Sexual Consent In Marriage

There is far more to the issue of sexual consent in marriage than the fact that marriage does not protect anyone from a sexually abusive spouse.  Certain acts that some may consider trivial--and that are somewhat trivial by comparison to outright rape of a conscious subject--are very relevant to the issue of rape within marriage, even though they are by no means as severe as rape itself.  An example that many married people can relate to involves a sleeping partner.

Suppose a wife uses her hands to toy with her husband's penis while he rests naked and asleep on his back, or a husband performs cunnilingus on his wife's vaginal area as she sleeps naked on her back.  The partners are asleep and therefore unable to give immediate consent, so does this necessitate that the husband and wife sexually interacting with their respective spouses are engaging in abusive behavior?  In some cases of this scenario, abuse of some sort is indeed present, but in others, it is not.

If these actions are a continuation of habits both spouses have already discussed and agreed to, then there is no need to wake one's partner up to ask for consent.  If there has never been any discussion about the matter, however, this would be a potentially unwanted course of action, and perhaps even one that would personally wound the receiving spouse emotionally.  Although consent is not required on each occasion, starting the habit without at least some expression of consent is a mild but definite form of sexual abuse.

There is nothing problematic or exploitative about spouses performing less conventional sex acts such as the aforementioned examples as long as there is mutual communication and affirmation on the front end.  Sexual consent is not something that must be verbally requested during every moment of sexual activity.  It is not a restriction that utterly stifles sexual creativity, passion, and pleasure!  Rather, it is a necessity that is more flexible than some may imagine.

Even when a nonconsensual sexual behavior falls short of rape, which is directly addressed in Deuteronomy 22:25-27 and is a capital offense for both male and female rapists, it is still utterly contrary to Biblical morality.  The egalitarian mutuality of 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 demands that both spouses not engage in any activity that violates or sidesteps the consent of either party.  Consent can be established without constant verbal questioning and affirmations, yes, and yet it is not something irrelevant to interpersonal sexual actions other than sex itself.