I may get flamed for this, but I bet if Dan Savage got Enraged's letter, he would say it was fake - another example of Hustler-style fantasy.

I may get flamed for this, but I bet if Dan Savage got Enraged's letter, he would say it was fake - another example of Hustler-style fantasy.

that is so awful. And now I have a question for Abby, if "Marybeth" had some inkling that the man she had sex with wasn't her husband, then why would she mention it to her husband?

My ex liked to get jiggy in the middle of the night, and I usually would have sex with him unless I was uber-tired or sick or something. The thing is that, in the dark, when I had just woken up I probably wouldn't have noticed if he kissed a little differently. This woman had no reason to think that it was anybody other than her husband. If his brothers really were built the same, and there weren't any obvious differences like a tongue piercing, she would likely not notice.

This guy should cut ties with his brothers. Even if one comes forward, the others still knew about it and didn't do anything, and were accomplices.

This makes me sick.

This is really messy scenario. But I don't think it's rape; it stretches too broadly criminal definitions of sexual assault.

"Marybeth told me she was glad I had come to her room after all and made love to her."

...this is not sexual assault against one's own will. It's fraud, but I don't think necessarily rape.

So when LawGeek writes, "If he knew she wouldn't have consented to sex with him, then it seems to me he is no different than someone who forces sexual activity on someone."

In no way can a court prove that; a judge cannot enter a person's mind. Motive is not the same thing as intent.

I agree with "it seems pretty clear to me that this was rape by fraud" — to an extent. This woman had consensual sex; that Massachusetts law define "by force AND against [the] will;" Marybeth was only subjected to the latter.

Definitionally, I feel it's not rape. Morally and ethically, yes—abhorrent. But not rape, if only because it dilutes the definition of rape to the point where it becomes effectively pointless, and legally impotent.

It's strange; if you gave your life savings to a supposed Nigerian prince online under false pretenses, I would think that theft by fraud would apply.

As for the rest of it, stay out of Rochester during snowstorms. Apparently nobody has Scattergories to pass the time.

While the authenticity of the letter is certain in question, what bothers me is TJ's definition of "rape."

TJ - if you're having sex with a woman without her consent, what the hell is it? I don't give a damn if she's drunk, asleep or thinks you're someone else, if she didn't or can't consent, it's rape. It's a pretty fucking black and white issue - I don't understand the need to disect it.

Don't argue the fucking law with me, because the law has never been on the side of the victims. I guess by Massachutsetts' laws, rapists are only those who lurk in the night with masks and violently rape someone, right? Because, after all, date rape and so-called "gray rape" don't exist, right? After all, college students aren't being manipulated and overpowered and drugged so that they can't say no, right?

Give me a fucking break. I don't give a damn if you're a man or woman - if you don't think this is rape, you're a rape enabler, and that's just as bad as being a rapist.

Marc

...this is not sexual assault against one's own will. It's fraud, but I don't think necessarily rape.

Consent to sex doesn't mean "consent in general." It applies to the one (or more, if you're aware there may be more) person you want to have sex with. If I'm in a room with my boyfriend and say that I want to have sex with him, then someone else in the room pushes him out of the way and puts his penis in me, that second man can't say that I consented to have sex with him.

Force is not always involved in rape. Coercion ("have sex with me or I'll kill your kid") and, yes, fraud, are also ways other than force that people can be raped. This scenario is also the reason I hate the movie "Revenge of the Nerds."

Basically, if a woman doesn't want to have sex with a person, yet circumstances (force, coercion, fraud, uncosnciousness) mean that she has sex with that person anyway, it is rape.

It is not "victim blaming" for Abby to look with incredulity on the premise that the wife couldn't tell her own husband from the perpetrator. "Victim blaming" would be questioning why the wife didn't scream out to stop the attack, and so forth. If, in fact, the wife SHOULD have been able to discern the difference between her own husband and another man, then THE WIFE IS NOT A VICTIM AT ALL but a willing participant in a sexual encounter with someone who was not her husband. In that case, the HUSBAND would the only victim, and he should be upset with his brothers and his wife.

As for a law that says sex is rape where consent was achieved by fraud, note the dangers: there is nothing to stop men from using such a law to claim they were raped because a woman lied and said she was using birth control when, in fact, she wasn't. In that instance men will claim they never would have engaged in intercourse if not for the woman's fraud. Such a law has to work both ways -- fraud is fraud.

