In her book And So It Goes: Adventures in Television Linda Ellerbee wrote about working on NBC’s Overnight. She and her boyfriend had an agreement that only one of the pair had to actually be awake for sex.
Me too, but apparently most voters aren’t.
Bolding mine.
Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.
Well, that case is fictional, whereas the one in this thread is actual. I’ve seen funny murders in the movies and on TV, but I’d be horrified if I’d seen them in real life.
But that reminds me of The World According to Garp. (The book; don’t remember if this was in the movie.) Garp’s mother was a nurse in World war II, and one of the charges with this comatose flyer with a hard-on. She mounted him one night and became pregnant with Garp. In fact, that’s how he got his name: The flyer uttered “Garp!” at the moment of climax.
That’s fucking hilarious.
Twisted and evil…our mods? Please. More like “would you prefer your PBJ in foil or a baggie?”
No, I mean that I don’t think it’s any less bad if a strange guy comes in and does it. Why does the husband have any more of a right to violate her than a stranger? How is this any less rape?
Believe it or not, that is the way I see it.
I would be horrified at hearing a stranger tried to have sex with someone in a coma, because there you have no basis for assuming the coma patient would want to sleep with that person. However, this is a married couple who it seems were happy together. This sounds to me more like a guy who just missed his wife and thought that having sex with her would make him feel better, rather than a creep trying to rape or take advantage of her.
Thanks to this article, I now realize that after I get married I will need to have a living will drawn up in which I explain that my loving husband has my permission to do what he has to do with my comatose body if he gets lonely. 
Because we can be almost 99% sure that she would not consent to a stranger having sex with her comatose body.
We are unknown and according to a lot of posters here, would think that the wife WOULD consent to her husband doing this.
But seriously, you see NO DIFFERENCE between a loving husband who desperately misses his wife, one who he always had a loving relationship, one in which sex was never denied in x years of marriage, having sex with her, or
some skeeve walking in off of the streets, picking a room out at random, jamming the door shut and raping her?
You really don’t see the difference?
If I find out coffeespouse was going to wake me up this morning by riding me through the gates of heaven, then read this thread and decided she couldn’t bear the thought of violating me like that, I’m going to be pissed.
I’m really actually amazed by this thread, now. I understand the objections to sleeping with a comatose wife, really. But engaging (well, initiating, anyways: if they don’t wake up you’re doing it wrong) in sex with a sleeping partner, with whom you have regular intercourse, is rape? Honestly?
Part of my objection to the whole deal, I suppose, is based in the fact that’s she’s definitely not getting anything out of it. That tips it over the line for me. Too much like necrophilia.
Nitpick: Nope. The man’s name was T.S. Garp, and that’s what Jenny named her son by him. At the point of climax, he said “Good.”
I don’t think the foil would have kept the toilet water out very well.
It’s not so much the act of penetration that bothered the staff so much, but more the gimp mask and his taking a Cleveland steamer on her chest afterwards that really pushed this over the line.
Very curious if you guys are married. I am, and I’m having a hard time relating to what you’re saying. Let me make it clear that I think what he did is weird and he should be figuratively slapped on the wrist and encouraged not to do it again, but rape? Years in prison? No, absolutely not. My wife has my consent to make all my decisions for me if I am not capable of making them myself for any reason and vice versa. She would be HORRIFIED to come out of a coma and find me in jail for this. I would guess many, many married couples are the same way. You reach levels of intimacy in marriage that make sex seem like shaking hands.
Really? Been working all day, ‘Honey, not tonight, I’m exhausted’? Just wait 'til she’s out then stick it in? How about a partner who’s passed out drunk? One who’s hunched over the toilet, puking from food sickness? Because those all sound as hot as climbing on a hospital bed, nudging aside the feeding tubes and fucking someone who’s comatose. Believing sex should always involve enthusiastic consent, and that marriage doesn’t come with a free pass to one’s vagina, shouldn’t be amazing.
What if he’d gotten her pregnant? Given her an infection? All this crap about closeness– christ, spoon her, sleep by her side. I find it amazing that someone’s reaction to his wife’s life slipping away is – ooops, boner!
And I’d be horrified to come out of a coma and discover that my husband had had sex with me against my will. I mean, the idea that someone could even be turned on when I haven’t made it clear that I’m also turned on and into it is so disturbing to me. Because you get married, that means you automatically are up for sex whenever? Sure there’s some degree of implied consent, but you do have to suss out your partner’s mood each time, no? How do you know if the person is up for sex in that specific instance?
Oh, women and their sacred vaginas.
I’m glad I’m gay. I don’t think I’ve ever dated a guy who wouldn’t be thrilled to wake up from a coma and find out I didn’t take a new lover, but instead had sex with him 360 times much to the horror of the hospital employees.
Not married, but in a very long-term relationship.
Anyway, it’s not a question of whether we think it would be alright if she was okay with it. Obviously, if the wife didn’t mind or encouraged this, nobody would be calling for this guy’s head.
The problem is that we don’t know that she was okay with it.
That said, I certainly don’t see how he can be charged with anything until she wakes up. If the statute of limitations runs and she’s still in a coma, well, sorry.
But why? You can’t retroactively give or take back consent. She didn’t give consent…therefore, rape.
I believe you are incorrect. I think it’s entirly possible to give retroactive consent. You took my book w/o asking first, but I can most certainly say, after the fact, “that’s ok”.