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Stealthing

Olivia Petter has written two articles for the Sunday Times about her experience of being “stealthed” that have generated much discussion. She explains the term as follows, “What happened to me, and the other women I heard from, is known colloquially as “stealthing”. It’s a term used to describe the act of removing a condom without a partner’s consent.”

The first article was published on June 27th: “I saw the condom on the floor – and realised I’d been ‘stealthed'”

Extract:

That’s when I noticed the condom lying on the floor. “Oh yeah, I wasn’t wearing it when I came,” he said, strolling back into the bedroom naked. “You should probably get the morning-after pill.”

I was sexually assaulted that day, though I didn’t know it at the time. Stealthing, as it’s colloquially known, is a crime in England. It is recognised by the Crown Prosecution Service as an example of a “conditional consent” case, whereby consent is granted under conditions that are then vitiated: I had consented to having protected sex with Sam, not unprotected sex.

Her second article appears in today’s Sunday Times: “Recognising being ‘stealthed’ as rape is shocking. After my story, women wanted to talk”

Discussing the reaction to her earlier article, Ms Petter writes,

There is nothing ambiguous about sexual assault – consent is either violated or it isn’t – but I’ve found that there tends to be a lot of ambiguity surrounding it. There are currently more than 260 online comments underneath my piece, and they’re mostly between people debating what does and does not constitute rape. One woman explained she felt that referring to stealthing as rape “dilutes” the experiences of others who may not have consented to any form of sexual contact. Others concurred that it “diminishes” other people’s experiences, while one person wrote that Sam deserved “a good sound thrashing”, but that calling his actions “rape” devalued the word’s definition.

I felt the above passage was a fair reflection of the two main strands of opinion in the comments, two strands that are not entirely in opposition to each other. All agree that as described, the behaviour of “Sam” was despicable and did violate Ms Petter’s consent.

But was it rape?

It depends what you mean by rape. That answer is not a cop-out. It is the only possible answer to that sort of definitional question, which is why that sort of question will be debated forever. It would do more good to ask something more specific like “Should it fall under the definition of rape in law?”

By the way, another question that can never be settled is whether transgender women really are women. It depends how you define the word “woman”. It often seems to me that there would be more scope for respectful compromise if people could agree to differ on the definition and get down to questions of what to do in difficult cases.

Returning to Olivia Petter’s article, I felt she lost her way in the next paragraph after the one I quoted above. She writes,

This debate highlights one of the key problems with regards to how we talk about sexual assault: that there is a spectrum of experiences, with “extreme” stories on one end, and ones that are somehow “lesser” on the other. It perpetuates the idea that some assaults are more worthy of our attention than others. Not only does this ignore the fact that sexual trauma of any kind can have lasting consequences for survivors, but it’s the very thing that stops people like Jess, Sally and myself from feeling like they have the right to say they’ve been raped when, under UK law, they have. And, as I know all too well, grappling with that feeling alongside sexual trauma can be incredibly isolating and, in some instances, means that the perpetrator is more likely to be vindicated, which may enable them to assault someone else.

Of course there is a spectrum of seriousness. Of course some experiences of sexual assault are extreme and some lesser – while still bad. Of course some assaults are more worthy of our attention than others. The most serious sexual assaults are most worthy of our attention, and the police’s attention, and the attention of judges, and the attention of those who provide support to victims, and the attention of lawmakers, and sociologists, and teachers, and parents, and media commentators, and of the public… and none of this in any way excuses the perpetrators or disrespects the victims of less extreme but still despicable violations of consent.

44 comments to Stealthing

  • Paul Marks

    Up to the early 1960s selling contraption was an offence in Rhode Island – it remained an offence till later, I believe, in the Republic of Ireland.

    The idea being that if people consent to sexual intercourse they are agreeing to the possibility of children. This is still the official position of the Roman Catholic Church – Pope Francis may (or may not) mock Roman Catholic doctrine, but he has NOT officially changed it.

    I express no opinions on this matter at all – I am merely giving some background.

  • Natalie Solent (Essex)

    Paul Marks,

    There is some discussion in the comments to both the Times articles of the whether a woman concealing from her sexual partner that she is not on the pill is or is not equivalent to “stealthing”.

  • Lee Moore

    What about a woman concealing from her partner that she is on the pill ?

    That seems just as stealthy as doing it the other way round, and the prospect of procreating may be the reason the chap is having sex with Ms. A rather than Ms B, C, D etc.

