"Stealthing" Men removing condoms without consent.

[HelenaDove]

By Sali Hughes for The Pool.

www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2017/19/sali-hughes-on-stealthing-and-the-rise-of-online-forums

*Ffs c3pu, wind your neck in. Why the need to turn the discussion into a genderised game of cuntish top trumps?

Two wrongs don't make a right.*

I'm not trying to make a stupid game of one up, just discussing the topic in question in all its forms. For my original question of "I wonder if it would be treated the same", my answer would be that I'd like it to be treated as the same offence, although I'd expect any punishment to be more severe for a man removing a condom due to increased risk of infection.

Sadly I think it would be vanishingly rare for any specific case to get to court due to a lack of proof though.

It's not relevant, it's a separate issue.

The fact there are these online communities I find very disturbing. I hope a lot of it is talk and not action, but still it's very troubling.

Out of interest does anyone have a link to these forums where stealthing is discussed?

Only one I've found (after not much googling) is this: www.experienceproject.com/stories/Remove-The-Condom-Without-Them-Knowing-During-Stealth-Sex/2441931

It doesn't surprise me there are forums on this which Sali Hughes who wrote the article has seen. There are so many violently misogynist forums online, some well known, where all sorts of horrific subjects are discussed.

As a childfree by choice woman this would break me out in a cold sweat.
c3 its not comparable. And as for financial risk men dont even risk that in the reverse scenario as Child Support is not enforced properly in this country.

And how would it affect the new abhorrent tax credits rape clause if this is not classed as rape WHICH IT SHOULD BE. Its rape and reproductive coercion.

c3pu, are you being deliberately obtuse?

A man who "stealths" opens the woman he has raped to STIs, emergency contraception and the dangers associated with that, possibly abortion, possibly pregnancy. He's also raped her.

A woman who fails to tell her husband that she has stopped taking birth control has acted in a shitty way, but she opens him up to the possibility of being a father. She again takes all the risk. He can simply walk away, 1000s of men do with almost no consequences at all.

They aren't comparable. One is or should be recognised as a crime. The other is shitty behaviour.

And I have never, in all my years both privately or when working in the NHS heard a single woman bragging about tricking a man. I have heard several men say that that must have been what happened when "she got herself pregnant" and I have heard several men tell me about raping women and children.

Fucks sake... that'll teach me to private message someone and let the thread move on.

I find this the same as a woman agreeing to PIV sex and then the man trying to force anal instead. Which I think is a crime (?), so stealthing should be too.

And no, it's not the same as women "forgetting" to take the pill or whatever. Although that's not good either.

Also, a man has the option of continuing to use barrier contraception instead of trusting in the woman.

If you have consented to sex with a condom you accept the risk the condom will break.
But you have not consented to your partner removing the condom. That is rape.

Excellent point Amarok.

This is the rape charge Julian Assange is up on isn't it?

They aren't comparable. One is or should be recognised as a crime. The other is shitty behaviour.

Indeed.

Also a serious relationship like marriage is a different context. I used condoms for years prior to my husband getting a vasectomy. If he had "stealthed" me to trick me into getting pregnant I would be furious and it would probably have ended our marriage BUT it wouldn't be the same as a casual liaison risking my health to enjoy "his" sex more.

TBH any man doing this is stupid and also potentially putting their own health at risk too

OlennasWimple

It's shocking isn't it? Let's set aside the STI angle for a sec, if I were in a new/casual relationship with a man (and we went to the GUM clinic together and he was diseaseless) and he told me he had had a vasectomy I would still tell him to rubber up of fuck off (I don't do the pill).

Someone posting in AIBU says her DH has done this to her.

Fucking hell, what a prick (the AIBU husband).

Also what the fuck with those responses?

HelenaDove

Gahh I wish you hadn't told me about that thread, it's so fucking annoying.

My husband can be a nob but increasingly I am beginning to think he is some sort of aberration. Why do people accept the shit they do from men? Why is a man "incredibly patient" just because he has agreed to use condoms when the pill is crippling his partner? Why are condoms viewed as the male equivalent to the pill?

Most of all why the fuck are expectations so low?

Reading that thread now too. Urgh.

This is a newish topic. It's wrong to do it but I suspect carelessly plenty of perfectly decent men have done this in their stupidity in the past. For example, condom is catching or rolling and they remove it thinking it will be fine.

It's never ok to do that but I think this issue is only recently being discussed. Hopefully as a result it will become a clear cut thing...that it is wrong to ever remove a condom without a woman's knowledge.

I do think this is something people need to be educated about, both men and women.

I'm not sure it is a newish topic, I just think people are talking about it with each other and discovering that it's not that uncommon, and that men are doing it quite deliberately and then gloating about it.

In the article it talks about women experiencing this around the time of the AIDS adverts, which was... 1982/83? I very much doubt it was a new thing even then.

It's not really careless, though, to actively remove a condom? That's a deliberate act. I don't think that a decent man would deliberately expose a woman to a risk of pregnancy or STDs. I'd call it selfish and a bit shitty tbh.

Newish topic of conversation I meant. Not new thing happening.

I wouldn't have thought too much about a boyfriend or partner removing a condom if it got uncomfortable for him in the past. Would have been a bit annoyed and said 'you need to tell me'. But that was down to lack of really thinking about the implications and the meaning of someone doing that to me! That is why I think we all need to stop and reevaluate this issue. And educate our children on this topic.

I haven't had many partners and was in a long term relationship with all my partners so would likely have felt very different if it was a casual partner doing this.

I posted about this in chat the other day. After they discussed it on Loose Women, what annoyed me the most about that segment was the way the conversation sort of evolved into "well what if a woman stops taking the pill and doesn't tell the man" "I worry for my sons". Rather than sticking to the actual topic and how serious it is. Coleen Nolan in particular seemed exasperated by the whole conversation. It wasn't pleasant to watch.

Women who stop taking the pill without telling their partners are wrong, of course they are. But that has nothing to do with men 'Stealthing' their sexual partners and then gloating about it online.

I wouldn't have thought too much about a boyfriend or partner removing a condom if it got uncomfortable for him in the past. Would have been a bit annoyed and said 'you need to tell me'. But that was down to lack of really thinking about the implications and the meaning of someone doing that to me!

I honestly don't understand this mindset. For the first few months of me and my first sexual partner engaging in PIV, we were both terrified of the risks of me getting pregnant. We used both the pill and condoms, and he was even less willing to drop the condoms after a while than I was. I used to periodically take pregnancy tests just in case.