SINCE THIS IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MONTH, I WANTED TO PUT THIS OUT THERE......... MARITAL RAPE IS NOT OK. HE CANNOT TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE HIS PROPERTY AND HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS........... ITS WRONG, ITS ILLEGAL, AND ITS RAPE, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT...........I KNOW, I EXPERIENCED IT!!!!!
Sexual Coercion in Marriage: Can My Husband Rape Me?
Marital rape is a very real—and very illegal—offense in all 50 states
Key Takeaways:
Marriage never means automatic consent. Sexual activity without consent is rape or sexual assault, even between spouses.
Sexual coercion can be abuse, too. Threats, manipulation, pressure, reproductive coercion and other tactics can strip a partner of their ability to freely consent.
Freezing or not fighting back doesn’t mean consent. Freezing and fragmented memories are common trauma responses, and survivors are never to blame for how their bodies respond to an assault.
For much of American history, a woman’s choice to say “I do” could effectively strip her of the right to then say “no” to sex with her husband. The result left wives with little legal protection from husbands who used sexual violence as a means of power and control.. Though that’s no longer the case, not all men have gotten the message.
What Is Marital Rape?
Marital rape occurs when your spouse forces you to take part in sex acts without your consent. This includes any unwanted intercourse or penetration obtained by force, threat of force or when the spouse is unable to consent. According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, rape by a spouse can be as emotionally and physically traumatic as rape by a stranger, and survivors of marital rape may experience repeated assaults. They also discovered marital rape victims are more likely to experience multiple rapes. Furthermore, forced sex increases a victim’s chances of being murdered by their abusive partner in the future.
CarlLa Horton, Executive Director of Hope’s Door in New York, has worked with survivors for the last three decades. It’s not “marital rape,” she says. “It’s rape. It minimizes it to call it marital rape.”
She gives a heartbreaking example of what rape and sexual coercion can look like in a marriage, recalling what a survivor once told her.
“A woman spoke about her husband wanting this and that sexually, but she wasn’t having it, she didn’t want it. Here’s what he said that finally got her to acquiesce—'You do what I want or ‘—and he pointed to the bedroom of her daughter, eleven-and-a-half years old, from a previous marriage. He said, ‘She’s looking mighty juicy to me.’”
Tactics Abusers Use to Commit Marital Rape
Abusers who rape their partners may combine domestic violence tactics, like physical and emotional abuse with sexual violence. Some abusers use rape as a punishment for a survivor not obeying the “rules.” Sexual violence does not always involve physical force. Abusers may instead use threats, intimidation, manipulation or persistent pressure to obtain sexual compliance.’If you loved me, you’d do this.’
Coercive control is characterized by pervasive and ongoing oppression by an abuser. An abuser positions themselves as the main decision-maker in the relationship. Through isolation and manipulation, a survivor may find themselves losing autonomy, gaslit into believing that whatever the abuser says is true. This includes the survivor’s “duty” to have sex whenever the abuser wants.
Survivors can find themselves questioning what happened and wondering how they continue to be coerced into sex when they never outright consented. Sexual coercion can be even more difficult to recognize as it often involves manipulation through non-physical means.
Stealthing can be another type of rape abusers may use. This is when a rapist-abuser removes or damages a condom before or during sex without their partner’s consent. This can lead to an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or unintended pregnancy, the latter of which is a way some abusers try to trap survivors in a relationship.
Reproductive coercion extends beyond rape, with the abuser pressuring or forcing their partner to become pregnant or to end a pregnancy against the partner’s will. This could look like forbidding birth control, refusing to wear a condom, or using violence to end a pregnancy.
Abusers who coerce or force their partner to become pregnant know that a shared child will mean even more control over the survivor. For more information, see our Guide to Reproductive and Sexual Coercion.
How Abusers Use Sexual Violence for Power and Control
Most sexual violence experts would agree that rape has less to do with sexual gratification and more to do with power, which is something abusers are fixated on having over their victims.
“In relationships, it’s used as a controlling technique–’I continue to have power over you,’” explains Rachel Stanton, founder and director of Counseling in Boston, LLC, who works with survivors of sexual trauma.
“It’s one more degrading tactic [abusers use] because it’s all about putting someone else down,” says Horton.
She agrees with Stanton that the act is not about sex at all, but rather entitlement.
“I don’t think these men have enormous libidos, or a high sexual desire. It’s a tactic to exert that power and control,” says Horton.
