Silenced in sacred spaces: a netnographic study of marital rape disclosures in India and Bangladesh

This study examines the epistemic gap between institutional narratives of marital consent and women's lived experiences of sexual coercion within marriage in India and Bangladesh. Legal frameworks presume permanent, irrevocable consent through marriage. However, digital platforms reveal systematic patterns of coercion, retaliation and silencing that contradict this presumption. Drawing on a netnographic analysis of over 600 public posts, 1,200+ user comments and archived digital testimonies from 2023 to 2025 across Bengali and English platforms, the research is grounded in Feminist Standpoint Theory, Judith Butler's performativity and critical discourse studies. The findings reveal four interlinked discursive patterns: “silent sex” and “fatal resistance”; the patriarchal logic of contractual consent, digital vigilantism by men's rights groups, and a culture of minimisation. Further analysis shows that despite hostility, digital spaces allow survivors to reframe their experiences of rape and push back against institutional and cultural silencing.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT By documenting the narrative gap between legal presumptions of consent and survivors’ lived experiences of coercion, this research reveals critical policy blind spots – particularly around non-physical coercion, retaliatory violence following resistance (“fatal resistance”), and the normalisation of routine sexual coercion as marital duty. These findings expose how legal erasure of marital violence fundamentally contradicts women’s documented experiences, highlighting the need for trauma-informed policy reforms that acknowledge these systematically silenced realities.