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.)
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.
Gary,
You aren’t a victim. You are a guy exploiting his daughter’s situation on a misogynist website where the regulars are harassers and rape apologists who terrorize people, especially women, they don’t like. Then you came here to tell married women that if they are raped by their husbands, no one should believe them should they come forward to get help or justice. Your intentions are clear. You aren’t trying to help your daughter. You are trying to terrorize your ex.
Go piss up a rope.
@Gary
Sorry, kiddo, if you’re both revealing information about your kids without their consent, I find fault in both of you. More in you, since from the sounds of it, the documentaries try to hide the kids identities, whereas your sorry pathetic little ass couldn’t give a fuck.
So fuck you.
Yup. Usually I just hate manospherians for their terrible misogyny, but here it’s for his totally shit parenting, too.
Right. Saving your child from a lifetime of drug addiction and permanent brain injury is just bad parenting.
I understand now your message now.
BTW your language is atrocious.
Good parenting involves civil discussion, but then you should know that.
weirwoodtreehugger:
I am not being the one victimized here, it is far more innocent and trusting children who are.
They are dependent upon those around them to do the right thing for them.
Unfortunately, that does not always happen.
I did not start this thing, I was a loving father to my daughter for her first seven years.
I never complained or published anything about our life then.
Then she was taken away from my protection, and subjected to _____________. I will not detail it further here.
You claim that my continued efforts at protecting my daughter are wrong.
You say my going public with it was wrong.
Well, I disagree, as the more people who know about such atrocities, instead of hiding them like they didn’t happen, the more likely something can be done about it.
You may impute my methods, but please don’t impute my motives.
This is not about me, this is about my child.
this makes no sense. how did drug addiction and brain injury get in here?
Oh look. Gary replied without actually addressing a single point I made.
Gary,
If your motive is protecting your daughter, why put her name online? Is that really the best way? Why couldn’t you redact it? Do you care if other people google her and find out her private information?
As Maya Angelou said, when people show you who they are, believe them. All you’ve demonstrated in this thread is that you don’t understand or care about consent. Why should we take you at your word that you’re this good and selfless person?
Fade:
Remember, I cannot go into details. Suffice to say that is exactly what is happening, and exactly what I am trying to prevent.
I wonder how he feels about pegging…..
@gary
You are so full of shit.
I’ve seen my parents with ‘civil discussion’ and, let me tell you, I am not impressed.
Because you little fucks (I”m grouping you together, even though my mom is 10000x better than you) are so scared of your kids having nasty language, but you’ll spew your misogyny and your ableism and all of your shit over your kids
but the minute someone says a bad word, that’s bad parenting.
Let me tell you something: I have zero trust for parents who don’t care about their kids consent. They’re worse than scum.
Do you actually ask your daughter if you can share her information? Do you even care if it being all under her own fucking name, without your sorry ass bothering to hide it could affect her in later life, in ways she never was informed to, or consented to.
Because if you don’t, you’re worse than the dirt on my boots.
actually, I’m judging your motives so fucking hard right now.
See, I’m going to admit right off the bat this subject is touchy for me, and I am giving Gary negative leniency. He reminds me of my parents when I was younger, and damn if I wish someone hadn’t told them where to shove it.
:: offers Marie hugs ::
weirwoodtreehugger:
I am hampered by not being permitted here to go into detail, my posts are moderated and that is what I was told not to do. So I can only address your points in less than great detail.
I didn’t say I was or wasn’t a good and selfless person. Such self-laudatory statements are not part of my vernacular.
People should be judged by their attitude, motives and by their behavior, not by how they would assess themselves to others.
I know who I am, and I am satisfied that I am a good person. But I will not presume to tell others that, they can make up their own minds.
I can say, I do not believe I deserve the acrid vitriol that I am subject to here; I have only been polite and respectful.
But I have experienced this before, so that is just the way of the world I guess.
@ally
thanks so much. This fucker is just getting to me so much. Idk if I should leave or whatever, but blah.
