionally suck it up and respect their wishes. If your SO refuses over an extended period of time, still respect their wishes, but see what is causing the problem. But I guess that means you have to consider other humans as people?
Shorter Vox Day: “Isn’t it cute how women think they’re people?”
Ninja’ed and blockquote monster fed. All in a day’s comment.
I popped over to Vox’s Wikipedia page to look at his bibliography. First thing I found was something called Altar of Hate. Fitting, bet I can guess the contents as well.
“Now, by Beale’s logic, a husband is entitled to force his wife to have sex over her screaming objections. Since “consent is ongoing,” in Beale’s version of marriage, a woman could say no or even fight back against her husband’s advances, but none of this would count as non-consent because once a woman is married there is no such thing.”
Reverse the genders and let’s see how much Beale approves of it.
Vox Day needs a black cape, top hat, and long mustache that he can twirl while cackling evilly, because he’s really starting to sound like a villian from an old melodrama with this shit.
It’s like, when he sits down to write one of these things, he thinks about something that is obviously right and ethically sound, like marital rape being illegal, and then takes the exact opposite position.
He really is a slimy asshole.
Indeed not. Most of the time, I am indeed quite happy to be intimately manhandled in my sleep by my wife, but sometimes I’m simply not in the mood. And so I say “no”, and she stops. And the same is obviously true vice versa.
I suspect were either of us to ignore the issue of consent, one of us would be taking up long-term residence in the spare bedroom at the very least.
As opposed to the efficient governments of the thriving utopias in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Burma…
I am from India and the last thing this country needs is more bigots like Vox Day (this is bad enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_Indian_Family_Foundation )
This reminds me of when Paul Elam once talked about how oppressed the men in India are. It’s amazing how utterly and thoroughly delusional (and despicable) these guys are.
I love it when traditionalists like Vox defend things like rape and abuse as just part of the marriage contract, then turn around and whine about the declining marriage rate. If marriage did indeed mean a lifetime of abuse and degradation, it shouldn’t be surprising that women would want no part of it.
Basic grasp of logic, huh? Well, I went to college, I did all those a and b exercises.
Marriage grants consent on an ongoing basis.
Um, no. Marriage doesn’t even grant consent to live in the same house with them on an ongoing basis. (see: separation, etc.)
Wow. Yeah. Basic grasp of logic. Really nailing it there, Teddy.
(basic grasp of logic = dog whistle for ‘women are hysterical and illogical, let me mansplain it to you’, right?)
If we are discussing Vox and rape, here is a quote someone left in the we hunted the mammoth comment section a week or two ago
Here is where that quote is from: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2005/12/mailvox-hidden-contempt-for-women.html
It ties in nicely with our topic.
How many of the PUAthetic MRAcist sexist people discussed here actually went as far as admitting they sleep with women/ a woman who have not given consent? If not many, then Vox is worse than most.
I’ve seen this quote before and it never fails to flabber my ghast. “Stretched so far” as to meet what’s basically the mainstream definition of rape? What the fuck does he think rape is, if not precisely that?
What he would insist means to say, of course, is ‘women who have not spoken aloud their consent in a very specific phrase like “I am giving you consent to have sex with me now.”‘
But he’s left a really wide rhetorical hole there, hasn’t he, conflating cases where consent was obviously there but not spoken with women not consenting?
I wonder why.
@Emcube
Wow, look at that: a major men’s rights organization opposing the criminalization of marital rape. And yet MRAs claim that only the “extremists” are in favor of rape. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, and here’s your welcome package.
(I mean, he’ s a professional writer, a man who gets paid to smith words, and I’m supposed to believe he’s just accidentally leaving it up in the air and ambiguous whether the woman was actually consenting and didn’t say the words or was just plain not consenting BY ACCIDENT? Mmmmnope.)
Gee, so when my ex-husband was holding me by the throat and forcing his penis into me it wasn’t at all rape because we’d had a big fancy party a couple of years earlier? I feel so much better now…
Let’s assume that he’s right that marriage grants implied consent automatically (even though this is demonstrably false). Even if that’s the case, that only means that marriage would be an institution of rape that feminists/womanists should abolish. But we all know what Vox wants: The license to rape his wife.
A quote like that reminds me that there is still some maturity and wisdom left in humanity, and in the male half in particular. The MRAssholes are the exceptions, I can look at other men and see these guys are not what most males are really like.
If a man does not “believe” in the concept of marital rape, DO NOT MARRY HIM.
He is likely an abuser and a rapist.
Oh, look, AVFM promoting the marital-rape-law-opposing Save Indian Family Foundation
http://www.avoiceformen.com/updates/news-updates/indian-mhras-organize-national-meet/
I just had to check Teddy’s wiki. I’m assuming that he’s unmarried?
