Reader Renee sent along this truly appalling Dear Abby column, in which a man writes in about one of his brothers posing as him (in the dark) and having sex with -- er, raping -- his wife.
DEAR ABBY: I am 27, and my wife, "Marybeth," is 26. We recently went to my folks' house for supper. That evening a heavy snowstorm was starting and, because the trip home is 30 miles, we decided to stay overnight.My old bedroom is upstairs, as are the rooms of my brothers, ages 25, 24 and 22. The guest room is downstairs. Because the room is quite small, and Marybeth said she felt a cold coming on, we decided I'd sleep in my old room.
The next day, while we were driving home, Marybeth told me she was glad I had come to her room after all and made love to her.
Abby, it wasn't me! She had mistaken one of my brothers for me in the darkness. We are all about the same size and build.
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. I told them that unless I find out who it was, there will be a permanent rift between all of us. (Marybeth still doesn't know it wasn't me.)
How do I handle this? -- ENRAGED IN ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Yeah, he has a right to be enraged. One of his brothers has just raped his wife. But does Dear Abby place the blame on the rapist? Of course not!
DEAR ENRAGED: While you and your brothers may have a strong family resemblance, I find it hard to believe that you all smell, taste and make love like clones. So please do not accept as gospel that your wife didn't have an inkling that it wasn't you. As to who actually crept into her bed in your absence, if your brothers won't reveal who the guilty party is, then they're all equally guilty, and I wouldn't blame you for severing ties with them.It's time to have a serious chat with your wife and get chapter and verse on what happened that night. Then she should be tested for STDs and treated if necessary.
It is possible for a couple to get past something like this, if you're both willing to work at it. The shortest route would be with the help of a licensed family therapist.
Well, yeah, therapy is probably a good idea if your brothers won't admit which one of them raped their sister-in-law. But yikes
State law is murky on whether this type of fraud constitutes rape or not. Some states -- including Alabama, California, Michigan, and Tennessee -- have passed laws saying sex obtained by fraud is rape. In the case of the above letter, despite what Dear Abby says, it seems pretty clear to me that this was rape by fraud. "Marybeth" consented to sex with her husband, not his brother. Just because she didn't find out the truth doesn't mean it wasn't rape.
This scenario is eerily similar to a case that went to court in Massachusetts last year:
The case dates to a night in January 2005. The woman was living with her boyfriend, Duane Suliveres , in a basement room of his father's home, according to the defense brief. Alvin Suliveres was also staying at the house.Duane Suliveres , now 33, was working night shifts, the brief said. At 3 a.m., the woman later told authorities, she was awakened by the sound of the door opening to the dark room and said, "Duane, why are you home so early?" but heard no response. Then, she said, someone she thought was her boyfriend got into bed, removed her clothes, and had sex with her for about 10 minutes.
He got up and opened the door, and she saw that it was Alvin Suliveres, she told authorities.
The state supreme court found that Alan Suliveres had not raped her, even though the state defines rape as "by force and against [the] will" of the victim, and clearly Alan Suliveres had sex with her against her will.
As LawGeek wrote at the time:
I just can't help but feel the court here blamed the woman for not recognizing the difference between her lover and the defendant. That seems wrong to me, as the real question is whether the defendant violated her rights (the autonomy/integrity of her body) with a criminal intent. 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.
So really, Dear Abby was just taking victim-blaming cues from the highest court in Massachusetts. Lovely.
On the upside, the Massachusetts legislature is considering a bill that would make sex-by-fraud the same thing as rape in the eyes of the law.
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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:
...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.
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.
Yeah, setting up a test for your spouse to pass in order for you to believe them always works out for the best. And rape victims always act the same and all want to go through with a criminal investigation, especially when it involves family, so if she resists she must be lying. Because the police are always great people who won't be skeptical and accuse her of lying to cover up and affair.
And my cat can dance the can can.
"This is only the "simplest" explanation if we believe the stereotype that women are lying liars who lie."
