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.
How about if people don’t rape their spouses? Seems pretty simple, really.
Banhammer away.
Kate, men could stop raping their wives and other men could stop encouraging them to do so by claiming that it isn’t rape if you put a ring on it.
Pretty simple, really.
@cloudiah
I’m neutral, but if she was banned I certainly wouldn’t mind.
What works:
* Criminalizing the rape of a partner (Done)
* Eliminating loopholes in legal codes that make rape of a partner legal grey areas by such circumspect notions as “one flesh” or “marriage grants on-going consent” (Done in most countries)
* Offering the same exact awareness training, campaigns and information that is available as with any other kind of rape (Done in most countries)
Done.
From there on out it’s a downward curve for rape of all kinds, as it has been, for several decades now. Woooooh! And most other crimes. It’s good to be alive.
I mean, this isn’t hard.
What won’t fix any crime is no-criming it. You can’t say “Well, we’ve managed to make no instance of marital rape occur over the past 10 years by declaring marital rape a legal impossibility because marriage grants on-going consent”. It’s like ruling that all suicides are actually homicides because a person was killed, and then declaring that your state is suicide free.
sort of silly.
Cloudiah,
It would be fine with me! I’m pretty upset about it too even though I have no personal ties like you do. Victim blaming and male entitlement (and apologia for it) is something I’m even less receptive to than usual.
I’m glad your friend’s daughter is OK.
Why do misogynists always come in here and put it on us to fix misogyny? We’re already against marital rape and all other rape. We already know about consent. We already have the right attitude and correct others who don’t.
It’s other people who need to change.
Eliminating it completely is probably impossible, so the goal should be to greatly reduce the frequency.
We’d do this using the same methods that we’d use to reduce the frequency of anything else: Education, social pressure, tax incentives, criminal penalties, etc. (Maybe not tax incentives in this case, but the other stuff should work.) Society is already doing this to some extent but there’s lots of room for improvement.
Do you have a counter-proposal? If it’s “blame the victim”, then that doesn’t work. That actually increases the undesirable behavior, because it sends a message that people can engage in it without being held responsible.
@Marie: People can already do numbers 1-4. So how do you account for its continued existence? Long story short: your way isn’t working.
@drst: The person has the right to say no in that scenario. The post in question is about a continued, sustained refusal to have sex, which I think is very different. I’ll have to think about the second part of your question.
@cloudiah: I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I am going to leave (not flounce, mind you) both because I do have somewhere to be and because its not really my intention to disturb. Have a pleasant day.
THAT’S STILL NOT AN EXCUSE TO RAPE YOU REPREHENSIBLE ASSHOLE.
Kate,
Yes, it is. It is your way of victim blaming and pretending that rape might be a necessity or not really “rape” at all that fucking failed for a very long time.
Flit away special snowflake. No one here asked for your “advice”. You admit to being a female misogynist. This sight is meant to mock you. It’s not here to give you a space to tell the women here, some of whom are survivors of marital rape, that it’s their fault a man decided to rape them.
There is no justification for any rape. That you are eager to make one up is truly vile. What in the hell is wrong with you?
site
I’m off. (in so many ways)
Ta all and many hugs and well wishes to you. <3
“The post in question is about a continued, sustained refusal to have sex, which I think is very different.”
Things to do during “a continued, sustained refusal to have sex”:
1. talk with the other person about it
2. break up with the person
If someone’s continually refusing you sex, something is already wrong. Forcing them is not the way to fix it!
Dismantle patriarchy, the origin of rape culture. A culture that condones and encourages sexual violence, especially that committed by men against women as part of a strategy of male entitlement and often intimidation as well. While legislative reforms can help in bringing justice to victims, the root of the problem is the social system that enables perpetrators in the first place.
Kate, you just implied that a man is right to rape his wife if she refuses sex for a stint of time, just after someone mentioned that they were being triggered because an evil misogynistic bastard murdered 6 people because ‘he was a virgin and how dare women not have sex with him’ and that murdering them was only fair, since he was involuntarily celibate.
Your ‘have a pleasant day’ does not cut it.
Quit the victim blaming, or don’t come back.
Please.
“Long story short, your way isn’t working.” But it is working, the incidence of marital rape, like all rape, is way down from the 1970’s. People still work to end rape because it still happens, and telling them to stop using the methods that have been effective so far, simply because the job isn’t done yet is foolish. Imagine you are building a levee with picks and shovels, halfway through the job you don’t discard the tools simply because you have not managed to finish the job yet. The tools are working fine, we just haven’t finished yet.
Individual people can be supportive of survivors and harsh towards enablers and perpetrators, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly rape culture doesn’t exist. It will only go away once its systemic origins are dismantled. Whether someone has the ability to be genuinely anti-rape has nothing to do with whether the culture at large is anti-rape. If you understood anything about how social institutions work, you would know this.
The decreasing rate of rape in the US with the advent of feminist anti-rape advocacy suggests otherwise.
Kate: “Its not really my intention to disturb by advocating that women stop marital rape by just putting out.”
Fuck off.
@Kate – So you believe a married person can rape their spouse. Because if the person has the right to say no and says no and the other person forces them into sex, that’s rape. There is no gray area here, which is why you’re ducking the question. You know damn well that this would be rape and there’s no difference if Person A and Person B are dating or living together or legally married. So you actually when the truth comes out believe in “marital rape.”
