I originally wanted to respond to the OP and I will secondarily. I must address, again, the rape comments. In MY experience, my husband pinned me to the bed and had sex with me and finished despite my begging him to stop. I'm sorry you don't feel that was rape because he didn't punch me in the face, or have a weapon. It sure felt like rape to me. You know it's funny I was raped and molested for ten years as a child and I could have sworn it was like the same experience. I'm so glad we have experts who know what rape really. Phew. </sarcasm>
^^ Clearly rape. You begged him to stop. He forced you. In the 2nd case, you were a child. All clearly rape. My response was in reply to the scenarios given earlier in the thread:
Forced sex.This should be obvious. But some men have the mistaken idea that marriage changes the rules. It doesn’t. If a husband holds his wife down, pushes her, or imposes sex by hurting her, it’s rape. Making love doesn’t include making someone cry.
Sex when the wife feels threatened. If a husband forces sex through verbal threats of harm to the woman or to people or things she cares about or if he comes to her in a barely contained rage, she can’t consent. She can only comply rather than risk being harmed either physically or emotionally.
Sex by manipulation.If a husband calls his wife names, accuses her of not being a good wife, or blackmails her emotionally by suggesting she’s so bad in bed that he will go elsewhere, he’s manipulating her. Some men even threaten to leave and take the kids with him if their wives don’t comply with demands for sex. When a wife falls for these tactics, it isn’t consent. It’s rape.
Sex when the wife can’t give consent.Loving sex is genuinely consensual. If a woman is drugged, asleep, intoxicated or unconscious, she obviously can’t give consent. Even if she says “yes” in such circumstances, the “consent” isn’t valid or truthful. She’s in no shape to consider the consequences or to participate as a willing partner.
Sex by taking a woman hostage.Some men keep themselves in a position of superiority by controlling all the money, by making contact with friends and family difficult to impossible, or by making sure there is no way for her to get transportation out of the house. The woman becomes a hostage in her own home. Like many hostages, she gives up and gives in to whatever he wants — including sex.
Sex when the woman feels she has no choice.Giving in isn’t the same as giving consent. When a woman feels that it’s just easier to give in to sex than to respect her own needs, she is being raped.
Let’s be clear: Being married doesn’t make any of the above situations okay. Wives do not belong to their husbands. Sex is not a “right” that goes with marriage. It is not a wife’s duty. A woman does not give up her right to say yes or no the day she gets married. Sex should be based on respect, equality, consent, caring, and clear communication.
No woman wants to feel like she’s living with a rapist. Good men don’t want to be one.
Taking them in order, first 2, clearly rape. Force is the defining characteristic of rape, it's a violent crime. Holding someone down and having sex against their will, that's rape. Holding a gun to their head to have sex with you? Also rape, clear as day.
The rest of them? I'm sorry, none of those are rape. That's called "being a crappy person" or a terrible partner perhaps, but not rape. By those definitions, I've been raped 100's of times. I had sex with women many times when I was too drunk to consent. I am coerced into sex when I didn't feel like it; that happens all the time in my marriage (my wife likes it in the evening, me in the morning; if I don't do it in the evening, I'm probably not going to have sex, ergo, coercion).
If you have a choice and you decide to have sex with someone, even if you don't feel like it, don't enjoy it, or really can't stand the person, but still decide to do it, that's not rape. It's bad sex, and that's not a crime. No, it's not rape if you say "I'm going to leave and take the money with me if we don't have sex", it's histrionics and acting like a 5 year old, but that's not rape. Expanding the definition to be as broad as you have belittles those who've actually been raped, because, I, and I'm sure many (most? all?) people out there meet some of these criteria and have had sex under these circumstances before. Which means we've all been raped or are rapists. That's not a reasonable position to take; everyone who drinks a lot and has sex is a rape victim? Not in my book, however, in the eyes of the law, perhaps.