Rape and Sexual Coercion in Married Couples

Paper Summary:

The writer discusses five case studies and draws several conclusions about the complexity of human sexuality in a culturally structured relationship such as marriage. The paper explains that when choosing a spouse, thinking that the union is to last for life, women are succumbing to cultural norms and values that guide their behavior and their choices. The paper shows that no matter what culture a woman is from, she will have expectations that the marriage will prove to be a support unit in both a physical and an emotional way. The writer explains that sexual coercion and rape that typically occur in abusive relationships have a way of imprinting on the victim a sense of helplessness and hopelessness because they are characterized with fear and lack of control of the victim over her own body. The writer examines the psychological damage of this abuse and its relationship to other medical problems. The writer explains how in some cases, as in honor cultures, neither partner is aware of their choices due to a standard accepted way of dealing with marital difficulties. In conclusion, the writer proposes that education is the key to prevention of marital rape and sexual coercion.

From the Paper:

"DeMaris states that even though other variables such as direct measures of the levels of testosterone and the levels of sexual coercion were not obtained, this study's results are relevant to the study of human sexuality in that they adequately address the issue of unrecognized marital rape. Levels of violence in a marriage that go beyond simple conflict of interests result in wife's fear of the husband's aggressive behavior, and are shown to be used as a mechanism to obtain sexual intercourse against the wife's free will. Such situations are proven to cause serious depressive symptoms that affect women's long-term mental health by denying her the control that any person should have over their life and their body (DeMaris, 1997)
"Another study by Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Monson, "Marital Rape: Is the crime taken seriously without co-occurring physical abuse?," responds to the inadequately addressed but prevalent social issue of recognizing marital rape and supporting the victims. Several hypotheses were made in this study; firstly, Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Monson hypothesize that the subjects in the study will be most likely to view forced marital intercourse as rape and to foresee greater psychological damage to the victim if they were told that there were previous incidents of violence in the marriage. The second hypothesis was that subjects who had no knowledge of the history of the marriage would suppose that there were previous incidences of violence and therefore label the intercourse presented as rape. Lastly, subjects that were told how there was no previous violence in the marriage were hypothesized to be the least likely to see the situation as being marital rape, most likely to give into cultural "gender role stereotypes" and therefore to be "rape supportive" (Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Monson, 1998)"

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