A man who committed an indecent act on his fearful partner should have been "someone who provides security and safety ... not someone who threatens her", a magistrate said before imposing a community-based sentence.
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The man, who is not named to protect the identity of the victim, fronted the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday after pleading guilty to one count of committing an act of indecency without consent.
An amended statement of facts reads that the offender and his partner were home when the incident occurred in June.
The man asked her to sexually touch him to which she did not reply.
"Are you going to do it or not?" the offender asked. "If not, I will force you."
The offender then began to do this, only to be interrupted, before angrily demanding again that she touches him.
The offender's fearful partner begged him to stop, telling him "this is not you".
The man replied: "This is me ... I'm going to do this."
He then told her he did not care if she called the police or if he was locked up because "things are already not good for me".
The offender then performed an obscene act on the woman, who yielded to his demands.
The victim spoke to a church leader about the incident the same afternoon, then reported it to police.
After the offender was arrested, he spent 28 days in custody before being granted bail.
The victim read her impact statement to the court on Friday, saying she experienced trauma in the week that followed the incident before things settled.
She said she forgave him and that he was receiving counselling at a church.
Defence lawyer Keegan Lee asked for any jail sentence to be served in the community based on the offender's profound deprivation, including exposure to violence and being subjected to sexual abuse, which he said should reduce the offender's moral culpability.
Mr Lee said the offending was out of character and his client was diagnosed with PTSD and alcohol-use disorder "in the severe category".
"The presence of both of those mental impairment would reduce his moral culpability ... He has those conditions and they directly contributed to the offending," he said.
Mr Lee said his client's criminal history had no violence or sexual offending and that he had good prospects of rehabilitation, including because he was already receiving counselling.
Prosecutor Angus Brown said the offending occurred in the victim's home and questioned the relevance of forgiveness when considering the deterrence of others from family-related criminal offences.
Magistrate Glenn Theakston said he accepted the indecent act out was out of character based on the offender's criminal history.
However, he said "the defendant should be someone who provides security and safety [to his partner], not someone who threatens her".
"It's a serious example of an offence. It is serious because it robs the complainant of dignity," Mr Theakston said.
"I note the importance of forgiveness and how it should be dealt in a very careful way."
Mr Theakston, in citing a psychological report about the offender, said there was a possibility the offender experienced a dissociated state during the indecent act.
The offender was sentenced to a four-month intensive corrections order.
He was also convicted and sentenced to the rising of the court for refusing to provide breath sample during a traffic stop in March 2021.
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