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Yes, Marriage as Consent Within Purity Culture Hurts Men Too.
Several Christian bloggers have posted about a woman’s supposed obligation to have sex with (or, as some put it “give sex to”) their husbands regardless of consent or even pain brought on or exacerbated by sex. Some people, including myself, see this as condoning marital rape. However, these bloggers generally see rape as getting assaulted by a stranger in a dark alley, which simply isn’t the case in the majority of rapes. RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) reports that 80% of rapists know their victim in some way and that can come in the form of marriage.
Being expected to have sex against one’s will isn’t like cleaning a toilet as one blogger put it. It’s like being a hotel maid expected to clean up after a string of unattended deaths by one’s self without so much as a sharps box or a box of disposable gloves. It’s dangerous, traumatic, unreasonable, and a sure sign that other abuses are condoned as well. However, one might overlook the consequences of expecting ongoing consent in marriage for men because, technically, they usually have some form of power in these situations. This power doesn’t mean that men get away from sexual dysfunction scot-free, though.
In these cases, men are expected to want sex at all times. While it is true that men do generally have a higher sex drive than women, it…
