Episode 106 -- Spousal Rape and the Rideout Case
In Bed With The Right
Adrian Daub and Moira Donegan
4.8 • 662 Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, writer Sarah Weinman walks Moira and Adrian through the story of the 1978 case Oregon v. Rideout and how spousal rape became a crime in the US. Weinman's book about the case -- Without Consent -- is out now. A moving, upsetting story about how the judicial system keeps pace (or doesn't) with legislation; how media shape how we think about social progress; and how that progress can come from strange places. PLEASE NOTE: This one comes with basically all the trigger and content warnings.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know what? It's a scammer princess. She's like the Anna Delvey of her time. But Anadelvie didn't criminalize marital rape and get women's dignity. I mean, if I'm going to have to choose between Laura X and Anna Delvey, I'm choosing Laura X every single time. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. I like my scammer feminist. But you get to stay in better hotels with Anna Delvey. Who is to say who's better? The outputs are incredible. |
| 0:27.8 | Hello, I'm Adrienne Dob. |
| 0:29.4 | And I'm Moira Donigan. |
| 0:30.6 | Whether we like it or not, we are in bed with the right. |
| 0:34.5 | So, Adrian, today we're talking about a really fascinating story and also a really sad one, |
| 0:40.7 | the story of John and Greta Rideout of Oregon and how marital rape, which was long considered |
| 0:47.3 | legal, became a crime in the United States. |
| 0:51.2 | And we're joined by somebody really special, the brilliant crime writer and my |
| 0:56.1 | own dear friend Sarah Weinman, the crime lady, whose book without consent, a landmark trial |
| 1:02.3 | and the decades-long struggle to make spousal rape a crime, is out on Tuesday, November 11th. |
| 1:08.9 | Sarah, thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for having me. It's |
| 1:12.1 | such a pleasure to be on. So this is a really fascinating and deeply empathetic book. You take |
| 1:19.1 | these people seriously as characters, as moral actors, as historical agents. And it's also a book that I want to let our readers know contains lots of grappling with rape, |
| 1:32.6 | with domestic violence, with the disbelief and dismissal of victims, with the public humiliation |
| 1:38.4 | of victims, and with the impunity and indifference that perpetrators are met with, which for a long time allows them to go on committing more violence, right? |
| 1:49.8 | So I'm going to be real with you folks who are listening. |
| 1:53.1 | This was one of the tougher ones for me to prepare for. |
| 1:56.2 | And I think it might be a little tough for some of you, too, which is saying something, since you're all the |
| 2:01.6 | people who are following us through 1933, right? Wow. Yeah. So please everybody take care |
| 2:06.3 | while you're listening. Just know that this is where we're going today. Yeah, so maybe, Sarah, |
| 2:12.1 | to start us off, can you introduce our listeners to your book, which likes so much of what you |
| 2:16.5 | write, both deals with |
... |
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