Spousal Rape is Real Rape.

Black Law and Legal Lies

This week Ann, Dan, and Afro Becky (formally known as Anonymous) are joined by our caller Diane from North Carolina who is a victim of marital rape. Diane's #MeToo post caught Dan's eye because if you remember in our pilot episode, prior to the recent national attention on sexual crimes, Dan didn't think it was possible to rape one's spouse.

Diane's Post:

We were married. He was drunk. He said it was my wifely duty to submit. I laid motionless and cried...But it doesn't count because I didn't resist. It happened several times. But he's a nice guy 👍🏽.
I tolerated this and many other bad behaviors because I didn't want the stigma of divorce. After 11 years of waiting for things to get better, I finally decided that my sons needed a better example of what a marriage should look like and started a new life.
This is NOT about my current husband. He's a wonderful, loving, and respectful man. I'm so thankful our paths crossed.

Marital Rape:

Diane shared that her ex-husband of 11 years would regularly go out drinking and doing cocaine all night, only to return barely before the sun would rise and make unwanted sexual advances as Diane slept. Diane would tell him no multiple times and he would persist. Frustrated, and seeing no way to stop his advances Diane would lay there as he proceeded to have intercourse with her. There were times that he would be so drunk/high that he would literally fall asleep in the act. Other times Diane's ex-husband would ridicule her for self pleasuring and justify his sexual behavior by using the Bible to convey that she should submit to him, whenever he wanted.

At the time, Diane didn't know that she was being raped. She knew it felt wrong and viewed it as being in a dysfunctional relationship. If a person says no, or doesn't give explicit consent, legally it is rape.

Sadly Diane shared that her teenage son now displays the same behaviors as his father (her ex-husband). She has been attempting to get her son help so that he does not become the man his father is, but it's proving to be difficult. The State of North Carolina has ignored her pleas. To make matters worse, a judge in juvenile court told her to shut up when she expressed in court that she didn't want her son "to become another Brock Turner." The judge went on to tell her that she's a Dragon Mom who has unrealistic expectations of her son.

North Carolina's Rape Law:

We also talk about the loophole in North Carolina's rape law that does not allow a sexual partner to withdraw consent after giving it, even if the person no longer wants to have sex. This introduced us to the story of Aaliyah Palmer, a 19 year old woman who gave sexual consent until her partner started abusing her by pulling her hair out of her head. She asked him to stop and he did not. According to North Carolina case law, this act was NOT rape. To read more about Aaliyah's story visit: http://bit.ly/2zFM8EN

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