I agree with Whitemore, I get the feeling this letter is fake. But really thats besides the point because what is real is Abby's response, blaming the victim and advising readers to do the same. What the hell Abby?!

TJ, assuming this (rather unbleivable) story is true, your argument is ludicrous.

What happened to the woman is most certainly rape. Had she known it wasn't her husband in bed, she would not have gone through with it. The man used manipulated a situation to get what he wanted, leaving her literally in the dark. Any fully mentally functioning adult male should know that his brothers wife would not just have sex with him at their parents house, in the dark, presumably without speaking.

No, all that being said... I honestly do not believe the story. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it really seems too much of a stretch. Neither party said a word? The wife spoke, but didn't get offended when her "husband" didn't answer? The wife can't tell the difference between her husbands voice and sounds and his brothers? The brother laid there all night and slept, but got up in the morning before the wife woke up? He got up in the night while it was still dark and left without saying goodnight, and without the wife saying goodnight and expecting a reply? Nope. Don't buy it. I think this guy just got his rocks off sending this in to Abby.

Dear Abby, what is wrong with you!? I was thinking exactly what MLEmac asked. Why the hell would the woman say that to her husband if she knew it wasn't him? It makes no sense.

TJ, the judge doesn't have to read the woman's mind any more than a judge has to read someone's mind to know that they wouldn't give those nice people tens of thousands of dollars if they hadn't thought that they were actually being invested/going to charitable causes/used to actually finish that new bathroom addition and not disappear.

You also have the testimony of the woman at trial, which can be weighed by the judge/jury just like all other testimony.

It can only be said to not be against her will if you assume a woman's default status is consent until she says no. In this case, until/unless she found out that it wasn't the man she thought and then "revoked" consent. This is a deeply misogynist definition of rape that has perpetuated in our society for too long and must be reformed.

This was a violation of a woman's autonomy that can only be called rape, and a justice system which doesn't recongize that is the one which is "impotent." (Yeah, interesting choice of words).

Noah: As for a law that says sex is rape where consent was achieved by fraud, note the dangers: there is nothing to stop men from using such a law to claim they were raped because a woman lied and said she was using birth control when, in fact, she wasn't. In that instance men will claim they never would have engaged in intercourse if not for the woman's fraud.

That... actually strikes me as an entirely reasonable application of the idea that sex-by-fraud is rape.

ugh... the typos....

Noah,

First of all, we don't know whether or not she should have known it was her husband. Maybe the brother came in while she was sleeping, woke her by pushing her doggy style, fucked her and left. Maybe she was too sleepy, etc. It probably wouldn't have occurred to her that anyone but her husband was putting the midnight moves on her. Do I believe the letter entirely? Not really. But in the scenario presented, it doesn't appear that the wife even knows she was violated. Whether or not she SHOULD have known anything is moot because it's done and past. She didn't know, it was fraud, and therefore rape. Analyzing the wife for what she did or didn't do is blaming the victim, which is abhorrent.

Furthermore, it does cut both ways. Sex using fraud is rape, whether committed by a man or a woman. I haven't seen anyone here yet argue that it's not.

I also want to point out that Abby is no idiot. I've not always read her column, but when I have, she usually makes some pretty astute judgments and says a lot of things I agree with. I think there's a good chance that she knew this story was highly improbable, but rather than call the guy out as a liar, she went another route... A route where she took him at face value. And frankly, if someone told me this story and I took it at face value and believed that THEY believed the wife's story... I would say the same thing as Abby did. I would say the wife must have known. And I am very, very far from being a victim blamer.

Matters not if the letter is legit, at least in my opinion. What matters is that Dear Abby published it -- of the many letters (or perhaps "letters") she receives (or perhaps "receives), she has space to address, at most, three. That she took on this letter/"letter" and the topic is important -- and she had the occassion to make a clear statement. That statement is that the woman was lying -- which is reinforced in law and in culture (and sadly, in this exchange). Rape under the law? Not in NY, evidently. Rape? Yes.

I work for a sexual assault center and I have a bit a venting I want to do.

