fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3099 ]

[ SECRET POST #3099 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3099 ⌋

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A (casual) friend mentioned the other day after the Supreme Court ruling that now that gay people can get married, she hopes asexual people can someday.

My initial reaction was to laugh, because that's ridiculous, no one's been trying to stop asexual people from getting married (unless they wanted to marry someone of the same sex).

But she swears that marriage isn't legal unless you have sex, and that you have to "consummate" a marriage for it to be valid. I always thought that was more of a religious thing than a legal one, but even if it is true, how is the government/whatever legal authority's in charge of that kind of thing going to know that you haven't had/aren't having sex? It's not like someone comes and observes you to make sure you're doing it.

Part of me thinks obviously it couldn't be true, but I do remember vaguely hearing about marriages being annulled because of a lack of sex, and my google skills are failing me here because I can't find the information I'm looking for online. Anyone know the answer?

Answer: your friend is dumb.

No. Having sex does not determine whether a marriage is legal or not. I mean, how could they tell?

But a lack of sex can be used as an excuse for divorce in some cases. But again, I'd assume people getting married would know they or their partner was asexual so that would not be a problem.

This. Someone can attempt to cite a lack of sex as a reason for divorce, but it doesn't automatically annul the marriage nor does it always automatically work

Did you both sign a marriage certificate Y/N

If Y, you married

It seems as though a lack of consummation can be used as a tool during a divorce, but it seems rare. The law is an antique. It has nothing to do with the "validity" of a marriage.

failure to consummate a marriage can be grounds for annulment, yes, but you don't HAVE to consummate your marriage. No one from the government knocks on your door and demands video proof of you and your spouse doing it. it's pretty much impossible to keep track of

If a couple gets married and then person A absolutely never ever has sex with person B, despite giving person B every reason to expect it would happen and/or actually promising the same, that could probably work in B's favor should they decide to divorce etc.

If, however, person C tells their SO, person D, that they're asexual and not into sex and person D says well that's fine with me and they get married and never have sex nobody, and I mean absofuckinglutely nobody, cares.

tl;dr: I agree with above commenter. Your friend is dumb.

IANAL but a few things

First, annulment is distinct from divorce - a divorce is a legal separation from another person, whereas an annulment is a declaration that you were legally never married and the whole marriage is null from the start. Annulment is mostly a religious thing at this point (although apparently a few states do still have such a thing under very specific circumstances) and I think whether or not you'd had sex might have been relevant for the religious side of things way back in the day.

But when you get to divorce rather than annulment, I'm pretty sure that's not the case, although I don't have any proof to cite, and the only circumstances I can see it even coming up is that it might be evidence one way or the other if the government thought that you were entering into the marriage for fraudulent reasons. But even then I doubt it.

But I'm sure philstar or someone has come along while I was typing this with the actual answer.

Uhhh.. well. There's a hint of truth to this, but it's not the way she thinks. If someone has reason to suspect you are marrying someone fraudulently (i.e. for citizenship in exchange for currency) the agent has the right to ask questions about your sex life as part of an investigation.

However, you are not legally required to have sex in order to be married. There is no consummation law. It is assumed that most married people will want to have some sort of sexual relationship, but it is not required.

Edit: And other people have pointed out that it can be grounds for annulment, but as they've also said that's a totally different matter and mostly based on the idea that a person was promised a thing as part of an agreement to marry and then that thing was not provided. ...People have also gotten annulments for penis size issues or lack of fertility, so there you go.

Asexuals could always get married. In fact, the very concept of a "sexless marriage" has existed for decades and decades now, so there's a very high likelihood that asexual people have been getting legally married for quite a while.

Edited 2015-06-30 00:50 (UTC)

Your friend sounds perilously dumb. Even if she got some really weird misinformation at some point in her life, common sense should tell her that the government can't really enforce something like that even if such a thing were true (it's not true btw)

Nobody in modern times is going to come into your home to check to see if your having sex. Like one of the anons said, your friend is dumb.

This thread is starting to concern me. Are you people telling me that the guy who comes to my house every week and demands to see videos of my husband and I having sex to make sure that we're fulfilling our marital obligations ISN'T from the FBI like he says he is? I'm alarmed.

you made me snort and wake the baby 10/10

lollllllllll

*ded of lulz*

I'm hoping this is a joke, because I just peed my pants laughing and I'd feel horrible if it wasn't.

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 03:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

elialshadowpine - 2015-06-30 04:44 (UTC) - Expand

Your friend is either a pretty dim bulb or she's trying reeeeeally hard to come up with a reason for why asexual people are special persecuted snowflakes.

The very tiny germ of truth in this is that in some HISTORICAL settings, non-consummation of a marriage was grounds for annulment. It didn't mean that the marriage is invalid automatically, it was just a possible loophole.

I hope your friend never has to cross the street by herself or operate heavy machinery.

Rather than simply echoing "yeah, your friend is dumb", do you mind if I ask what sort of upbringing she's had? Extremely sheltered?

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 01:13 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 01:18 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 02:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 03:16 (UTC) - Expand

Your friend is either being lied to by someone very creepy, or she's a little.... well, just, no. That's not true. A law like that could not even be enforced.

In my state, video documentation is required within six months after filing your marriage license. However, the review board is still processing a backlog from June 31, 2005, so most people submit clips of their pets instead.

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

it's not true, and it sounds as if your friend has spent far too much time on tumblr or AVEN to be dreaming up weird asexuality "persecution." at this point tumblr's "REAL TRUE HAPPENED TO MY FRIEND!!" stories about asexual oppression (I believe there was a tumblr post a while ago claiming someone's landlord kicked out a couple for being asexual....... sure) have reached Your Crazy Aunt™'s chain emails level.

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 04:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 07:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 15:00 (UTC) - Expand

The answer is no. No one is going to swoop down and declare your marriage invalid because of the sex you aren't having. Your friend needs to stop getting her idea of how the world works from Game of Thrones.

Re: Sex/legality of marriage...is this true?

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-30 15:02 (UTC) - Expand

This is false. Asexual people could always marry an opposite sex partner, and now they can marry a same sex partner. No sex needed. Happens all the time. People have been doing it in white marriages for centuries.

It used to be that impotence was cause for annullment. However, that was because the wife asked for it. And in some places, you can anull your marriage if it hasn't been consummated. However, that is also at request of one of the parties.

So unless one of the parties asks for it, you're safe. And I presume an asexual would marry someone who knows they're asexual.

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