Implied consent in marriage

Discussion in 'Human Rights' started by Maquiscat, Jul 23, 2022.

  1. Maquiscat

    Maquiscat Well-Known Member

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    The question before you is, is there an implied consent to sex when a couple enters into marriage. This is intended to be in both directions, so anyone who only takes it in the direct of the woman is trolling, especially since this question also applies to same sex marriages.

    Now with this question, comes the understanding that if there is such an implied consent, either party can withdraw it at any time. "not tonight, dear" is a valid withdrawal of consent. "You've pissed me off! It'll be a month before I will want sex with you" is a valid withdrawal of consent.

    The question of implied consent is not supposed to indicate that either party can't withdrawal consent, but that neither party needs to seek consent each and every time for each activity. This also assumes that no other specified conditions were agreed upon. Naturally, if one says that the other has to ask prior every time and the other accepts that, sure. But outside of agreed upon conditions, does the implied consent exist?
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2022
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, the first thing that we need to consider is that it depends what type of marriage. I think there's a huge gulf of difference between what a marriage for conservatives is, versus what a marriage for progressives often is.

    I would say yes, sort of.

    There are certainly some implied expectations and implied agreements in a marriage. One of the most obvious is that you are going to remain sexually faithful to your wife. Now that isn't even explicitly mentioned in the marriage vows, but everyone knows it is very much implied.

    It is true that "either party can withdraw it at any time", but we have to understand exactly what that means. And that's not always such a simple thing. The woman can get a divorce, or legal separation, of course. And even that is not so simple, because in many religious circles, divorce is not seen as option, or only an option of last resort.

    I think it's also important to realize this is not all a black and white thing. The woman can have her sexual boundaries violated, but there are different degrees of that violation. In my opinion and view, not all of those violations should really be seen as falling in the category of "rape". Rape is, and should be viewed as, a pretty serious thing, so if a wife had sex with her husband the first night, then was violated the second night, then slept with her husband again the third or fourth night, I am not sure that should really be seen as constituting "rape". It might be a much less bad form of violation, and we can debate exactly how the law should handle it. (That is not really specifically what this thread is about though)

    I think there are different magnitudes of withdrawal of consent. Did she say "Sorry, I don't feel like it tonight", or did she fight, try to kick him off her, scream for help?
    How forcefully did she object to his advances? I think that is somewhat relevant when the two have already established a sexual relationship. If she made it absolutely clear with her words and actions that she really did not want to have sex, then the issue of consent is going to be a lot more clear.

    People have very different views about this of course, so hopefully husband and wife come from the same culture.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, I'm not really even sure about that. Women can be very emotional. She might say she doesn't want to have sex for a month, but she might have just been saying that in an emotional state of mind, during a fight, and a few days later she might be less angry.

    Women withholding sex from a marriage (for long periods of time) is a terrible thing to do to the man, and is something that is very likely to lead to the end of that marriage, or the risk that the man might cheat on her with another woman on the side, which very often can ultimately lead to the end of that marriage.

    If the woman has medical issues that prevent her from having sex, the man might be more understanding and patient.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree that neither party in a long-term sexual relationship needs to seek consent each and every time for activity, but I think it goes even a little bit beyond that.

    And I think the rules could be very much different in an "open relationship", where both may be sleeping with other people. Where there is a lack of a committed sexual monogamy and faithfulness, explicit consent to each evening of sex and type of sexual act could become an issue.

    This is probably unnecessary and self-explanatory, but we probably should draw a distinction between different types of sexual acts. Certain types of sexual acts that are "not vanilla", the husband might need to ask for explicit consent each time before he tries it. Especially if that is not a common form of sex he routinely has with his wife.

    Now "gay marriage" is a whole other can of worms. Don't even ask me how this concept should apply there.
    But I don't think we should be letting whatever rules that should apply to gay marriage be influencing what rules should apply to regular marriage.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Remember, traditionally the legal and social definition of rape excluded sex between husband and wife. If a woman said "My husband raped me", people would be inclined to understand it in a more casual way, not that she was literally raped.

    This is from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "rape":

    "RAPE (from Lat. rapere, to seize), in law, the crime of having carnal knowledge of a woman by a man, not her husband, forcibly and unlawfully against her will."​

    We could argue about this, but I think by "carnal knowledge" they are implying the woman hasn't had consensual sex with that man before. The "carnal knowledge" of her body was taken from her by force. The husband isn't really gaining any "carnal knowledge" from his wife since he has already had sex with her so many times his "carnal knowledge" of her is already complete.

    The definition also says "forcibly", which I think requires some degree of force to be used (or threat of harm that prevents her from fighting him).


    But now there seems to be a push to treat sexual consent within marriage as exactly the same as sexual consent outside marriage.
    (Feminism, modern social progressivism)

    From one point of view, there are some who might argue that this could be seen as just one more example of the concept of marriage becoming increasingly irrelevant in modern society, where a married couple are treated more and more like they were not married, and where marriage is seen as increasingly meaningless.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  6. Yant0s

    Yant0s Active Member

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    I've actually had this conversations with previous women in my life and my current girlfriend.

    Usually I'll bring it up. As in "I totally don't mind if I'm asleep and you wake me up by carrying out a sex act on me".

    Basically I give permission to assume I'm always consenting, unless I clearly state otherwise.

    From there we work out what out what each other boundaries of are.

    I'm far from vanilla in the bedroom and I find these open and honest conversations essential and i'm very comfortable having them.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2022
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Let's face it. There is an inherent gender inequality built into biological reality.

    Usually women don't have to ask for sex, if they have already had it with that man and are in a relationship with him.

    I'd like to see a man try to accuse the woman he is with of "sexual violation" because she didn't ask first. It would probably get laughed out of court.
    (all the more so and especially if they had already slept together)
    I doubt most police officers would even be willing to take up the case or refer it to a prosecutor.

    True, both sides could theoretically work out all the intricate details in advance, but in reality that is too complicated and few people are going to actually do that.

    It is true though that wealthy black sports celebrities are already requiring women to sign contracts before they sleep with them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2022

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