When it comes to prosecuting rape in this country we have a huge problem. Even if every state adopted a statute for rape by fraud, for the vast majority of cases you're going to have one hell of a time getting a DA to press charges.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario for everyone to chew on:

You go out to the bar with some friends. You have a weak mixed drink and a beer. Your good friend Matt buys you a drink. The next thing you know it’s 6am and you are naked on Matt’s bathroom floor and you don’t remember anything after he bought you the drink. You find your clothes, call a friend and have them take you to the hospital. You have a SARS exam and make a police report, and by this time Matt has been telling your mutual friends that you guys “hooked up”. You meet with the investigator and you are told that because you don’t remember the rape, the only way charges would be filed would be if Matt admits he raped you. Sure, your SARS kit will be sent out and tested for date rape drugs, but they can’t prove he put it in your drink.

A great deal of sexual assaults happen like this. 90% the perpetrator is known to the survivor and more often than not alcohol or some other type of drugs are used to facilitate it. The point I am trying to make is that creating more laws wont help put rapists away until we completely overhaul our justice system which is failing to protect women from rape. If it is this easy to get away with drugging and raping people, how are we going to convict perpetrators of rape by fraud? I honestly don’t know what we can do but I know we are going in the wrong direction because things aren’t changing.

Sorry about the venting, but it feels good to get off my chest.

I dunno, I'm actually a little inclined to agree with Abby on this one (assuming this is a real letter which I'm not sure about)... I really have a hard time believing that she wouldn't know it wasn't her husband. Lovers have a distinctness to them that we learn about. Unless she was impaired (in which case, oh yeah was that rape), she probably would have thought "hey, he doesn't smell right" or "uh, he never does that particular trick" or "he tastes funny." She might not have realized it right away, or had her doubts, but I bet the whole "thanks for coming in and making love to me anyway" was actually her way of either finding out for sure or confessing while remaining "innocent."

It does seem like a stretch except that there was a case almost exactly like this that was .

I'm not saying that means it's real, but since there's an example of it right there in the post I don't know how you can say it's not possible.

Noah, being lied to isn't always fraud, and having sex with someone you believe is using birth control but isn't is nothing like rape. It's equally not rape if a man says he's had a vasectamy and it turns out he hasn't.

I honestly cannot believe there's a debate about this.

The woman believed her husband was the one who had sex with her. This IS rape by fraud (or however you want to qualify it - it is RAPE)

To those who think the wife "knew" it wasn't her husband: 1. then why would she have brought it up in the first place? and 2. I get that when you have a significant other you become accustomed to their scent, the way they feel, move, screw; but in a strange house, in a strange bed, things are going to sound, smell, feel different. I've often had sex with my boyfriend in the same or different places as we have before and had a sense of things being "different" or him smelling differently or our actions feeling differently.

I'm not saying it's not an odd thing to be so oblivious to, but you're seriously stretching if you think it's HER fault. No. All the blame lies in whoever RAPED her.

The fact that some people (and I mean beyond these comments) are so desperate to fault the wife for infidelity and insist that the MAN is the real victim here?

I'm sorry, but this is another thing. How is the husband the victim because his wife was raped? Even if you don't want to call it rape, by saying the husband is the victim because the woman has been sexed up by another man reenforces the idea that she is his property, and now she's been ruined.

This is all ridiculous. Also, this is my first ranty comment! Hullo!

I just wrote in my own response to this to abby.:

"
Dear Abby

I would just like to say that I am absolutely disgusted by response to ENRAGED IN ROCHESTER, N.Y., regarding the man's wife who was raped by one of his brothers. Your first response was to blame the wife for letting it happen? Shame on you, Abby! And thanks for setting our gender back 100 years. First off, if the wife "knew" what had really happened, why would she had brought it up with her husband, as in "Hey, it was great we made love last night" knowing full well it wasn't her husband? That makes no sense! I think you should seriously re think sensitive topics such as rape before making such an insensitive assumption about his wife. The only person at fault in this situation is the disgusting pig who took advantage of the situation and raped his sister-in-law."

I heart you Marc

Whether or not the wife should have known it wasn't her husband, I think the headline should've been, "I'm not a husband, I'm just a rapist posing as one."

"Analyzing the wife for what she did or didn't do is blaming the victim, which is abhorrent."

Absolutely wrong. If the wife was a complicit participant in extra-marital sex, Abby did not blame the victim -- the victim is the husband.

