It’s shocking and shameful that Kansas law allows sexual battery within a marriage.
It’s almost as alarming that state lawmakers last year ignored attempts to change that law.
This year’s Kansas Legislature should act quickly to approve a bill that would make it illegal for husbands or wives to sexually batter their spouse without facing criminal consequences.
Married people have the right not to be violated. Period.
And neither women nor men should throw away their personal safety or other individual liberties when they exchange wedding vows and sign a marriage license.
While marital rape is illegal in Kansas, other non-consensual sexual contact between spouses isn’t always a crime.
Kansas law defines sexual battery as touching a victim without consent with the “intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the offender or another.” The law says the crime occurs when “a victim is not the spouse of the offender” and is older than 16.
A new bill making its way through the Statehouse this session — and approved unanimously by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday — would strike the spousal exception from the law.
That’s common sense.
So was a decision last week by the Kansas Supreme Court that rejected the concept that wives have a duty to serve their husbands. The ruling said insurance company GEICO must reimburse a Kansas man for the care his wife provided after he was injured in an automobile accident, and it denied GEICO’s claim that the wife’s obligation “was incurred as a result of the marital relationship itself.”
Spouses are not property. What’s more, violence and abuse have no place in any relationship, whether first date or long-term marriage.
Unfortunately, it happens. Too often. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from 2015, about 18 percent of women experience sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
The #MeToo era clarified the point that touching or sexual activity should require consent from both parties. Some colleges have made consent classes or workshops mandatory in an effort to curb sexual violence — although many still lag woefully behind.
Advocates of the new bill in the Kansas Legislature rightfully point out that the law as written sends a dangerous message to perpetrators: that they can sexually violate their spouses and not be held accountable.
It’s time for Kansas to acknowledge that sexual battery is a criminal act — inside or outside the bonds of marriage — and needs to be recognized as such.