Overgeneralization. People who are willing to cheat on their spouses are probably willing to lie about it to avoid consequences. This goes equally for men as well as women. It's got nothing to do with gender.
ayla and blue pencils - why is this so unbelievable? because it's ugly and outside of your experience? I guess dingos have never eaten human babies, either.
the reason why this issue is settled law in various states is because this has happened there at least once before. (and the fact that the courts reached the issue of whether or not this behavior was rape means that they agreed that the incident had happened as the woman claimed) rare and distusting, sure. unbelievable, not hardly.
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.
Although I question how she didn't recognize she wasn't sleeping with her husband, Whitemore's response covers the bases: she could have been half asleep, she wasn't expecting anyone else, and she wouldn't have mentioned it to her husband so flippantly if she knew it was someone else. And I am positively outraged that the Massachusetts case wasn't defined as rape; if that doesn't count, what does??
This reminds me of Don Juan. Sorry if someone else has said this, I haven't read all the comments, but you know how people call guys who are suave and charming Don Juans because Don Juan was supposed to have been good with women? Well I read El Burlador de Sevilla, about Don Juan, and he raped two women by pretending to be their lovers (those were the rich women; with the poor, he promised to marry them and then ran off after sex). I know there are other versions of the Don Juan story, and I haven't read them, so maybe they're different, but I was so disturbed when I found out that we're possibly (if the version we get the name from is like this) equating tricking someone into having sex with you, with being good with the ladies.
People who are willing to cheat on their spouses are probably willing to lie about it to avoid consequences.
How, if she is lying about not realizing it wasn't him, is telling her husband that she had sex the night before avoiding any consequences?
I'm not saying that women don't lie. I just get pissed off when women report sexual assault (or even in this case, just talk about sex that may have been rape because of fraud), the immediate reaction by most of society is, "OMG, what a liar!"
When the Kobe Bryant case was reported in the media, the first thing out of my parents' mouths, in unison, was, "She's lying." And these people raised me with strong feminist values. Woman=Liar (especially when it comes to sex) is way more ingrained than people realize.
judgesninteen, there is no "real" Don Juan, but it's true that some versions of the story have Don Juan tricking women into sex.
I prefer the ;)
Lou, I was actually just thinking about whether she might have taken cold medicine.
Also, you'd be hard pressed to distinguish someone's voice if they were, say, whispering.
Also, I can't tell you how often members of my family can't distinguish between my voice and my mother's.
oops, tag didn't work. That should say I prefer the Johnny Depp version.
re: Don Juan. It's also a plot devise in the Three Musketeers. Then D'Artagnan wonders why Milady is such a bitch.
And why haven't any of you skeptics touched the cold medicine theory? I know when I take it, I've actually woken up and wondered who the stranger is next to me (my husband of xx years). I can see the opposite happening.
Here's another thought: she was groggy and thought it was her husband. by the end, she thinks it seems strange but doesn't say anything because she can't believe one of her in-laws would do that. She raises it with her husband, fearing the worst. And since he doesn't contradict her, she's relieved that it turned out to be him. Imagine her horror if she finds out the truth.
Yeah, when I read this the first time, I thought Dear Abby came off uncharacteristically bitchy. This wasn't equivicable. It was rape, and the fact that the brothers are protecting themselves (or maybe the writer's father?) means that they are all complicit.
"How, if she is lying about not realizing it wasn't him, is telling her husband that she had sex the night before avoiding any consequences?"
It is making up an alibi for what was otherwise willing adultery on her part.
I agree that it would have been easier to simply keep quiet. However, based on the idea that all three brothers were aware of the situation, there was a reasonable chance that it would be revealed. That would give her an out for a one-night stand, once it came to light. Admittedly, it's a pretty convoluted out, since it involves potentially prosecuting her partner as a rapist. That's a strike against it as an explanation.
I've already said I think it could very well have been either scenario (assuming in turn that the letter is not a hoax). I think it's entirely appropriate to take it at face value and pursue it as rape-by-fraud. Surely a thorough investigation would reveal the whole picture much better than this letter does. Couples counseling is almost certainly in order in either case, too. The one thing that should NOT happen is sweeping the incident under the rug.
OK.
She has a cold, therefore senses are likely to be dulled, especially taste, smell, and possibly hearing.
She's likely to have taken Nyquil or something like that.
It's quite possible he slipped in, said something like "can't stay, need to be quiet" softly enough that given the above she didn't fathom it, then had his way with her.