As for why did the wife tell the husband if, in fact, she knew the brother wasn't the husband? Simple: she figured the brother might tell him so by acting as if she thought the husband came in her room, she's got an iron-clad alibi: she didn't know it was the brother.

See, it's not "victim" blaming IF THE WIFE ISN'T REALLY A VICTIM. Abby didn't accuse her of failing to lock the door or failing to scream out. But Abby was perfectly justified in expressing doubt about the wife's narrative. Come on now!

deleahrium, your ranty comment was great. I completely agree!

And damn, but there are much subtler ways to bring it up if she was just trying to figure out if it was him. Even if that were true, it means she doubted it AFTER THE FACT. Which means: still rape.

Noah: Victim-blaming includes assuming first that the victim is lying and then addressing that scenario rather than any other.

This is what I wrote to Abby:

In response to ENRAGED IN ROCHESTER, you wrote that perhaps his wife wasn't being completely honest with him (about having made love with him, but it was actually his brother).

Shame on you, Abby. That woman was raped, and she doesn't even know it occurred. Can you imagine how she's going to feel when her husband finally (after HOW long? That disturbs me as well) tells her that it was not him that she was intimate with? Can you imagine what a horrible feeling that would be?

That man's brother RAPED his wife and his other brothers are defending him. He should cut them all out of his life and make sure his parents know that at least one of their sons is a rapist and the others are protecting him.

ENRAGED IN ROCHESTER should go to his wife and beg forgiveness that he didn't tell her immediately, and apologize for the unspeakable behavior of his brothers and never speak to them again. Counseling is a good idea; I don't know if he deserves forgiveness, but maybe talking to a therapist/psychologist would help.

You certainly don't deserve forgiveness for the way you decided to frame that. Shame on you.

...and I agree with Geek. It's fair to take into account that she may have been expiating her own guilt at having knowingly had sex with her husband's brother by creating a confession designed to hide her own willing participation, but that's not the only possible explanation for what happened and anything other than that precise scenario is indeed rape.

Geek: Victim-blaming includes assuming first that the victim is lying and then addressing that scenario rather than any other.

When it is in doubt that a crime has even actually occurred, referring to the reporting party as "the victim" is assuming facts not in evidence.

Though, this situation seems more clear cut than that. She would not have brought it up if she was complicit, and the brothers have admitted to covering for the accused, so the crime in question has almost certainly occurred in this case.

Noah, if the wife was complicit, the husband isn't the victim of anything. He has an unfaithful wife.

What I find distasteful is that is is assumed right away that the wife is lying. This is because society is built around "women are liars" stereotype passed down from Eve.

And denying that a survivor of sexual assault was raped is just as damaging as victim blaming. When women tell me about their assault experiences, I don't assume they're lying until they can provide three witnesses of the rape. I have no idea if the woman above IS REALLY A VICTIM. I seriously doubt the veracity of the whole letter. However, I do think she should have expressed her healthy skepticism along with information about sexual victimization they may need if, indeed, the wife had thought it had been her husband that night.

I just wanted to state for the record that I don't think the husband would the the victim if his wife actually were raped... He would suffer obviously, but the wife would be the victim. In this particular case, however, I simply don't believe any part of the scenario. I think this guy completely fabricated the whole thing, perhaps based on ridiculous locker room stories and/or his own semi-incestuous fantasies, and therefore there is no victim.

Alice, it certainly would be assuming facts not in evidence if I was in a courtroom, but I'm not and neither am I writing as a journalist. I was explaining that victim-blaming is more than just pointing out bad behavior by a victim in order to lessen the crime or excuse what happened.

Skepticism is a good thing, but insisting that a woman must be lying because of x, y, or z is also victim blaming and happens in just about every single comment section when the subject is rape.

I clicked on the link in the post, and was appalled, and then I went on to read the second Dear Abby letter, from a woman distraught over the effect that her alcoholic father-in-law was having on the son. The first line of Abby's response was to *blame the mother* for allowing her son to sleep on the floor, before addressing the FIL that feeds the baby beer. This is equally appalling to me, and reinforces her "blame the victim" approach.