Please, please, tell me he’s unmarried.
what is this i don’t even
But… does this extend to all sexual acts? If the SO and me were married, would she have eternal consent to do that one weird thing to me that she once tried and that I really didn’t like and told her as much and she stopped immediately because that’s what non-rapists do? Of course she wouldn’t do that even if we lived in Vox Day’s utopia, because she’s not a fucking rapist.
Oh yeah, of course the right to rape their spouse would only extend to men. Silly me. And then again, by assuming people marry because they genuinely value and care about the other person, I’m changing the variables in this scumbag’s scenario too much.
Off to bed. My overworked, allergy-medicated, sleep-deprived brain can’t handle this guy’s hateful, entitled attitude molded from pure evil mined from the very deepest layers of hell.
Hyenagirl, he claims to be married to a woman known only (at least to the world) as “spacebunny,” though some people think she’s imaginary.
Thank you, David.
@Rea: ‘”If the definition of rape is stretched so far to include women who have not given consent, then I am absolutely a serial rapist. So, too, is every man I know.” – Vox Day’
Then he absolutely is (and what illustrious company he keeps…). And maybe that’s why he is so eager to fudge with the “inconsequential” matter of consent.
Further down in the comments under his yesterday post, someone asks the question, “What do we call it when a husband goes ahead with an intercourse ignoring his wife’s objections?” (I paraphrase; I don’t want to go back there and look up the exact quote as the prospect makes me unwell.)
VD responds, “Forcible and consensual sex.”
Forcible and consensual sex. Forcible AND consensual. That’s an example of the VD’s “basic logic,” the rapist’s logic.
Yes, he is a rapist. Self-admitted at that. Maybe the law enforcement should become interested in his private life already.
MRA (even though VD isn’t an explicitly self-appointed one, many of his enthusiastic followers are) = Misogynist Rape Advocates.
David, where does he say that he is married?
It defies belief. Then again, when one reads comments from some (purported) women under his post (and on other manospheric sites), one realizes it is may be true, as sad and disturbing as it is.
So, if he ever lets me in his house, I’m allowed to do whatever I want inside it whenever I want and he can never kick me out? After all, “consent is ongoing.” His words.
emma:
Oh, barf.
Putting aside, for a moment, how fucking wrong that is, “forcible” and “consensual” are contradictions in terms. Vox Day is being the very opposite of logical. He is completely illogical.
And, even if it were the most logical thing in the world, it would still be completely fucking morally wrong to forcibly engage in sex with someone against zir will. That is rape, no matter if the victim is married to the rapist.
This is probably good advice for some people, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Even without accusations of marital rape, there are lots of ways a determined woman can get her husband arrested. She could load up his computer with child pornography and take it to the police, for example. Or if she thinks the police would move too slowly, she could poison his food. There’s no way a man can defend himself against that, unless he can somehow figure out a way to prepare his own food.
So some more general advice would be better: “If you think it’s likely that a woman will someday want to see you either in jail or dead, absolutely do not marry her!”
Theodore Beale is a shitstain on the underwear of human achievement.
That says it all right there. Russian fucking Russia, one the most backwards place in the industrialized world has laws against marital rape. when you can’t even meet the standards of Russian Legal belief one does not get to talk about logic at all. Call it the Putin test if you will. One must be at least as civil as Vladimir Putin to speak about logic. all so Vox is just a terrible human being.
@sparky
In VD’s world — which one only hopes, against hope, is small and dwindling — consent is an ongoing given, bestowed till death do us part by the act of marriage, so yeah, barf.
Following VD’s logic, it is supremely rational then for all women everywhere to absolutely avoid marriage, at all costs, because it is nothing more than a license to being repeatedly raped. He makes a case against marriage better than anyone possibly could.
Thank heavens most men do not think like VD&Co.; but it’s frightening as hell that there is a number of those who do.
@Ken L.
I like “the Putin test.”
@Chaos-Engineer
It is fair to say that men who harbor such views of women would do everyone a massive favor by staying away from them. Forever. Let them go their own way — the faster (and farther away), the better. Everyone wins.
emilygoddess :
Right, If “ongoing consent” was actually expected no one would go anywhere near marriage!
Actually, I sort of assumed that most of the people who say “husbands love their wives so it can’t be rape” or something, that maybe they don’t realize that the logical extension of that position is “a married woman must be literally willing to have sex at any time and never say no.” That maybe it would give them a little pause if they were called out on it. But not this guy, he’s embracing it. Literally saying “Why’d you get married if you didn’t want to give up your right to ever refuse sex?” as if that’s a reasonable thing to say. That’s it, I got nothing.