As for why he didn't react, he was driving, and if someone said that to me, I'd be gobsmacked too.
"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"
It says the simplest is preferable. Regardless, the scenario presented here isn't simple: it makes absolutely no sense that she would bring the topic up the next morning unless she had some strange motivations or reason to believe the other brother would say something. Her having some desire to cuckold her husband isn't simple.
Furthermore, a weird modified version of Occam's razor could be the reason how something like this could happen. If I woke up and someone was having sex with me, I would assume it was my husband. If he smelled weird, I would assume I was tired. I wouldn't assume a family member had walked in the room and started having sex with me non violently.
I think the letter is fake, honestly. Shitty advice regardless.
I have an odd hypothetical. If this woman had been flirting with one of the husband's brothers (or what he perceived to be flirting) and snuck into her room thinking he was invited?
That's a little awkward-sounding, but what I'm trying to ask is this: if he genuinely thought he had her consent, but was mistaken, and she thought he was her husband, but was mistaken, is it still rape? Obviously sex without consent is rape, but is sex due to an honest misunderstanding still rape?
Oh for pity's sake.
Cuz it's just unthinkable that a woman might not recognize her man's truly singular, exquisite style of lovemaking, impossible that she might not know his impressive and manly body in the dark. So obviously the whore is lying. Cleverly too, by innocently bringing up her own misdeed. Now we can continue to parse the scenario a dozen different ways, and even grudgingly acknowledge the slut MIGHT be telling the truth, so long as egos are soothed by the comforting confirmation that it's just this side of impossible to believe a woman might not know her own husband from his genetically similar brother in the middle of the night.
Are you fucking kidding me? Flirting is not an invitation to sex, and it's not consent. No consent=rape, period. It's not an "honest misunderstanding" when a man cares so little for the woman's consent that he doesn't bother to communicate with her enough for her to know who he is.
Perfectblue introduces the hammer to the nail, right on the head!
"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."
That reminds me of these cases:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6389365.stm
"...Then there are 'holiday brides'.
"Ms Deo says: 'In these cases, NRIs come to India for a holiday, get married, pocket the dowry, and then disappear without leaving a trace.'
"With their dreams shattered, the duped women have to grapple not just with emotional scars, but with the practicalities of being abandoned.
"Sometimes they also have to deal with pregnancy and worry about bringing up children on their own..."
I bet that even the women and teen girls who did initially agree to this didn't want their first times to be just some guys' sex tourism.
"This scenario is also the reason I hate the movie 'Revenge of the Nerds.'"
I didn't like the part of that movie I did see. The rest was even worse?
"The wife can't tell the difference between her husbands voice and sounds and his brothers?"
Especially when the letter writer says his brothers aren't his age, ruling out the possibility of them being identical quadruplets?
"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."
Right on.
"Also, you guys must be having boring sex with your SOs if you think it's supposed feel exactly the same every time."
Either that or they don't have SOs and keep apologizing for rape because it's the only way they can get sex with the people they want to have sex with...
"I have an odd hypothetical. If this woman had been flirting with one of the husband's brothers (or what he perceived to be flirting) and snuck into her room thinking he was invited?
"That's a little awkward-sounding, but what I'm trying to ask is this: if he genuinely thought he had her consent, but was mistaken..."
Do you realize that "what he perceived to be flirting" could be anything from actually flirting with him to simply talking with him to just making eye contact with him?
Narc's odd hypothetical is not of much consequence. The brother who hopped into the sack with his brother's wife still is pond scum. Has he no respect for the boundaries of someone else's marriage? I'm doubtless going to get jumped on over the "women as property" angle, but I note that the presumption is that the woman would not consent to sex with someone who was not her husband. This means she respects the boundaries of her marriage. Her brother-in-law does not exhibit similar respect for her marriage. Ergo, pond scum.
harlemjd... I don't believe it because it doesn't sound true. I've specifically stated the reasons it doesn't ring true to me. But, since you asked, here's another one. If the story is true, how would the man keep from reacting right away? I mean, if your partner said something like "wow I'm sure glad we had sex last night" and you knew you didn't have sex with him/her, wouldn't your face alone give you away? If not, why wouldn't you say something? I mean, whose first thought upon hearing that is going to be "Hmm, I better pretend like it WAS me until I get to the bottom of this!" The story reads like a fantasy someone made up to me. If you disagree that's fine, but just be aware that there is a distinction between believing the story is partially true but that the wife is a lying cheater and believing that someone made the whole scenario up. I'm willing to believe that similar situations have happened in the past with other people, but going JUST on the information in this letter, I don't believe for one second that it happened here. However, if it DID happen here, then I 100%, unequivocally condemn it as an act of rape.
