"Married or Not, Rape is Rape"

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

Today’s post explores a very difficult issue, and I want to start by saying that this is a topic that parents and other adults should use discretion in discussing with young people, and some of the quotes today may present triggers for those with a history of trauma. So, please proceed to reading this post with those cautions in mind.

The original sample of our survey with intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors included 219 participants. Of these, 125 participants reported to us that they had experienced sexual abuse within their past abusive relationships. We can’t say that 57% of all survivors of IPV experience sexual assault due to the way we collected our data, as we can’t generalize that rate to others. However, the fact that the majority of participants in our research were abused sexually by their partners suggests that abusive dynamics often play out within couples’ sexual interactions when IPV is present. Today, I want to share with you some of the experiences that the participants in our research shared with us to provide examples of how sexual abuse may occur within the context of IPV.

But first, it’s important to note that even today, there are still people who fail to acknowledge that rape and sexual assault can occur within an established relationship, including marriage. This issue recently made the news when Richard Black from Virginia campaigned for a seat in Congress. During his previous time in the Virginia state legislature, Black “opposed making spousal rape a crime, citing the impossibility of convicting a husband accused of raping his wife ‘when they're living together, sleeping in the same bed, she's in a nightie, and so forth.’" Although Black has since dropped out of the race, this news brought to light the fact that some people still don’t recognize the existence or impact of sexual abuse within IPV.

The experiences of many survivors of intimate partner violence, including those who participated in our research, tell a different story. As one participant said, “Married or not, rape is rape.” The following participants’ quotes further demonstrate the different ways that sexual abuse and assault may occur as part of overall abusive dynamics:

• “I was raped.”
  
• “He raped me several times.”
  
• “This partner would pressure me to engage in sexual activity when I made it clear that I did not want to. Sexual coercion was a daily occurrence.”
  
• “It started with verbal and emotional abuse, then some physical abuse, and then when I was 17 he raped me...There were a few more incidences of sexual abuse for the next 15+ years.”
  
• “Abuse was in the form of sexual abuse, rape, oral rape, coercion, manipulation, control, and ‘putting me down’ verbally.”
  
• “Our first sexual experience was him forcing himself on me, but he excused it as me being drunk & him being drunk.”
  
• “He occasionally pressured me heavily about sex, but seemed threatened if I ever initiated sex and said that was all I ever wanted to do...Once in bed he grabbed my love handles and shook me because he was upset I had gained weight.  At the time I was pretty close to my target weight. He would compare me to other women he saw when we were out together.”
  
• “I would say I was in a very violent relationship physically, verbal and sexual.”   
  
• “By the time I'd processed the abuse and rape enough to put these labels on it, I was in a new (healthy and not abusive) relationship.”
  
• “If I wasn't in the mood for sex I would just be forced to do so because it was my duty as a wife.”
  
  

These quotes illustrate that this abuse may include rape, forced or coerced sexual activity, and other abuses of the intimacy that underscores couples’ sexual relationships. It may occur one time, or many times over the course of the relationship. And, a couple’s sexual relationship can become an area in which emotional abuse and/or physical abuse occur. Therefore, sexual abuse within IPV is a complex and significant challenge that many survivors face.

As I wrote in another blog post earlier this month, relationship commitment does not grant free and unrestricted use of one’s partner’s body. I believe that the experiences of these participants demonstrate the need for ongoing recognition of the potential for sexual abuse within abusive intimate relationships. This recognition is needed in prevention initiatives, interventions, and community resources for survivors.

The issue of sexual abuse within intimate relationships is highly complex, and I suspect this complexity is part of what has kept it an under-recognized aspect of intimate partner violence. However, given what we know about the power and control dynamics that underlie abuse, it is not surprising that these dynamics play out in such an intimate and personal domain as the couple’s sexual relationship. Therefore, we must work to continue to bring more attention to this issue so that survivors can receive the support they need and to prevent further abuse.