So by his “basic grasp of logic” if his spouse was to surprise him with a pair of handcuffs and a large strap-on she’d be entirely within her rights?*
* I AM IN NO WAY CONDONING RAPE WITH THIS COMMENT, just engaging in a basic test of his logical structure.**
** http://satwcomic.com/women-s-rights
I don’t understand the mentality of “men” like this. Personally, the idea of having sex with an unwilling partner renders me incapable of the act (if ya know what I mean). Consent, on the other hand, really gets me going…
you know, it is illegal to poison someone. i don’t think the matriarchy is out to get you on this one.
/or anyone, bt this was the only one that was not too bs to touch
@chaos engineer
um I’m not sure how to break this to you.
can’t tell if troll is for real or not.
@ken L
uhhh I can’t articulate what exactly is setting me off about this, but can we not refer to places as ‘backwards’. idk this comment is just rubbing me wrong and idk why.
So his argument is that, while sex with a drunk or sleeping person is supposedly officially considered rape, but it doesn’t make sense with married couples who’ve taken a couple glasses of wine. Therefore, rape as a concept cannot apply in marriage. Or maybe it cannot apply with people who’re only mildly inebriated. Probably both.
More like rapist’s rhetoric: Pretend that “consensual” has no meaning other than “not officially considered rape”. Then you can try to push and define rape out of existence.
Yet in other time, he seems to have argued that lack of consent is not relevant or sufficient definition for rape. Same goal still, to make rape look like a narrow and arbitrary concept.
@Chaos engineer
.. and i just now realized you may be being sarcastic. sorry if i misread you. my internet tone is wodgy
I am on the fence a little bit about this, mostly for the practical complications it poses more than fundamentals.
First of all, no one has the right to battery anyone else. So, just because a man is married to a woman, doesn’t give that woman the right to physically harm him. Thus domestic violence (as I would define it necessarily involving battery) is properly a crime, even if the couple are married.
Now, rape without assault or battery presents a quandary in a marriage situation.
I would say that legal marriage necessarily comes with it, the strong *presumption* of implied pre-consented sex.
I am not saying it can’t happen, but I am saying that unlike an unmarried couple, a high burden of proof, even for the charging stage, should be upon the spoused accuser of rape. It cannot be the same standard of proof as to two simple acquaintances.
What. The. Fuck.
@Marie
Maybe what’s bothering you about the “Russia, backwards Russia” comment is the implication that A) they’re all backwards over there B) we’re necessarily ahead of them.
From Wikipedia: “Countries which were early to criminalize marital rape include the Soviet Union (1922/1960),[49]”
Hmm, whoops.
It wasn’t a crime in all the states in the US till 19-fucking-93.
1993
So why are we comparing it to Russia, backwards Russia, and not USA, backwards USA?
…
Because Putin is pushing an anti-gay agenda? We’ve got plenty of those here in the good ol` US too. When was it that the Supreme Court said laws criminalizing gay sex were wrong? 2003. One decade ago.
Yeah, the ‘Russia, backwards Russia’ bothers me a little bit too.
@gary
wow. Go hug a cactus. And please leave the rest of us alone. And never get married, if you think it’s implied to come with pre-consented sex.
You know how few rapists actually spend a day in jail? and you want to make it even harder? Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit.
Also, most rapes happen between people who know each other.
Anyone have any quick stats on this? My last bookmark got deleted. :(
tl;dr gary is full of shit and should go never talk to another human being again, because he’s a horrible rape apologist.
I’m pretty sure chaos engineer is joking, but Poe’s Law strikes yet again.
…why not?
Finish the sentence, dude. Why not?
What’s the terrible thing that might happen?
WHY NOT?
“Oh, no! A woman could just say her husband raped her and then he’d go to jail for ever and ever because they had sex and there’s no way to tell sex from rape besides her word”?
Because, A, you’re wrong, B, you’re totally wrong.
@katz
yeah on second read through I realized they might be joking but it’s soooo hard to tell.
Are you expecting a cookie?
Emma, here’s someone challenging VD’s claim to be married, and his response.
http://jamesworrad.blogspot.ch/2013/06/vox-day-schrodingers-spacebunny.html
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-shes-hot-she-must-be-fake.html
@gary
here are some stats on how about 2/3s of rapes are committed by someone who knew the victim. here are some stats on how few rapists will ever spend a day in jail.
So tell me again why you think it should be even harder for a man to get in jail for raping his wife than it already is.
