Let me put this in another way, rather than answering specific posts.

For centuries, but generally changed in the western world in the latter half of the 1900's, the law has known of no such thing as "rape within the marriage". Rape was understood as the crime where a man forced a woman to whom he was not married to have sex with him. As far as I know, it was as late as in the 1990's that rape within the marriage was declared a crime in Germany.

Thus, when marrying a man, a woman forfeited any right to say no to having sex with him.

Likewise, a woman who forced a man to have sex with her did not commit rape.

Of course, battering within the marriage was made illegal decades earlier. If the forced sex within the marriage could be interpreted as battering, the man could be sentenced to prison for that crime.

Consequently, it was not long ago any husband could force his wife to have sex with him, safe word or not, by law. That was one of the contractual consequences of entering into marriage. I would assume that there are countries in the world where this is still a consequence of marriage.

Is this wrong? Who are we to judge?

Should a couple be free to agree that there is no such answer as "no" to sex within their relationship? If they should not be free to make that agreement as consenting adults, why is that?

I am not talking about battering or doing any other physical harm to a partner. If a person truly dreams about being raped by her own partner, what psycological harm can such a rape make?

* * *

About the case in question.

The thread is called "How far do you go?" This is how far I have ever went, once. We did not have a safe word, we still don't want one. She said she thought I had gone a little too far, so I learned from that and became better at interpreting her voice, words, and body language. We have had similar sex since, never because we agree on beforehand that we will have a rape game, but because we know each other so well that we know we both often want to and can tell when the other one is not up to it.

How many people have never gone too far? My guess is none. Is it not mature to forgive and go on?