stealthing

This is the name for the practice adopted by a man who removes his condom at some point during sex without the knowledge or consent of his partner.  While this is regarded as criminal behaviour in other parts of the world, in Australia stealthing is not legally identified as behaviour which overthrows the notion of consent and therefore becomes sexual assault.  Not yet, anyway.

 The colloquial term stealthing was mentioned by the American civil rights attorney, Alexandra Brodsky, in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law in 2017 for a practice that she described in more formal terms as ‘rape-adjacent’ condom removal.  In popular use you can stealth someone, you can stealth it, that is, remove the condom during sex, and you can be stealthed, that is, subjected to this form of sexual assault.

 Very few people report stealthing, just as very few people know that the practice has a name and that there are moves to criminalise it.

P.S. A reader has pointed out that removing a condom during sex without the consent of the partner could be considered a form of sexual assault. The ACT has set a legal precedent by becoming the first jurisdiction in Australia to outlaw steal thing.