Noah: As for a law that says sex is rape where consent was achieved by fraud, note the dangers: there is nothing to stop men from using such a law to claim they were raped because a woman lied and said she was using birth control when, in fact, she wasn't. In that instance men will claim they never would have engaged in intercourse if not for the woman's fraud.

That... actually strikes me as an entirely reasonable application of the idea that sex-by-fraud is rape.

The old common law approach (that is, the English approach) is to distinguish between two different types of fraud in these cases.

If the fraud went to either the nature of the act or identity then courts held there is no true consent, and so it is rape. The most common example of this is where the offender has posed as a doctor, and tricks the victim into thinking he is doing a medical exam.

Where the victim did understand the nature of what he or she was consenting to and the identity of the other person fraud does not invalidate consent. So if someone pretends to be single when they are actually married, or a woman says she is on birth control when she is not, then that would not be rape. The logic is that, fundamentally, the victim has consented to have sex with that person.

This may or may not be a reasonable approach to take, and it might have been replaced by legislation in some states, but it's pretty traditional. There's nothing new, or I would have thought controversial, about recognizing that if this occurred it seems to be rape.

Dear Abby is a moron, which has been clear for years.

Who really stops lovemaking in the dark to say something? "Hey, Andrew, are you really Andrew?" Anyway, that aside...

WTF? Some of us are really, really incoherent when we wake up, especially in the middle of the night. The human brain is not a perfect machine (although it is amazing); it would likely reconcile any differences in build, scent (which changes depending on what you eat, when you've showered, what soap you use, and may be genetic - ha!), and technique by ignoring it. Maybe the brother held her hands above her head - which could be erotic - so she couldn't caress him and feel the difference.

On a side note, am I the only one who has read Roald Dahl's "The Old Switcheroo"?

I would, without a doubt, consider it rape if I had sex with someone thinking they were the man I loved and then found out that it was someone else. F**king disgusting.

If this letter is true, why would the husband not immediately speak up? He could have simply said, "What are you talking about? I was asleep in the next room!" and then they could have dealt with the issue in an open and reasonable manner. The fact that he did not, is reprehensible and shows that he cares more for his brothers than his wife, and is indeed treating her more like property than a person. Horrible.

Re: SaraP:

The first line of Abby's response was to *blame the mother* for allowing her son to sleep on the floor, before addressing the FIL that feeds the baby beer. This is equally appalling to me, and reinforces her "blame the victim" approach.

I think you're taking this victimhood thing a little too far here. Abby's skepticism of a woman's obvious rape via fraud aside, how is that response you cited above at all indicative of a "blame the victim" approach? Doesn't such a claim assume that the mother is a victim? If so, what exactly is she a victim of, anyway? If there is any victim here (and, honestly, there doesn't have to be), it's the kid, who's left to doze on the floor and get fed beer all day. The point here that Abby was making is that the responsibility for the baby rests with the concerned mother of the child, not some deadbeat father-in-law. Is that so off the wall? And is it so absurd to keep your kid from sleeping on what is probably an unsanitary floor, even if it isn't scattered with coins? If you knowingly and willingly leave your kid around a person you know is a bad influence all day, that doesn't make you a victim.

I only find this story unbelievable because Dear Abby has published fake stories in the past, found by snopes.com. But really I don't see how this would be avoidable.

If it is real, then my god she WAS raped and I can't even begin to understand how and why people are saying that the husband is the victim. For fucks sake.. Not everyone is fully aware when they just wake up and not everyone has sex in the same way that they would know it wasn't their husband if he had basically the same body type. This is rape. Period. She was tricked and violated and she could have very well been given an STD. Why would the wife comment to the husband if she didn't think it was him?

Although, as I mentioned before, what really bothers me is Abby's response, blaming the victim and normalizing victim blaming to her readers. Thanks a lot for making it just that much harder for victims of rape to prosecute, be believed, or be taken seriously.

oenophile - the Roald Dahl story was the first thing that came to my mind too! I always thought those men were so ridiculous, but I love the way Dahl writes.

everybodyever, actually - pretty much every kid sleeps on the floor sometimes. I've seen plenty of kids keel over mid-play and sometimes you just do not want to risk waking them. It's not unreasonable to want the people living with you to join in the effort of keeping the house safe for your child.

Abby's first response should have been that anyone who's endangering a child by feeding said child alcohol should be evicted IMMEDIATELY. They are abusing the child.

