Woman says system is failing marital rape victims
Heather Mccomas Harrison, a survivor of marital rape, poses in her home in Grove City, Ohio, on Thursday, Oct. 7. Harrison was a victim of marital rape, and in some certain instances, it is technically protected under Ohio law. A bill was introduced to change this, but the law still has not changed.
Heather Mccomas Harrison often wore shirts with three-quarter length sleeves when she was married to her ex-husband.
Long sleeves suggest there’s something to hide. Short sleeves wouldn’t cover the bruises from where he grabbed her arm, she said.
But some scars were already concealed. No one could see the emotional wounds, for starters. Nor could they see the injuries in her vagina and anus after, according to Harrison, the father of her children repeatedly raped her over the course of their eightyear marriage.
“You just grin and bear it and push through it,” said Harrison, 35, who’s now remarried and living in Grove City. “What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to tell anybody?”
Harrison is not alone. Eight in 10 rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, and 33% are carried out by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
Yet in Ohio, justice is a winding road for those who are victimized by their husband or wife. A little-known state law allows perpetrators of marital rape to go without punishment in certain cases, leaving survivors confused and betrayed by the systems built to protect them.
Despite multiple efforts, lawmakers have yet to change the rules.
“I don’t think anyone walks down the aisle realizing they’re giving up bodily rights of their own,” state Rep. Kristin Boggs, D-columbus, said.
When marital rape is legal
Under Ohio’s rape statute, it’s illegal to engage in sexual conduct with a person who is under 13 years old, drugged or impaired because of a physical or mental condition. The law bars other nonconsensual sexual contact, classified as sexual battery or gross sexual imposition, and sex with minors.
But none of that applies if the perpetrator is the victim’s spouse. Rape in the marital bed is considered illegal only when there’s force or a threat of force, or if the couple does not live together.
“It doesn’t make any sense to say that these horrifying, violent acts when they’re committed by someone who says they love you and you’re legally tied to them is somehow less, and that’s what the current law is telling people,” said Tracy Grinstead-everly, an attorney who specializes in intimate partner violence.
The current law also complicates a survivor’s attempt to get a protection order against their assailant, said Alexandria Ruden, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. Judges can only grant the order if spousal rape occurred in conjunction with other forms of domestic violence — not based on the rape alone.
“You’re creating a twotiered approach to dealing with this issue,” Ruden said. “That can’t be fair under any circumstances.”
Experts say sexual violence is an extension of the power and control perpetrators wield over their partners. The assailants use money or religion to claim they’re owed sex and will even remove condoms to control when their partner gets pregnant. If the couple already has kids, the perpetrator may use them as leverage.
Still, advocates say many people don’t realize such abuse can happen within the confines of a marriage.
“People have problems accepting the reality that in a relationship, consent continues to be crucial,” said Rosa Beltré, president and CEO of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. “My body belongs to me, and I do have the autonomy of deciding when I’m going to share it with you.”
‘It’s supposed to be hidden’
For years, Harrison lost that autonomy.
She married her ex-husband in 2006, and they later had two children in addition to his daughter from a previous relationship. Everything seemed normal until their first child was born, she said. Then the controlling behavior began. Where are you? Why aren’t you answering the phone?
Harrison recalled numerous times when she said she didn’t want to have sex, to no avail. She had an episiotomy during the birth of their daughter and needed six weeks to heal, she said, but he couldn’t wait that long.
“I knew what it was, but I also knew that you’re not supposed to talk about it,” Harrison said. “It’s supposed to be hidden.”
The abuse escalated over time. Harrison said he would force her to rub his back as he fell asleep, until that wasn’t enough and he demanded a hand job or oral sex. She told a committee of lawmakers earlier this year that he anally raped her in 2014 and broke her coccyx, leading to the removal of her tailbone.
Harrison shared a copy of her X-ray with USA TODAY Network Ohio.
Her ex-husband has not been charged with a crime. According to police and court records, Harrison told police he raped her in 2014 and disclosed the allegations during their child custody case. He denied her story, and a judge deemed her testimony “not credible.”
Not every sexual encounter with her ex-husband was rape, Harrison said, but she eventually learned to comply.
“I felt like I was protecting other people because as long as he’s doing this to me, he’s not doing it to anybody else,” she said.
Legislators aim to change law, again
Boggs and state Rep. Laura Lanese, R-grove City, introduced legislation this year that would eliminate exemptions for sex crimes committed by spouses and allow people to testify against their spouses regarding those offenses. Lawmakers held two committee hearings on the bill in the spring, but it hasn’t advanced since then.
That’s a familiar tale to those who have watched legislators try and fail to push through changes to Ohio’s rape law. A similar proposal was introduced in 2015 and brought back in subsequent sessions, but it stalled in part because of concerns that it could lead to false allegations during divorce and custody cases.
The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, which previously opposed the bill, is now on board with the proposal. Lanese thinks it has a better chance at passing than it did in previous legislative sessions, although it must compete with a flurry of other bills fighting for the legislature’s attention.
“There’s no need to penalize all women for the fact that anyone can lie at any time in a divorce proceeding,” she said.
In the meantime, survivors of marital rape are contending with a confounding legal system. Harrison said she could never get clear answers from law enforcement about whether her experiences were considered illegal under Ohio law, and her life is forever changed as a result.
She also knows there are other survivors out there and believes it’s a “matter of neglect” that lawmakers have yet to change the system.
“Every day they let this go by,” Harrison said, “there’s another victim.”