Stealthing is a form of abuse – why would anyone want to stealth another person?
- Stealthing can be considered emotional abuse. – Even if you had consented to going “all the way,” with someone, that doesn’t mean that the person you consented to have sex with has the right to bypass said consent and use it to violate your body by removing a condom during sex without your permission. Because that is what stealthing does—it violates your body! It violates the trust you placed in the other person and the agreement you had with that person to respect each other’s bodies and feelings. Therefore, when someone deliberately does this to hurt you, there’s no doubt they are engaging in emotional abuse.
- Stealthing can also be considered sexual abuse – Although we are seeing and hearing about more stealthing cases every day in the media, there’s currently no formal legislation on sexual assault and rape that identifies stealthing as sexual assault—but that might soon change. In the fall of 2017, members of Congress requested a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee to address stealthing as an “emerging legal problem.” They argued—and rightfully so—that stealthing can have devastating effects on a person’s health and wellbeing. Why? Because if a partner removes a condom during sex without telling the other person, it can lead to unwanted pregnancies or catching a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
- Stealthing perpetrators rationalize it: “It feels better without a condom.” – Choosing to have sex without a condom for your own sexual gratification sounds great—until you consider one of the very real health implications: STDs. Nonconsensual condom removal leaves you and your partner vulnerable to catching STDs such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, genital herpes and HIV, some of which can cause infertility and other long-term health concerns if left untreated. Remember, while some STDs are totally treatable, others are not and can stay with you for a lifetime, often without symptoms. But, just because they are asymptomatic doesn’t mean you can’t still pass them on to future sexual partners.
- Stealthing can be used to get someone pregnant and stuck in a relationship – As we mentioned before, no one has the right to control another human being or their body; therefore, stealthing can be used as a manipulative technique for further coercion and manipulation. If survivors finds themselves pregnant and with no resources or anyone to turn to, the perpetrator has won in their quest to continue exercising power and control over the victim by creating a lifelong tie between them.
- Stealthing can be rooted in misogynistic thinking – Researcher Alexandra Brodsky published a study about stealthing in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and some of her findings were… erm… disturbing. After interviewing several men and women who had been victims of stealthing, reading online forums and conducting research, Brodsky found out that stealthing perpetrators justified their behavior by using misogynist rhetoric like stealthing is a “man’s right” and a “male’s natural instinct.” Or that women “deserve to be impregnated” and that “men are supposed to spread their seed—even when reproduction is not an option.”