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.
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.