Also no, the post is NOT about “sustained refusals,” it is about any refusal at all. The post is arguing that no wife has any right to refuse anything to her husband ever and even if she tries and he ignores it, it’s not rape. You cannot simultaneously believe in and deny the existence of rape within marriages. Well, you can try, but you look like a damn fool.
:: offers hugs for cloudiah ::
It’s really upsetting to me as well. I understand why you’re extra pissed off at Kate.
RE: emilygoddess
He found a church he likes? Yay! I occasionally think about our brief discussion about UU and I’ve meant to PM you guys on Tumblr and see if you wanted to talk more about it,
He’s going to the local MCC! If that doesn’t work out, he’s going to try the local UCC, which is a denomination he’s been with before and also has a local trans meeting. (And seems to have more of the call-and-response tradition that he’s more comfortable with.) So he has a good start!
RE: Kate
Men might feel the need,
You’re not a man, so you don’t know a thing you’re talking about. I’m a man, and I have never, EVER felt the need to rape anyone. Any man who DOES feel the need to rape someone should seek professional help, because godDAMN. Also, the guy who did rape me, and groomed me to be his child spouse, tried to claim that he wouldn’t need to rape me if I was a better partner. I was a fucking child, but he expected me to be his spouse.
how do the people at wehuntedthemammoth propose to eliminate “marital rape”?
I’m so glad you asked! Education on rape and consent, so that rapists can learn and reform. Beefing up support systems for partners who are raped, so they can leave, along with support systems for the rapists themselves, so that they can reform. (Because jail time does not solve the problem. Many rapists are repeat offenders, and I want them to be able to change, not just get locked away.)
This protects EVERYONE. Rape happens to people from all walks of life. Children, boys, girls, EVERYONE. Protecting them from rape is so important. I say this as someone who came from a family where both boys and girls were molested, and rape was a horrifying everyday occurence committed by family members. I want to make a world where people like my mother and uncle are never abused by their parents again, and where they never have to cope by abusing those who came after them. I want to break my family cycle.
You act as though rape is a foregone conclusion. That’s bullshit. We stopped lynching as a cultural practice in my country, we damn fucking well can protect our people from rape.
I typed out a whole thoughtful response to Kate but WordPress ate it and now I’m like, eh, no use talking thoughtfully to manosphereans anyway, is there?
There was a great article in Psychology Today awhile back about how the right to leave was one of the original social-regulating systems in the days before agriculture tied people to a hunk of land (and each other, by extension.) I have been trying to find it but failing. Bummer.
Basically if you tried to abuse/neglect/harangue/control people, even you own children, they could walk off and join another group or household. Put a limit on how big an asshole you could get away with being, even if you were a big asshole by nature.
Point is, when people have have the legal right and practical means to walk away from a bad situation, they will eventually do it. When not, they put a lot of energy into building up a wide and fascinating array of mechanisms to tolerate their misery instead.
While divorce is an expensive pain in the ass, I think it’s an acceptable outcome to ongoing relationship conflict. Rape is not.
I want to be amazed that I just had to say that but there’s a manospherean in the conversation so there is not much background knowledge one can take for granted.
I’m a gay man, stereotypically the most hypersexual demographic around. (Unless you mean my husband, who’s bi.)
Sometimes, one of us wants to have sex and the other doesn’t.
When this happens, shock! We don’t feel the urge to rape each other. We DON’T HAVE SEX. Sometimes, we find a kind of third option by finding a nonsexual way to provide the part of sex we really want. An orgasm? Cuddles? Closeness? A distraction from a bad day? All of these things can be achieved without us necessarily having sex with each other.
There is no “need” for marital rape. There is no urge or craving. Our relationship skills aren’t intended to keep us safe from marital rape, because WE DON’T WANT TO RAPE EACH OTHER.
I swear to god, misogynists not only have low feelings of women, they have the lowest feelings of men too. It disgusts me.
I’m a man. I have STANDARDS for my gender.
@kate
So, Kate, you think that if one spouse makes “a continued, sustained refusal to have sex”, then the other spouse may need to rape them? How long is “sustained”? Are we talking days, weeks, or months before you believe rape is a necessity?
Actually, don’t answer. I’d rather not know any more of your “thinking” on any subject.You disgust me.
This seriously makes me sick. The fact that he isn’t just a fart in a windstorm on an empty hill at night, barely noticeable and then he’s gone, the fact that people like him are an actual threat to victims, kills me. It kills me that there’s more than one of them and some of them are cops, or priests or authority figures. It makes me hate humanity.
While the UN study of rape in six Asian-Pacific countries that came out last year deals with rape of non-partners, I think it’s pertinent because it asks men why they raped.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/10/world/asia/asia-rape-report/
The majority stated they rape due to sexual entitlement, something that the Free Numbnuts’ rambling is drenched in. The fact that I can’t tell if Kate thinks sexual entitlement should be challenged is part of what makes her posts disturbing.
Almost 40% of men in the study stated that they raped “as a punishment”. This points to where Kate’s attitude shifts to appalling and only worthy of being told to fuck off. Seriously, do she not know that men who rape their partners are committing an act of violence that’s meant to punish, humiliate, control and/or harm their victim? That therefore rape is not prevented by encouraging men to be better at sexy times? Kate, gather up all your ramblings about men’s “needs”, GTFO and go back to Minterville to complain about women with your crank hack hubby.