The very thought of this is truly sickening. But for those questioning whether the woman knew, how about "I have talked to each of my brothers (they all know about this), but they won't say who it was for fear of causing a rift between the guilty party and me."
They ALL know? Surely this couldn't have been Marybeth and one of the brothers having a planned rendezvous, which they were going to keep secret, if all of the brothers knew? Surely it's more likely that the rapist told his other brothers in order to protect his relationship with ENRAGED? (Assuming, of course, that he would be stupid enough to have not thought that sleeping with his brother's wife without her consent, i.e raping her, would wreck their relationship BEFORE he did it. Which seems an obvious assumption to make). Just a thought.

Occam's Razor says (paraphrased) that the most likely explanation is the simplest. In this case, (if the letter isn't completely fabricated) the simplest explanation is that the wife committed adultery with her brother-in-law, and when she realized her husband was likely to find out, possibly because the other brothers already knew, she pretended that she had been raped. It's a pretty old and common story--a woman I used to know was arrested some years ago for filing a false report and wasting police time: she reported that she had been kidnapped rather than let her husband find out that she had been with a lover.

If the story is true, and if the woman really was raped, I'm very sorry for her. But it's not victim blaming to question an unbelievable story.

What's attracting all these rape apologist trolls?

Also, you guys must be having boring sex with your SOs if you think it's supposed feel exactly the same every time.

There are two possibilities here:

Scenario 1) The wife knew that it wasn't her husband, consented to the encounter, and is covering it up after the fact. Under this scenario it is not rape (again: she knew who it was and consented).

This scenario could be consistent with the brothers knowing who it was but not wanting to say for fear of a rift. (Up to a point. Once the activity came to light, continuing to cover up only makes things worse.) This scenario is also consistent with the wife bringing up the idea of feeling a cold coming on, in order to arrange separate sleeping arrangements. However it is inconsistent with the wife bringing up the topic the following day. Surely it would be simpler to keep the encounter quiet, unless she had reason to believe that it would come to light, and needed an alibi before that happened.

Scenario 2) The wife really did not realize who it was, in which case it is rape by fraud, end of discussion. This scenario is consistent with the wife bringing up the encounter the next morning in all innocence.

So there it is -- either she knew, or she didn't. Merely bringing up the possible scenarios is not victim-blaming. The whole should have known trope isn't victim-blaming either; it's mostly irrelevant, except in considering whether she is lying to cover up an affair, in which case it is not victim-blaming, but discovering the truth.

Dear Abby assumes that Scenario 1 may have been the true one. Emily's letter to Abby assumes that Scenario 2 is the true one. Personally, I don't think we have enough information, based solely on the content of that letter, to determine which is true. (The whole thing seems weird and contrived enough that it may be a hoax.)

The three brothers are scumbags in any case. Now that the sexual activity has come to light, they are either harboring a philanderer, or they are protecting a rapist. The three brothers are closing ranks against the fourth, and if the wife's story is the true one, against her as well.

BluePencils, it's victim blaming when you assume she MUST HAVE been lying, and it's victim blaming with an extra heap of sexism when you say it's "a pretty old and common story" to falsely report rape.

Oops. Inconsistent format tagging. Looks like the universe is favoring scenario 2.

whoooooaaa... when did i fall down the rabbit hole? what fucking site is this?
who are all you fuckheads saying all this ridiculous shit about the wife and it not being rape if someone pretends to be someone else to have sex with a sick woman in a dark room?

ooohh, maybe she's lying. yep, the lying little slut probably knew and then said that stuff to the husband to cover her tracks, and all the brothers are in on it, hell she's probably blowin' em all to get 'em not to tell, the devious little she-devil.

go to hell.

BluePencils: Occam's Razor says (paraphrased) that the most likely explanation is the simplest.

Ahh, I have to address this. Occam's Razor states that the preferable explanation is the simplest plausible explanation. "Most likely" is an objective statement about reality, while the Razor is a philosophical axiom about how to approach the universe. It's an important difference.

avast2006, no one is saying it's victim blaming just to say there are other possible scenarios, but context and phrasing are important. Dear Abby goes on to encourage the husband to interrogate his wife to find out the details of what happened, and STARTS from the assumption that she may be lying. I think that passing this attitude on (if the story is true) is dangerous because if she is a victim of rape and doesn't even know it, it could be extremely damaging if her husband goes into it not believing her, wanting to know exactly what happened, being suspicious.

