Free Northerner is a “Dark Enlightenment” blogger who describes himself as “a Christian and a reactionary monarchist from British North America” who,
after a period of red pill exploration … decided to embrace Christian masculinity. I am working to improve myself for God’s glory. My plan is to find a wife and raise a large family with traditional values.
If any woman ever decides to marry him – and I sincerely hope no one ever does — she should be aware that her Darkly Enlightened husband does not believe there is such a thing as marital rape.
In a recent post, Free Northerner set forth the essentially the same argument as his fellow reactionary Vox Day: that the marriage contract provides “sexual consent … for life,” and that those who argue for the existence of marital rape are thereby undermining the legitimacy of marriage itself. And then he adds some tweaks that make his terrible argument even more terrible than that of Mr. Day. But we’ll get to those in a moment.
First, his basic claim:
Marital non-consent is an impossibility: if there is non-consent, there is no marriage; if there is marriage, there can not be non-consent.
So if a wife doesn’t want sex and her husband forces it on her – whether she is screaming no and fighting her husband, or if she is so cowed she can’t say a word – her “no” simply doesn’t count, because of the one time she said “I do.”
Free Northerner, a man of many short paragraphs, attempts to give a Christian justification for his stance:
The basis of Christian marriage is laid out in Genesis and reiterated in the Gospels. The man and wife become one flesh.
Can a person commit a non-consensual act upon their own flesh?
The very idea is absurd.
Indeed, he argues that anyone who believes that there is such a thing as marital rape isn’t a real Christian:
Any statement that there can be non-consent in marriage is an attack on the fundamental basis of Christian marriage and the Christian family.
And, furthermore, that anyone who says “no” to their spouse is a sinner:
The Bible is very clear that you should not deny your spouse sex. Someone who does is sinning.
But, hey, he’s no monster. If your spouse says no, even if this is Very Wrong because the Bible Told Him So, Free Northerner does acknowledge that it might not be so terribly polite or practical to go ahead and rape have perfectly justifiable marital sex with them.
All that being said, this should not be taken as encouragement to take your spouse if the spouse is saying no. Your spouse may be sinning and consenting, but it would not be the loving thing to do and might be sinful in itself. As well, from a practical standpoint, the law does frown upon it.
Free Northerner then pulls a very Warren Farrell-esque move. You may recall that in discussing his incest research in the 1970s, Farrell, the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, suggested that much of the trauma of incest might come not from the incest itself but from society’s negative attitudes towards it.
Free Northerner makes the same argument, a bit more forcefully, with regard to marital rape, claiming that the real trauma of marital rape comes not from one spouse forcing sex on another but on the notion that this violation is a violation.
That is, the real trauma of marital rape is caused by the idea of marital rape.
Here’s how he puts it:
The trauma of rape does not primarily come from its physical aspects, but rather its psychological aspects. The trauma comes from the violation.
If this is so, it stands to reason if there is no sense of psychological violation, there is no trauma.
The creation of the concept of marital rape, creates the idea that a spouse can be violated in marriage where the idea didn’t exist previously. Undesired sex that would have been an unpleasant duty is made traumatic by removing the psychological aspect of duty from it and imputing a psychological aspect of violation to it.
I think it likely, the psychological trauma of marital rape only becomes a reality because of the belief that there can be such a concept as marital rape. Pushing the concept of marital rape increases the likelihood of trauma from marital rape; the very concept of marital rape creates the trauma of marital rape.
Anyone with any degree of real human empathy can see that this is pernicious bullshit.
And in fact, Free Northerner has it completely backwards: it’s the fact that people don’t take marital rape seriously that makes it worse.
Even though marital rape is now illegal in the United States, numerous surveys reveal that both men and women take it less seriously than stranger rape, and there are still many who, like Free Northerner, don’t believe that it is rape at all. As late as the mid-1990s, fully half of the male college students answering one survey on the topic said that it wasn’t possible for husbands to rape their wives.
Yet numerous studies suggest that marital rape can actually be more traumatizing than stranger rape, both emotionally and physically. Rape by an intimate partner represents a profound betrayal of trust; it may be part of a broader pattern of mental and physical abuse, and it is likely to be repeated. Most wives who are raped are raped more than once, with a third of them raped twenty or more times. And contrary to what many believe, survivors of marital rape are often subject to more extreme physical violence than survivors of stranger rape.