Where did the trolls come from all of a sudden?
I was wondering why the influx of trolls as well. My guess is Feministing.com was linked on some other blog.
A random thought: would it matter if he were having sex in a different position? If he sneaks in, gets behind her (roughly 1/2 of women are side/fetal sleepers), and makes love in the spooning position (I've heard that people often do this when the woman is pregnant), there is almost no way she wouldn't be able to tell, unless the guy were radically dissimilar in build.
Maybe Dear Abby is positing that there must have been missionary sex with 20 minutes of foreplay....
/snark
People who come to a website with the sole goal of pissing you off are trolls.
People who honestly disagree with your opinion and wish to have a dialogue about it are not trolls.
Probably too late in the game for anyone to read this, but what the hell.
Great discussion by the way, seeing the input from so many different sides is really making me think.
While I agree that Abby is wrong, insensitive, foolish, misogynistic... I don't give much credence to the story. Why?
Who the hell asks Dear Abby for advice on whether or not to tell his wife that she was the victim of incestuous rape by fraud?! And who the hell needs permission from an advice columnist to cut off his family for essentially endorsing the violation of the woman he loves?
If this is real, then *all* the parties involved need to start seeing psychotherapists, ASAP.
She probably thought something was "off" (which is why her response is so ridiculous) about the letter but unfortunately didn't realize it was a hoax and proceeded to answer anyway. It definitely looks like the beginning of bad Penthouse Forum submission.
I curious who is being considered a troll?
I cannot believe there are so many people blaming the victim on the comments on FEMINISTING.
Of all the places, you would expect people to be more sensitive to women's rights.
I guess being a feminist by name doesn't mean you're not an asshole underneath.
Thanks to all the people are understanding and logical enough to see that automatically assuming the victim is lying DOES NOT MAKE SENSE and is CRUEL.
I don't know about condemning the guy who wrote the letter, perhaps he was in shock when he wrote it, but hopefully he and his wife get it sorted out.
What I do know is that he got some SHIT for brains advice.
Ack. I curious how I leave out verb. I good typist.
Sorry Avast, I was unclear. I was trying to say that I don't think anyone here is a troll. Some people have opinions that others don't like, but I'm not sensing any trolliness at all.
The reason this letter doesn't ring true to me is that there are too many unnecessary details, like a letter to Hustler. Or wherever they send those letters. He talks about how far they have to drive, why they had to spend the night, where is bedroom is. It just sounds forced and made up. There's a Savage Love column where Dan goes through fake letters he receives and talks about why he's pretty sure they're fake.
This is a GUY making up a story (i.e. lying) about rape. How pathetic is that? The fact that Abby chose to print this letter is awful.
I would also like to say that if you wake me up in the middle of the night, I have no idea what is going on. I would also beat the crap out of anyone trying to touch me, my beloved boyfriend or otherwise. But that's just me, I am a very cranky waker. The point is I have no clue what is going on in the middle of the night, and I would imagine it's the same for many people.
This isn't just disgusting, it's dissapointing. I remember being so proud of Dear Abby for speaking out against parental consent/notification laws:
http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/?uc_full_date=20061027
This is a fake letter. It has to be. Too many of the weird details don't add up. The 25, 24, and 22 year old brothers all live at home? 30 miles, a heavy snowstorm, getting a cold, separate bedrooms, etc etc? It's all a little too specific and too vague at the same time. Every one of Dan Savage's key features of a fake letter appears here.
Plus, wouldn't you think that upon learning that one of his brothers just raped his wife--and not just that but THEY HAVE ALL COLLUDED in it--that he would be irate enough to cut off all contact with them?
It has to be made up. A fantasy, perhaps, by a guy who thinks his brother's wife is hot and wonders if he'd somehow be able to have sex with her without anyone noticing.
