(http://teenzonemagazine.co.za/stealthing-rape/)
Whatever your sexual preference may be, we now know that using proper protection can prevent the spread of STIs and, with two people of the opposite sex, an undesired pregnancy. Despite our current understanding and use of condoms, a new (but not so new) term that has been circulating is stealthing - a deceptive maneuver where a male removes the condom without consent during intercourse or breaks the condom without telling his partner.
Quite frankly, this phenomenon is nauseating and toxic to the core – its justification relies on misogynistic values of male sexual dominance that many men in our society embrace as part of their insidious masculinity. No matter the trending name, consent to sex with a condom is revoked when one partner defies the other, and this should be understood as rape in part because of the harm it can inflict afterward.
The Young Turks released this video to shed light on the trending sexual assaults. The root of the word itself – stealth – indicates that these perpetrators know exactly what they are doing by tricking another woman or man into unprotected sex. The intent in this deception is manipulative and violent, but still, there is a reluctance for men to acknowledge their sexual violence as rape. Further, new names for sexual assault like stealthing clearly aim to delegitimize the epidemic of rape. Our words have the ability to soften acts of violence, creating a game for some men to see who can sexually assault without being caught while sewing their manly seed and potentially spreading STIs.
Every argument I have come across that defends stealthing is rooted in male dominance and unconditional sexual control. An official study by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law deconstructs the phenomenon down to male social dominance and debates whether legal action can be taken in specific cases of stealthing. Rape (with penetration) is usually considered more violent than other forms of sexual assault within our culture and its laws. But, we must begin to consider sexual violence from the perspective of the victim - the line between rape and other harassment may become indistinguishable when we consider the individual who went through the trauma.
Stealthing has gained attention over the past year, and many articles like the New York Post's appear to agree that the trend is disturbing. However, some victims who rose out of silence described their experience as "rape-adjacent" or not as violent as full fledged rape. I agree that the act may begin with consent and isn't usually as forced as 'rape', but those wo/men who got pregnant and ghosted by the stealther or who unknowingly contracted an STI deserve to be represented in this conversation. In cases of unexpected pregnancy or infection of viruses like HIV, the consequences can be lifelong reminders of the traumatic experience.
These victims who faced the consequences of stealthing are unfortunately socialized to be silent and embarrassed, and we should not place the burden of fixing the problem on any victim. The Columbia study references explicit, online conversations of perpetrators who believe stealthing is biologically natural and should be expected by the receiver of his holy appendage. This type of masculine thought is rooted in our cultural values, originating from a binary gender system that simply does not work. Thus, the change we are aiming for requires men/perpetrators (and our society at large) to reconstruct the concept of masculinity and manhood. I believe that naming nonconsensual acts of sexual violence as rape would aid some men to see past the slick rhetoric and realize that a line is being crossed - consent IS conditional and stealthing IS NOT SEXY!
References:
Brodsky,
Alexandra, 'Rape-Adjacent': Imagining Legal Responses to Nonconsensual Condom
Removal (2017). Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2017.
Kimmel, Michael. "Men, masculinity, and the rape culture." Transforming a rape culture 2 (2005): 139-158.
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