Despite all this, many wives remain trapped in violent marriages without any outside support. Many raped wives are financially dependent on their husband-rapists and find it difficult if not impossible to leave; meanwhile, they’re often pressured to stay by friends and relatives who don’t even consider what happened to them to have been rape. Thus their trauma is made worse by the cultural denial that marital rape is rape.
It’s not the idea of marital rape that causes trauma; it is the fact of it. It is marital rape apologists like Vox Day and Free Northerner who enable it in the first place – and make the trauma worse once it happens.
Oh my fucking God. Oh, sweet merciful Jesus. Dear tapdancing Christ, what a horrible person. He needs to upgrade the Legos to the infamous caltrops of tabletop gaming – may 1d4s follow his steps everywhere. So much disgusting bullshit.
So sorry to any decent Christians for the blasphemy in my post.
What the ever-loving fuck?
“Pushing the concept of marital rape increases the likelihood of trauma from marital rape;”
Martial rape is real, but if wifey catches on to that, she may protest and realize I’m violating her. Stupid rape awareness! I want a sex slave who bakes pies and cleans the kitchen! Damn it, if I had it my way she souldn’t even know how to read!
(sarcasm off)
These guys are so disgusting, soooo disgusting.
Oh, for fuck’s hairy sake.
Bad enough this asshole has these opinions. Worse that he’s spreading them around, except that any women who might consider marrying him at least has a chance of reading what he’s written.
I am not a Christian but I do know a number of people who are, in my opinion, true Christians and NONE of them believes that this vicious act is in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. Those who see women and wives as things created by god for men to use and abuse in any way are NOT Christians. Rather, at most, they follow the more egregious teachings of the Old Testament. The teachings of Jesus were supposed to supplant them, according to what a couple of ministers I know say.
What Free Northerner is advocating is the evil abuse of women for the pleasure of their “owners,” since only slaves, here defined as wives, can have the right to say a meaningful NO taken from them.
An interesting question – Can a married Christian man say no to his wife if she is the one who wants sex and he does not? Can he cry rape if she persists in arousing him against his will? Where does he draw the line?
May no woman ever find herself the victim of this monster.
I see David has a friend over on Twitter calling him a scumbag because he didn’t point out (other than in the quoted passages) that Free Northerner says “but that doesn’t mean you should rape your wife.” Honestly, where do these people find you?
*sees title*
oh god this will be terrible.
oh ew ew ew ew ew.
Petition to send this guy to Pluto, where he can’t be around other humans.
aaaaaghhhhh I don’t want to live on this earth anymore.
I’d like a bible-citation on that.nvm I don’t wannan know. tho maybe it does say that. It says a lot of terrible things. But I think is that what this guy doesn’t get is that the bible was written by men not by God, and there can be terrible, rape supporting things in there because I have no doubt some of those men were terrible rapists/ rape apologists. Not to mention how many translations it’s been through -_-I can’t stand Christians who use the bible to support their terrible bigotted views.
Yeah, thanks asshat, cuz women have to have society tell us when to feel violated.
thisiswhyihatementhisiswhyihatementhisiswhyihatemen.Gah.
@Anarchonist
No need.
Andrew, he was one of the ones who jumped on me yesterday when the AVFMers were arguing with me, so either he’s anAVFM fan or a fan of JudgyBitch. He’s also, despite defending FN here, an atheist activist.
Marie, yeah I was hoping to do a lighter post today, then I ran across this asshole and felt obligated to write about it.
“I’m the conservativest conservative ever! (Are you paying attention to me yet?)”
Thanks for laying out why the “one flesh” argument is dehumanizing and oppressive to women.
Yeah, I’ve heard this before about rape in general. “You’re only traumatized because someone told you it was traumatic” is such gaslighting, agency-denying bullshit, I can’t even. Women don’t know what to think or feel without someone telling them, apparently.
As a married lady of ten years, I don’t get this mindset. I just…don’t. It makes me sad. I know it’s out there, and is even fairly common, but I can’t imagine being so monstrously self-centered that viciously injuring and humiliating one’s spouse is no big deal. It’s not even the rape itself that disturbs me as much as the dismissive attitude. “So what if the person closest to my heart is in horrible pain and fear and trauma? I got my rocks off! Hi-five, bros!”