I don't buy it. And I think that if it ever really did happen, there would at least be a divided family and hopefully prison time involved, for several parties.
No, you were clear, Beckybecks. You see discussion, not trollery.
Several others, however, mentioned an influx of trolls, and there has been a fair amount of outrage over the the idea that the woman might have been lying. ('Cause, like, women never, ever cheat on their spouses and then lie about it. It's just not known to happen. They only ever get raped by unscrupulous males. So we must be asshole trolls for even considering that possibility, and on a feminist website, no less! Okay, end of snark. I'm not even sure that is what people meant by trollery.)
Seriously, I'm not sure how entertaining up the possibility translates to automatically assuming it's true, but here we are. There is enough wrong with the particulars of this story that simply assuming adultery and simply assuming rape are about equally foolish. The only prudent thing would be a full investigation. On the other hand, there is enough wrong with this story that I think more and more that the whole thing is a hoax.
avast, the problem many of us are having is that if this letter is real, then the writer gave NO reason to assume the woman is lying. If maybe one or all of the brothers gave him some reason to doubt her story, then yes, let's question her story, but NONE of them have done that. For anyone to assume anything other than what was presented in the story is just that, a fucking assumption. And it's pretty shitty to automatically assume a woman is lying, especially where a possible rape is concerned, when you really have no reason to.
The validity of the letter notwithstanding,
I am amazed if anyone reports a rape these days.
This discussion contains all of the elements that can be found in real life.
Let's recap shall we:
1) Murky legal and technical "definitions" e.g. rape vs fraud vs misunderstanding
2) Accusing the woman outright of lying
3) Attacking the credibility of the entire story
4) Introduction of confounding "what ifs" into the discussion
5) Attacks on differing opinions, jabs on feminism
Folks, this is just an exercise in how bad things have gotten. Seriously, we need some new ideas.
Letter definitely sounds made up, but if it wasn't, perhaps an even simpler explanation was possible. Hubby had a few too many glasses of wine at family dinner, or took some cold medicine as a pre-emptive measure, and has sex with his wife and doesn't remember. Then he's questioning his brothers, and they are all like, dude, what the hell are you talking about, because none of them slept with her and he was actually the one who had sex with her. Or maybe she had a dream that they had sex and thought it was real the next morning. there are a million possible what ifs and conjectures.
If the letter is real, and the brother had sex with the wife while she thought he was her husband, that's rape. I think we all agree on that.
This second hand "telling a story" source is pretty ridiculous. Abby should have left this letter in the bin and answered something else.
Heh, femidancer. Now that you say all that, I'm getting the image of the husband finally saying to his wife "Sweetie, it wasn't me, I didn't have sex with you" and her rolling her eyes and saying "Hon, of course it was you--the window was open and I saw your face/that funny mole on your back. What, you think I can't recognize my own husband?"
Except that if we believe the letter, the brothers all knew but refused to tell, supposedly for fear of creating a rift. They didn't say "WTF!?"
The issue for me isn't the letter or what really happened, anyway, but Dear Abby's disgusting advice.
The issue for me isn't the letter or what really happened, anyway, but Dear Abby's disgusting advice.
I'm trying to picture Abby and Dan Savage in the same room discussing this letter. I can easily see Dan easily dismissing it as a hoax, while Abby would call bullshit on the content of the letter itself without considering the possibility it was fake.
She has given some dumb advice in the past, but I really doubt she would blame a rape victim. I think she was just reacting like someone of her background/age if presented with this letter, if she assumed it was real. If this is the case, you're going to focus on all the details that just do NOT add up. Someone like Abby would be so fed up with the earnestness of the author that she'd point out what made sense...NOT in the context of an actual woman enduring rape, but rather what she assumed to be the actual words of a husband from his POV. I'd imagine that Abby is probably someone who gives her advice seekers the benefit of the doubt in terms of authenticity.
Maybe Dan Savage should deconstruct the entire letter? That would be a great column.
JaneMinty, it's your lucky day:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?show=blog
(Scroll down past the first few posts)
Aiden, you stole my thunder! I was just going to link to Dan Savage's post and say "aha!" I love it when Dan listens to my thoughts.
