California is poised to become the first state in the country to make stealthing – removing a condom without consent – a civil offense.
Earlier this month, the California legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 453, amending the civil code to include nonconsensual condom removal in the definition of sexual battery. Effectively banning “stealthing,” the bill is expected to be signed into law by October 10th, assuming Gov. Gavin Newsom consents.
If so, California will be the first state in the country to successfully outlaw stealthing. Several other countries have already done so, including Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. Similar bills have been introduced in New York and Wisconsin and failed, while other states haven’t even tried, a shameful state of affairs in a country that prides itself on being one of the best, safest places in the world for women to live (especially if we don’t consider Texas).
While the term “stealthing” first came into use in the gay community as a way to describe action taken by HIV-positive men to purposefully, secretly infect others, it also fills a gap for women who wanted to talk about the “rape-adjacent” feeling of danger and violation thrust upon them by men who they thought were trustworthy enough to sleep with, but for which they lacked useful terminology. In 2017, Alexandra Brodsky, a graduate of Yale Law school, published a paper in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law which aimed to clarify the act as a form of nonconsensual sexual violence for judges and juries who might otherwise be unsympathetic to victims who had already consented to some form of sex, but not this. Not this at all.
Studies conducted in 2019 in the United States and Australia found that 12-32% of women and 10-19% of men polled had been “stealthed” at some point, while 10% of men admitted doing it to someone else. Even as victims expressed fear of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, feelings of trauma and violation, and difficulty trusting potential future partners, internet fora were springing up where men like “Brendan” traded tips on how to most effectively remove condoms in order to get the best physical sensations with minimal risk of discovery. Sure, it’s risky, agreed pro-stealther “Brendan” in an interview with the youth arm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it’s also risky to cross the street.
Generally, the risk is entirely the victim’s problem, which is why California’s civil remedies may well prove useful. Being able to sue for financial damages to cover the cost of therapy for trauma or medical bills related to STDs or unwanted pregnancies can be more restorative than simply locking people up, while requiring a lower burden of proof.
Of course, critics chimed in right away, because God forbid we don’t consider the poor, poor men. As the Libertarian magazine Reason points out, determining truth is just so hard when it’s “he said, she said.” How can such a law even be enforced when condoms slip off on their own or break from time to time, resulting in the spread of disease and pregnancies with no crime attached. People should be prepared for these eventualities when they get into bed in the first place, after all. And so they should. However, there’s a difference between the small chance of a really unfortunate critical contraceptive failure, and a malicious misogynist pulling it off because he thinks he has a natural right to do so. Further, the California law would apply to anyone – male or female – who secretly pulls the condom off. Bodily autonomy should be for everyone.
In the wake of numerous new conservative-inspired laws attacking basic rights, such as bodily autonomy or the ability to vote, California’s stealthing ban is a civilized step in the right direction. No, it won’t make the practice disappear (“criminals don’t obey laws,” as they say), but it gives victims the possibility of redress. Surely there will be smartasses who moan sarcastically about having to sign a contract before every sex act now, just as there were men who thought #MeToo meant that they could never say “hello” to women in the office without being accused of harassment, but in a perfect world, they wouldn’t be getting any in the first place.
Related: The Red Pill and the Handmaid [NSFW]
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