I literally have zero words for this. Zero. So much for feminism taking over, with men like this still viewing women as property. Sickening.
On a side note: I do agree the *stigma* associated with rape does make the rape worse. Men like this making women feel guilty for being raped, make rape worse. Men who deny rape, make rape worse. So yes, the stigma around rape makes it worse.
@david
oh, no, sorry, I wasn’t trying to tell you what to put on your blog. I was just frustrated.
I’m surprised he didn’t pull this gem of a passage out:
“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” 1 Corinthians 7:3-5
Then again, maybe he objects to the “husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” part. I can’t imagine an MRA being happy to hear that. The “wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband” part is clearly legit though.
All I can say is at least the Bible promotes equal opportunity marital rape.
Sheesh, as much of a mixed bag as my Catholic upbringing was, 13 years of CCD can run circles around the biblical literacy of the average born-again.
The basis of Christian marriage is laid out in Genesis and reiterated in the Gospels. The man and wife become one flesh.
Can a person commit a non-consensual act upon their own flesh?
The very idea is absurd.
The Bible has prohibitions about injuring your own flesh. Hell, you’re not even supposed to get a tattoo because that’s deliberate scarification. There are several points in the Bible where the Genesis concept of a married couple being “one flesh” is cited as a reason for spouses to be gentle and caring with one another. If you consider your wife part of your flesh, it’s a sin to physically hurt her.
The Bible is very clear that you should not deny your spouse sex. Someone who does is sinning.
No it’s not. However, in Jewish tradition, some passages are interpreted to mean that husbands–NOT wives–have a responsibility to provide their spouses with sexual pleasure. According to this interpretation, a husband who doesn’t care whether his wife enjoys sex with him is sinning. Rape would be beyond the pale.
What I hear from guys like this is a combination of self-absorption and massive sexual insecurity. The idea of a woman actually wanting to have sex with them is so alien they can’t imagine it; their absolute best-case scenario is one where someone is contractually bound to sigh and stare at the ceiling for five minutes a week, and they’re terrified of losing that much.
@ladysunami
ugh. C’mon bible, can’t you do better than this!
Free Northerner isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, put it that way. He wrote a post a while back, outlining how he would spend $35 million to bring down the Democrats through dirty tricks and intimidation. Problem was it showcased how little he knows about politics, money and professional communications strategies.
The funniest bit was at the end, where he offered to pull off this strategy for anybody willing to pay him a nice fat fee – yet his ‘winning’ ideas were built on the idea that volunteers would sign up in droves to indulge in quasi-legal harassment: http://tinyurl.com/p27brwq
“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” 1 Corinthians 7:3-5
It’s amazing how Biblical passages about spouses’ duties to each other (not that I agree that spouses have a duty to “yield”) magically acquire a series of ellipses when quoted by fundamentalists, and suddenly become only about things a wife is supposed to do for her husband. I’ve seen this passage quoted a lot by patriarchal fundies, and the husband always manages to keep authority over his body. Weird.
VOMIT! I just looked at the guy’s blog trying to find his fund raising post and he’s written to his readers asking for reassurance that it’s OK to ask out a girl who’s in Year 11 or 12. Then he admits he’s “nearly 30”. Yeah, good luck with that.
Reactionary, monarchist AND an advocate of marital rape?
How is this man not married yet?!
@robert.
ik. what a frickin catch.
Um, and what about the golden rule?
In any case,this passage
What does that even mean? Is that a fancy way of saying a racist who doesn’t believe in democracy? I think I already know the answer to that one.
And yet, you never hear these people say a wife should be able to rape her husband. I’m absolutely not advocating that. Just pointing out that if you are going to use the bible to advocate really fucked up shit, at least be consistent about it.
Shouldn’t they precede him?
Even less relevant aside: is that Elizabeth Taylor in the post picture?
Damn blockquote mammoth… I’ll try again:
In any case,this passage
does not imply that husbands can force their wives to sex and it’s not rape. The passage implies that it’s either the case that husbands can force their wives to have sex and it’s not rape or it’s the case that if a wife does not consent to have sex with her husband she is thereby instantly and magically divorced from him.
Logic; not the strong point of MRA:s.
The Bible also says to obey the law, dumbass. And not just because it’s “practical.”