@gary
answer me this: does. your. daughter. have. any. say. in. what. you. post. about. her?
Your methods speak to your motives, Gary.
If you had your daughter’s best interest at heart, you would not share her info on a website that is dedicated to hating her, a website where men say to let little girls drown, that excuses pedophilia and tells men that it’s OK to beat and rape them when they grow up. I’m not buying your “concern”.
@gary
even if we ignore the massive rape apologia you got into earlier
PHRASING THINGS POLITELY DOES NOT MEAN YOU AREN’T SPEWING VILE SHIT! get that through your head.
You can talk like the nicest person in the world, but so long as you’re saying truely vile ideas (ie MY DAUGHTER GETS NO SAY IN WHAT I POST ABOUT HER UNDER HER REAL NAME) you are still a terrible person.
people think that dressing up bad behavior (like posting someone’s personal info online w/o permission) or bigotry (like “there should be higher burden of proof for marital rape”) in polite language makes them polite and respectful. but it doesn’t. people aren’t critiquing the phrasing of your ideas. They are critiquing your ideas
Dvärghundspossen:
The Finnish term for sambo union was coined neatly by dropping one letter from the word meaning marriage:
avioliitto = “marital union”
avoliitto = “open union”
The latter has no legal recognition whatsoever, although some have suggested it should. (civil union for gay couples is called “registered partnership”, which was probably deliberately meant to sound unromantic) Both married and unmarried partners may be plausibly called “spouse/wife/man”, although they also have more specific terms.
As an aside, Tarja halonen was elected Finnish President in 2000, shortly before she married her lifelong sambo Pentti Arajärvi. Allegedly, Swedish-language media here (and in Sweden?) had trouble deciding whether to title him “make” (“spouse”, impying marriage) or “sambo” (little too informal-sounding, kinda like “First Roommate” in US terms).
Marie:
Interesting how much importance you place on giving the child the right of consent.
Do you think she was given that option, or gave consent when they did what they did to her?
The answer is no. It was just done, and it was done against my consent as well for her.
And in either event, the child DID give consent to me to publish her story, several times.
She cried to me to help her and save her. I have that also well documented.
I absolutely do also agree a child should have a say in what is happening to her.
Unfortunately she was not given that option, and that is where it sits today. But I am still working to undo the damage that was done, and free her from future harm.
Fuck you, Gary. You have been neither polite nor respectful. You came here arguing misogynist bullshit and we are not about to coddle your fee-fees while you do it.
Taking your whiny, excuse making, sexist, petty, rapist enabling, child exploiting ass back out the way you brought it in if you don’t like it.
Gary,
I don’t need or want details about your daughter’s situation. It’s not my place to know or judge.
The issue is consent and the fact that you don’t care about it. I’m judging you.
You still haven’t my questions. All of them can be answered without going into detail about your daughter.
Why couldn’t you have discussed the issue without using her name? You could have redacted it or used a pseudonym.
Do you care if people in her life google her name and find out her medical information because of you? That is a yes or no question. Easy to answer without going into detail.
The more you avoid that question, the more it looks like you don’t care at all.
Stop whining about polite and respectful you are and how mean we are to you. We care about consent around here and you are showing again and again that consent is something you do not respect.
Seconded on the hugs offer Marie.
I’m sorry this is bringing up bad memories.
@weirdwoodtreehugger
thanks for hugs :3 I think I” feeling a little better, helped by my guinea pig being out and watching brain bleach. 😀
*take*
Not even sure how I screwed that up without noticing.
Because Gary thinks that taking psychiatric meds that have no addictive qualities is addiction, and because he has made unfounded claims about these meds causing brain injury.
@david
Oh wow so it’s a med thing. That makes me dislike him even more.
To be fair, I actually am on meds that can be addictive, but the possiblity of addiction is more desirable than what the meds prevent atm. That’s usually why people get perscribed meds, the potential side affects are weighed against the potential help.
idk, just rambles about meds. Also, meds that can be addictive are a pain in the ass to get refilled.