  • Natalie Solent (Essex)

    Lee More, yes it’s just as stealthy but a little more removed from the meaning of “stealthing” as the word is now used in popular culture. Popular culture does not mean universal culture; I had never heard of the term before reading Ms Petter’s original article.

    If I recall correctly, there is a moment in the 1983 film “Educating Rita” in which the heroine is revealed to have been concealing from her husband that she was on the pill. He wanted children, she didn’t – or at any rate not yet. I remember thinking when I first saw the film how the way the story was told did not seem to “recognise” how dishonest an act that was on her part. She is very definitely portrayed as the heroine and the husband is treated as a bit of an oaf. On the other hand perhaps I have remembered the scene in too simplistic a way.

  • bobby b

    Isn’t this the crux of the rape charge against Julian Assange in Sweden?

  • Lee Moore

    Never seen Educating Rita, but thanks for that, Natalie.

    My point was aimed more at the idea that “stealthing” – ie whipping a condom off in mid coitus – is, morally as opposed to legally – “rape.” I confess I have no firm view on this at present.

    Seems to me that it’s less like rape than coercing an unwillinging person to have sex with you, or even a deception as to identity.

    But it’s still something bad. Why is it bad ? Because it puts the deceived, but otherwise willing, sexual partner at risk of getting pregnant. But it doesn’t seem any wickeder than the woman pretending to be on the pill when she isn’t. Arguably that’s worse, because the unwillingly pregnant woman still has morning after pills and abortions to save her from the full personal cost of an unwanted child. Whereas the unwilling deceived father doesn’t have the option to decline a couple of decades of child support payments.

    But both of these “bads” are bads that result from a child being regarded as a bad thing. Which is fair enough if you do not want a child.

    But the corresponding bad – deceiving your sexual partner who DOES want a child into having sex under the misapprehension that a child is at least a possibility – seems to be unlikely to tug as many heartstrings in “popular culture” than the “aaaargh I didn’t want a child” scenario. Indeed I expect you’d only raise a laugh complaining about it.

    This reverse deceit is not only a woman-deceives-man thing, of course. A vasectomised man can deceive a woman who wants to get pregnant in just the same way.

    But we probably need a way to distinguish the various cases, eg.

    1. rape simpliciter = RAPE
    2. stork shock coital deceit = SSCD
    3. onanistic coital deceit = OCD

    I’m sure wittier folk can do better.

  • Penseivat

    In the UK, rape is defined as sexual intercourse by force, fear, or fraud. If a condition of sexual intercourse is the man wearing a condom, and he deliberately removed it without the knowledge, or permission, of the woman, then the following element of sexual intercourse is being carried out under fraudulent conditions. That is rape, especially if the woman would not have consented to sex without a condom being worn. The fact the act described has been given a fancy name does not lessen the offence.

  • Lee Moore

    Law and morals are not coextensive.

    But even as to the law :

    That is rape, especially if the woman would not have consented to sex without a condom being worn.

    “especially” is an interesting word to find in that sentence. How could sexual intercourse by achieved “by fraud” unless it would not have occurred without the fraud ?

  • APL

    I remember thinking when I first saw the film how the way the story was told did not seem to “recognise” how dishonest an act that was on her part.

    Talking of ‘stealthing‘ not a lot of publicity nor sympathy for a man in the circumstance where a woman makes her partner pay for the rest of his life for her lovers child.

    As to the discussion at hand, ‘stealthing’ as described in this article. I think, the solution is clear, don’t bother with condoms. Neither party can be in any doubt as to the circumstance or potential consequence.

  • george m weinberg

    Well, morally it sounds a lot more similar to concealing an std than forcible rape to me, but if the law says sex obtained by fraud is rape, legally it’s rape. I look forward to hearing of a woman who lies about being on the pill being convicted of rape. I expect I’ll be looking forward to it for a long time.

  • Lee Moore

    I think, the solution is clear, don’t bother with condoms. Neither party can be in any doubt as to the circumstance or potential consequence.

    I understand that there are other forms of contraception besides condoms.

  • Paul from Canada

    Everyone commenting seems to be hung up on the contraception angle, but what about STDs?

  • Let us assume things are as Olivia Petter (long a lifestyle writer for the Independent and similar IIUC) presented them, in her two attention-catching articles for a major paper highlighting a newish meme likely to be fashionable in her set. (They may very well be – “he deceived me to gain my consent” has been truly said by many women at many times.)

    Deceit is wrong. Deceit by Sam is wrong. Deceit by Olivia is wrong. If Olivia were honest enough to grant that of course her experience contains significantly fewer distressing elements than that of some violently assaulted, revolted, rationally frightened woman – is indeed and obviously “lesser” – then I would have more respect for her. But in today’s world, being a victim is the in thing, and inflating one’s victimhood is in too. And if that cheapens real victims by stealing their rhetoric for another’s lesser grievance, many are up for that as well.

