Non-consensual condom removal

[10] The practice has also been described as "a threat to [a victim's] bodily agency and as a dignitary harm", and men who do this "justify their actions as a natural male instinct".

[11] Belgian journalist Heleen Debruyne emphasised in 2017 that the media should not refer to stealthing as a 'new sex trend' as if it were a harmless fad, but make clear that it is a 'form of abuse'.

Forums for this outreach could include community-wide interventions fostering discussion of healthy and unhealthy relationship practices and prevention programs for HIV/AIDS and STIs.

But the issues of reproductive coercion and birth control sabotage have recently gained more attention because of a Canadian case [R v Hutchinson[10]], in which a man poked holes in a pack of condoms so his girlfriend would get pregnant and stay with him.

Thus, the most successful argument for making non-consensual condom removal punishable would be the inherent pregnancy and infection risk of unprotected intercourse.

[20][6] A 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling (R v. Hutchinson) upheld a sexual assault conviction of a man who poked holes in his condom.

[30] In a 2022 German case, a woman was sentenced for sexual assault after she intentionally rendered the condoms defective (through perforation) in order to get pregnant by a man who did not seek a committed, serious relationship.

[32][33] In April 2021, a man in New Zealand was convicted of rape for performing stealthing during a consensual act with a sex worker (the event took place in 2018).

[37] In May 2022, the Federal Supreme Court decided that stealthing was not punishable as Schändung (sexual act with a person incapable of proper judgment or resistance, Article 191 of the penal code) because the victim was still capable of defending herself.

Not knowing about the state of the condom only impinges the decision to initiate defensive action, but does not diminish the victim's ability to defend herself, as the court noted.

[3][7] Removing or damaging a condom during sex increases the risks of unintended pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

[51] The phrase "rape-adjacent" appears in Michaela Coel's 2020 television miniseries I May Destroy You, which includes a scene depicting non-consensual condom removal.