Hi Gary! Thanks for letting everyone on the internet know that you’re not a safe person for women to be around. Obviously no-one should marry you, but what about dating? Or friendship? Just how far does this belief of yours that if men and women have a close relationship then we ought to assume that rape couldn’t have happened go?
Remember Gary’s name and face, female readers, and never, ever allow yourself to be alone with him.
If civilization depends on married men owning their wives and being able to rape them with impunity, then this is a worthless civilization and I’m cool with tearing it down.
Of course, even Pox knows that isn’t so. He knows that rapists like him are the only people who “benefit” from there being a legal way for men to sexually torture women.
If your SO won’t sleep with you and that makes you miserable, you can leave or you can take a lover. What you cannot do is rape. There is never justification for rape.
Woo-hoo! Thanks, David!
Now I totally believe that Mrs. Spacebunny (what a lovely name) Day is real.
As a matter of fact, I have it on good authority that, right now, having finished yet another modeling shoot, she’s having hot sex with her hubby while simultaneously baking cookies and whipping up a four-course gourmet dinner for later (to be followed by more, even hotter sex).
Because that’s how The Alpha Venereal Disease and his missus roll. Take that, real world!
Huh, I guess I’ll have to inform the husbutt that he’s consented to a lifetime of pegging by marrying me, even though he has clearly stated his desire to not do that ever. Oh well!
/sarcasm
On a different note, every time we start talking about Vox Day and his (ridiculously pompous) nom de plume inevitably gets shortened down to VD, this is what’s going through my head.
No, it isn’t.
WTF?
And that presumption needs to die. Either the presumption has to die or the institution of marriage has to be dismantled. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to support a license to rape one’s spouse.
Marriage makes no difference here, and many women report being raped by their partners – marital or otherwise. You have no argument.
Fuck off and take your rape apologia elsewhere. Better yet, get rid of it altogether.
*doesn’t*
Oops.
I mean, how can Gary even claim it presents a quandary with a straight face? We have literally most of the world already on a legal standard where this is a crime, some parts of the world for nearly a hundred years. It hasn’t really presented an extraordinary problem for enforcement.
It’s almost like Gary is completely full of shit.
Gonna also jump on the I-hate-Gary bandwagon here: Gary, your rape apologia needs to go die in a fire, and you are hereby cordially invited to stand in the resultant smoke. You are a sad, sorry excuse for a person.
@dustedeste
You and I think alike *highfive*
Interesting link – the one that tries to find pictures of his wife. It seems Worrad looked up “Vox Day wife”. I think just to make more sure “Theodore Beale wife” could also be searched. But I suspect James Worrad is right.
Knowing someone is very different than marrying someone.
“why you think it should be even harder for a man to get in jail for raping his wife”
Your question pre-presumes the rape.
As I said in my original post, the problem is more of a practical one than fundamental.
Whether recognize it or not, there are always going to be thresholds of proof, pre-charging and post-charging at trial.
So, if a big burly man comes into a police station and claims a 14 y.o. girl raped him, the threshold level of belief is going to be rather high to overcome. It is likely that the police will not charge the 14 y.o. girl, irrespective of the claim or evidence.
A woman who charges a man who she doesn’t know raped her in an alley, will get far more serious attention.
And on that scale of threshold proof, a married woman who claims her husband of several years raped her, would fall in between.
The practical end of this all is, although rape, if it happened, should be taken seriously and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law – not all accusations of rape are as believable as others.
@MRA! HA! HA!
This sounds an awful lot like you’re saying that the only reason you avoid raping your partners is that it turns you off. I hope I’m wrong. At any rate you seem to be putting an undue amount of emphasis on your libido as a factor in you not committing rape.
Oh, and Vox Day is a man. Most rapists are men. And most people who abuse their partners are men. By attempting to frame their gender as somehow less “real” than that of non-abusive men, you contribute to a system that lets those male abusers off the hook. Male rapists and abusers are not cultural deviants; they are products of patriarchy and they serve a vital role in maintaining that system.
…and that’s why it wasn’t even a fucking crime to rape your wife in all 50 states until 1993, because of totally reasonable men like Gary who can just see how hard it will be to sort out the evidence.
It’s not as though there’s ever any kind of physical evidence that can be taken into account, or as if false accusations of rape are rare, or anything like that at all.
…
And that’s why all that majority of the world that has had laws about marital rape for nearly a century is in such disarray, because it’s just so CONFUSING.
Hi Cassandra!
You are so welcome for having a different viewpoint on what you reflexively look upon as black or white, absolute good or bad.
Unfortunately we live in a much more complicated world than that, and as uncomfortable as it may be, such truths need to be addressed in more nuanced ways than you currently have.
And to be clear, rape should never happen, and if it does it should be prosecuted.