So wait, questioning the veracity of a rape claim is now victim blaming? Seriously? So, if I'm accused of rape in a state in which I have never been, and a family member says "I don't believe the accuser", that's victim blaming?
Methinks you don't understand the term "victim" all that well.
Moving on to this little gem... "if you don't think this is rape, you're a rape enabler, and that's just as bad as being a rapist."
Umm, really? Questioning whether or not something is rape is the same as rape? Seriously?
Grow up.
Holy Crap, thank you Aiden!! I'm going to go savor this now.
I'm with the majority here:
It's fake bullshit; but if it were real, it'd obviously be rape.
Rather than going too far into the "if it were real" mantra given the idiocy of the letter writer though, how 'bout some rape-by-fraud legislation? That would be nice...
This is in response to SuzanneK's comment in regards to the fact that it is surprising that the husband "didn't know it was rape."
I actually don't find it that .. surprising that he didn't know it was rape. Many people don't know exactly what rape is.
I agree with those who said it was any sexual act that was not consented to. Marybeth, if this actually happened, was consenting to her husband. She was not consenting to her husband's brother.
He should have told her right away and they should have had a rape kit done, so it could be compared to the DNA of the brothers (and I'd check the dad, too.)
jer,
Victim blaming is holding the victim partially or wholly responsible for what happened to them. The ones who are victim blaming are the ones who insist that this absolutely could not have been rape because the woman could not possibly have not noticed that the man was not her husband.
You know, I read jer's comment again and I'm now sorry I was so civil.
I agree the hypothetical represents rape, but I'd like to follow up on the victim blaming thing.
Given a situation like the letter, how exactly would it be possible to express incredulity, or a wish for further information, in a manner that is NOT offensive?
In other words, where do we draw a line between obvious victim blaming ("you should have known it wasn't your husband; if you missed it then it's your fault") and acceptable inquiry?
I have no problem classifying the hypothetical as rape. But in real life, I'd probably be inclined to ask for a few more details before coming to a conclusion that the story was true or false. Is that victim blaming? If so, is there any alternative I'm missing?
Well Sailorman,
A tough thing is, where /do/ you draw the line? I'm sure there are people who would say that if she felt that something was a little "off" but she went through with the deed anyway, it's her responsibility and she must have wanted to f*** someone besides her husband. When in reality, anything outside of her knowing exactly who she was having sex with and doing it anyway would not in any way, shape, or form be her fault...
I think another thing about this situation is that well, sometimes people in a marriage /do/ cheat and sometimes their spouse simply doesn't want to know. If the husband himself is not asking questions along those lines, who the hell are we a bunch of people who don't know either party to feel like /we/ need to be asking questions?
I am no feminist and abhor women who falsely cry rape, but I agree with you completely about this letter. I also tend to believe that it is a real letter since nobody would make up something so strange.
The woman was raped and her husband is acting in a very restrained manner.
Why shouldn't a man believe his wife as long as she has no previous record of committing adultery?
If the wife was awakened from sleep,perhaps somewhat groggy, suffering from a cold, perhaps also under the influence of cold medicine,and trying to keep quiet to avoid waking up other family members or making noise while she was serving her husband's pleasure, since some women are bashful in such circumstances in a parent's or inlaw's home,especially in a situation where she and he thought that she was in no danger, it is quite plausible that she could serve the pleasure of her husband's brother without knowing that she was being tricked into violating her marriage vows.
Dear Abby is trying to blame the victim and using her cure-all get counseling solution.
It is too bad that the evidence was probably gone before the husband found out that he and his wife had been violated. Otherwise, he should have notified the police and had all his brothers and father tested for DNA evidence.
Although I do not have any brothers or a wife, I would notify my wife if she had been raped in this manner, if only to help her protect herself in the future and to know why I would completely shun my brothers and father until the rapist confessed his crime against my wife and me.
I also agree with the person who said that if the woman had a clue, she probably wouldn't have mentioned it to her husband.
Not only does Abby entirely dismiss this woman as even being a victim, she's basically told this man that his wife cheated on him (with his brother) and then rubbed his face in it the very next morning.
What a load of shit-stirring garbage.
Oops! I didn't even notice the date on this post until after I posted my comment. Sorry about that...