"Occam's Razor says (paraphrased) that the most likely explanation is the simplest. In this case, (if the letter isn't completely fabricated) the simplest explanation is that the wife committed adultery with her brother-in-law"

Excuse me, /that's/ the simplest scenario? You know, if she wanted to screw one of the brothers, wouldn't it have been much, much simpler for them to have a rendevouz someplace where they were on their own and her husband and the rest of the family wasn't around? There's nothing simple about being forced into saying she thought she had sex with the husband when she didn't, and then causing all kinds of weirdness between the brothers and husband. Either way you look at it, all the possible scenarios are pretty complicated. (except for the one where a guy just totally makes all this up, I guess...)

Take the story at face value, without adding our own assumptions, and the simplest explanation is the woman was raped by one of her brothers-in-law. While it might be near to impossible to press charges, reasonable advice would include seeking medical tests, possibly counseling and definitely severing ties with the rapist and the two covering for him.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this: If she had a cold coming on and took, say, Nyquil, she very well would be too groggy to notice any details. And her assumption would be that it was her husband.

Actually, the simplest answer is that she was telling the truth instead of up all night thinking about how to get out of trouble for sleeping with her brother in law.

I've heard many stories of a "poor guy who sleeps with a girl and then she claims she was raped." Whether I believe all the ones I've heard is another matter. I feel like a woman would have to be REALLY sociopathic to throw her lover under the bus in order to avoid being caught cheating. It's possible, but just because it may have happened before does not mean that every other potentially unlikely story of rape was all the fabrication of a lewd woman.

I'm an idiot for the first ten munutes or so after I wake up. Even if I happen to think "wait, my boyfriend is hairier than this", etc I would probably give it up as my being confused because I was groggy. I would never suspect a member of his family doing such a thing.

So, I didn't immediately believe this story to be false, I think it is entirely possible.

I think the husband has no choice but to investigate BOTH assumptions. They lead to rather different conclusions. If the truth is rape-by-fraud, that line of reasoning leads to police investigation and jail time for rape and accessory to rape. If the truth is an affair or one-night stand, that line of reasoning leads to couples therapy and/or divorce. If he just ignores the possibility of the affair, there is every reason to think that the affair, if it exists, will continue, and things will eventually degenerate anyway.

Maybe he should go full-bore with the police investigation and see how his wife reacts to the possibility of the brothers going to jail.

the simplest explanation is that the wife committed adultery with her brother-in-law, and when she realized her husband was likely to find out, possibly because the other brothers already knew, she pretended that she had been raped. It's a pretty old and common story-

Ugh. This is only the "simplest" explanation if we believe the stereotype that women are lying liars who lie. False allegations of sexual assault are made (roughly) with the same frequency (in relation to other reports of sexual assault) as false allegations of other felonies (excluding murder). This combined with the amount of women sexually assaulted who don't report the assault to police means that, proportionally, women are far less likely to falsely claim they were sexually assaulted than other people falsely claim other felonies. So no, this isn't a fucking common story. It's far, far more common that women do not report sexual assault.

And even theoretically, Occam's Razor still supports the wife. It's more likely that the wife tells the truth and the husband, knowing her honesty, believes her than it is a woman goes out of her way to tell a lie that the husband, not knowing her dishonesty, believes anyway.

ayla - why is this so unbelievable? the reason why this issue is settled law in various states is because this has happened there at least once before.

and who said they didn't speak? maybe he and his brother sound alike. my father can't tell my voice from my mother's, even in person.

which is really more implausible to you -

1. woman is asleep in a darkened room (husband had decided no sex, so why wait up?). a man comes in and gets into bed with her. she assumed it's her husband (cause who assumes their in-laws would do something like this?) and he doesn't tell her otherwise. in the dark and half-asleep, she can't tell the difference.

OR

2. woman decides to cuckold her husband with his brother in a house with her husband and her in-laws. she then mentions the sex to her husband the next day.

ayla - why is this so unbelievable? the reason why this issue is settled law in various states is because this has happened there at least once before.

and who said they didn't speak? maybe he and his brother sound alike. my father can't tell my voice from my mother's, even in person.