ABSTRACT
Forced marital sex, conjures up an unpleasant, but not particularly serious, marital squabble. The lack of public awareness about the reality of marital rape can be ascribed largely to the secrecy surrounding the problem, a secrecy maintained by most parties to the problem—victims, abusers, and the public at large. Victims are ashamed. Abusers help to keep them quiet and intimidated through threats, emotional blackmail, and a kind of "brainwashing" that makes the victims feel that they are to blame. Many women who have been sexually assaulted by their husbands do not see themselves as having been raped. Many marital-rape victims are battered wives, and entrapment and terror are part and parcel of their lives. A marital rape is part of a personal shame that they do not want others to know.