Is Marital Rape Illegal?
Marital rape is now illegal in all 50 states—though it took until 1993 to do so.
The year 1978 saw the first perpetrator convicted of raping their spouse in the U.S. Before then, there was a common law presumption that “real rape” could only occur by a stranger and that forced sex was a “wifely duty.” Luckily ideas changed and in the 1970s and ‘80s states began adopting laws criminalizing marital rape. Women’s advocate Laura X, who took the name in 1969 at the age of 29 to symbolize her rejection of men's legal ownership of women, played a prominent role in the successful campaign to outlaw marital rape in California in 1979 with her advocacy efforts. Following that, she led campaigns in 45 other states which followed suit. By 1993, every state had made marital rape an illegal offense.
Yet, a legal loophole was found to exist as late as 2019 when Minnesota finally overturned and repealed the state’s marital rape exception that protected rapists who lived with and had an ongoing sexual relationship with their victim. Prior to that, at least one victim saw her rapist ex-husband serve just 29 days in jail because they were married at the time of his assault.
Marital rape is just as illegal in same-sex marriages. Statistics show that 44 percent of lesbians and 26 percent of gay men have experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner, though how many couples were married is unknown.
Is Marital Rape Illegal Globally?
Sadly, no. The United Nations estimated in 2019 that only 4 in 10 countries worldwide have laws criminalizing rape within a marriage. Marital rape is not explicitly criminalized in many countries, and in those places where laws exist, legal exceptions make prosecution difficult. For instance, in Russia, Thailand and Venezuela, as long as the rapist marries their victim, the rape is not punishable. In Iran, marriages are allowed with girls as young as 9 years old with parental permission, ignoring any ideas that children may not be able to consent to sex.
Even in countries where marital rape is illegal, cultural norms keep many victims silent. In South Africa, for example, though marital rape was outlawed in 1993, it is believed by many that a married woman’s body belongs to her husband. Therefore, rape isn’t possible, or so the excuse goes.
Signs of Sexual Coercion in Marriage
Sexual coercion occurs when someone uses pressure, manipulation, threats or other nonphysical tactics to obtain sexual activity that the other person does not freely want or consent to.. This is different from rape and sexual assault where physical force can be a factor. Sexual coercion can be confusing to survivors—was it rape even if I didn’t stop it? Is this considered abuse? Am I supposed to give my spouse sex? The grey area of coercion can be compounded through gaslighting in which an abuser convinces their partner that what they think happened didn’t. Other signs of sexual coercion include:
Asking for sex repeatedly
Saying things like, “You got me this far. Don’t you want me to finish?” or “I thought you loved me and wanted to make me happy?”
Telling you it’s your obligation as a spouse or partner
Giving you alcohol or drugs in order to lower your inhibitions
Threatening to break up with you unless you engage in sexual activity
Refusing to use protection or not allowing a partner to use birth control
Threatening to go elsewhere for sex
Withholding money or other needs if you don’t have sex
Saying sex is owed because your partner paid for dinner, did you a favor, etc.
What To Do if Your Spouse Forces or Coerces Sex
Rape or sexual coercion by a spouse can be hard to prove in court since there are no witnesses and often no evidence besides the survivor’s testimony. Survivors are often at a disadvantage to prove the crime happened, as opposed to an abuser being asked to prove it didn’t.
Horton gives another example of a Spanish-speaking survivor who was trying to secure an order of protection against her abusive spouse.
“The judge was asking her, what did he [the abuser] do that you want this order of protection? She answered, ‘He said very bad things.’ The judge asked, ‘What do you mean?’”
The survivor couldn’t say it out loud. Instead, she whispered it to her attorney, who then responded to the judge. “She says that if she didn’t give him her ass there would be no food for her kids.”
The judge didn’t grant the survivor the order of protection, remembers Horton.
If you’ve been raped by your spouse or coerced to have sex that you didn’t consent to, here are some immediate steps you can take:
Get somewhere safe. This may be a friend or family member’s house, a hospital or an emergency shelter. If you have children, try to take them with you. Leaving them with the abuser may make it very hard to gain custody of them later if you stay away. You can go to a police precinct if you feel it’s safe to do so. For some survivors, reporting the abuse can mean an increased level of danger. It may be safer to first consult with a domestic violence advocate on how to stay safe, and then contact law enforcement if you choose to do so.
Consider getting a forensic exam. This is not an easy choice, but it can be useful later on if the victim decides to report to law enforcement. A forensic exam, also known as a rape kit, is conducted at a hospital by a trained sexual assault nurse examiner. The exam can take multiple hours to conduct and can feel invasive, but a victim is allowed to stop the exam at any point. Evidence is collected and stored until a survivor needs it. A survivor can request a rape kit without being obligated to involve police right away.
Reach out to a trained domestic violence advocate. You can call a domestic violence organization near you and speak to someone about next steps, such as a safety plan or an order of protection. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE.
What Consent Looks Like in Marriage
In case it’s unclear, even within a marriage, both parties must consent to sexual activity of any kind, otherwise it’s considered assault. The absence of a “no” does not equal consent, and consent can be withdrawn at any time. Being married does not imply consent.
Everyone is allowed to set boundaries based on what they’re comfortable with, and those boundaries may change. Just because you consented to something sexual at one time does not mean you’ve consented to it happening any time. A healthy partner will respect sexual boundaries and not coerce, shame, bribe or threaten their partner into doing something sexual.
Consent doesn’t have to stop intimacy. It can be asked throughout an intimate act and can sound like:
Are you comfortable with this?
Are you OK if I [describe what you want to do next]?
Do you want to slow down?
What do you want to happen next?
Freezing During Assault, Forgetting Details Is Common
Our body’s neurotransmitters, or the chemical messengers sent from our brain to other parts of the body, are designed to protect us from danger. When these transmitters sense we’re in danger, such as in the case of assault, they release adrenaline, a hormone that gives us a burst of energy and clarity to “fight or flight” from an assault. But in other cases, our nervous system becomes overloaded, almost paralyzed by fear. This is when “freezing” can be our body’s response. Throughout evolution, our brains learned that staying completely still can sometimes stop a predator from attacking. This is a common response, and it’s not the survivor’s fault. In addition to freezing, our brains may block memories of the trauma as another way to protect us.
Unfortunately, victims who freeze or forget details of an attack can often be blamed by those unfamiliar with trauma responses. But remember, it’s not your fault. Read “Fragmented Memories: How Trauma Can Cause Memory Loss” for more information.
Additional Questions About Sexual Coercion, Answered
Can my spouse rape me?
Yes, any unwanted intercourse or penetration obtained by force, threat of force or when the spouse is unable to consent is rape. Sexual coercion is also a type of sexual assault or sexual abuse, and yes, it can be perpetrated by a spouse.
Is it illegal for my spouse to rape me?
Yes, sexual assault is illegal in all 50 states. If you are considering reporting the assault to law enforcement, a sexual assault or domestic violence advocate can help you understand the process and consider any safety concerns before you decide.
I’m not sure if my partner raped me. How can I be sure?
If you did not freely consent to sexual activity, what happened was not consensual. You may be unsure what to call the experience, especially if your partner used pressure, threats or manipulation rather than physical force. You don't have to determine the legal definition on your own. A sexual assault or domestic violence advocate can listen to what happened, help you understand your options and support you without pressuring you to report.
You can call a domestic violence organization near you and speak to someone. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE.
Can I change my mind about having sex?
Yes, of course. You can revoke consent at any point of sexual activity. A healthy partner will stop. Also, consenting to sex or a specific sexual activity one time does not mean you’ve consented to it any time that partner wants it.
Why did I freeze up during an assault?
Freezing up during an unwanted sexual activity is normal. Our body’s neurotransmitters, or the chemical messengers sent from our brain to other parts of the body, are designed to protect us from danger. Sometimes, our nervous system becomes overloaded, paralyzed by fear. This is when “freezing” can be our body’s response. Throughout evolution, our brains learned that staying completely still can sometimes stop a predator from attacking. This is not your fault. Freezing up does not denote consent.
What is the difference between consent and compliance?
Consent is freely given; compliance may be a response to pressure, fear or threats. A survivor may stop resisting or agree to sexual activity because they believe doing so is the safest option. That does not necessarily mean they wanted or freely chose the sexual activity.
You Can Do This
Learn more about different ways sexual assault can show up in relationships with an abusive partner in the article “What Is Sexual Abuse?” You can also talk with our Hope Chat, the AI assistant appears at the bottom of this website. She can direct you to even more resources on DomesticShelters.org that can help you better understand different tactics of abuse.
If you think your partner has raped or sexually abused you, reach out to a domestic violence advocate near you to find local resources and support, and to discuss pressing charges and securing an order of protection if you’re ready for that step. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE.
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