    This greed for victimhood – this demand for equality in victimhood – has consequences. Natalie (July 11, 2021 at 2:01 pm) notes a possible consequence so obvious (though apparently not to Olivia) that it was already mentioned in the Times comments. There will be many female ‘rapists’ if that word is redefined to mean ‘misrepresenting your contraceptive state during sex’ and the rule is applied justly. (Of course, as with ‘hate’ speech law, it may be applied very unjustly. Olivia herself does not inspire me with confidence on that point.)

    Calculated deceit is justly enraging. People deceive you for the same reason they hit you – to make you do what they want, not what you would choose. And of course, the act of revealing deceit can also be enraging – can be an intended mockery. A Sam who was able to remove a condom and complete the sex without Olivia noticing would be able to conceal said condom without her noticing. Insofar as one believes Olivia, one should wonder: did Sam leave it lying out deliberately?

    Less than a century ago, English civil law still had breach-of-promise actions, included penalties for seduction under promise of marriage. Now we discuss another kind of promise that can be made to secure sex and then broken.

  • In the UK, rape is defined as sexual intercourse by force, fear, or fraud.

    So when Billy Bob gets into a girls knickers by claiming he’s heir to a pinball machine fortune rather than the reality of being an part-time weed dealer, then that’s rape too because of fraud?

    I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.

    As to the discussion at hand, ‘stealthing’ as described in this article. I think, the solution is clear, don’t bother with condoms. Neither party can be in any doubt as to the circumstance or potential consequence.

    Sure, but then the XX chromosome holder (can’t assume their gender these days) just falls back on one of the 264 other forms of “Rape” claim to enforce her post-coital regret.

    I look forward to hearing of a woman who lies about being on the pill being convicted of rape. I expect I’ll be looking forward to it for a long time.

    I suspect you are right, although the last time I checked you had to have a penis to be done for rape, otherwise it’s just sexual assault or some variant thereof.

  • APL

    John Galt: “Sure, but then the XX chromosome holder (can’t assume their gender these days) just falls back on one of the 264 other forms of “Rape” claim to enforce her post-coital regret.”

    Well, you know, womans body, woman’s choice, there’s always the alternative. So much more empowering, dontcha know?

  • As regards the side issue of

    whether transgender women really are women

    I think we’d all agree that free speech, not ‘hate’ speech law, is the first step in answering. However (to relate it to the main point instead of diving down that rabbit hole), it should be needless to point out (but might need to be to Olivia and suchlike), that if ‘misrepresenting contraceptive state during sex’ is ‘rape’ then ‘misrepresenting trans state during sex’ is, not just analogously so but (in all cases short of ‘Jane’ in Heinlein’s ‘All You Zombies’) quite literally so!

    My comment above about the ability of deceit to enrage applies, but I question going that far.

    I’m not sure Olivia has thought this through.

  • Bantam03

    How did she not notice that he had pulled out long enough to pull the condom off?

    How did she not notice that he had spilled his seed inside her, until she saw the condom?

    Hmmmm…

  • APL

    Bantam03: “How did she not notice that he had pulled out long enough to pull the condom off?”

    She’s a drama queen. Who’d put this sort of intimate information in a National Newspaper? Except someone with some sort of narcissistic personality disorder, Munchhausen or something like that.

    Or a professional feminist. Someone who might carry a mattress around the University campus to signify the rape that never happened.

  • pete

    I’m sure many men do get away with rape because of the lack of any independent evidence to prove they’ve committed the crime.

    I can’t see a way around this.

  • Eric

    This is a recycled story from years ago. It caused a big furor at the time and most people decided it was probably a hoax. Men don’t do this – they never have. I’m not saying it absolutely never happened. But we’re talking single digit occurrences.

    Here’s an article from 2017.

    Is it rape? Well, if a man throws a condom in the trash and a woman uses its contents to impregnate herself, that’s not rape. So no, this wouldn’t be rape either. But it’s not like a man is going to put himself on the hook for eighteen plus years of child support payments.

  • bobby b

    Here’s my libertarian take on this:

    There are so many bad – dangerous – life-threatening consequences that can come from sexual intercourse that, if you engage in it willingly with someone whom you know so little about that you can be taken advantage of, that’s your own fault.

    Not being a prude here. It’s just otherwise an unworkable situation. Take the OP’s situation: what if it turned out that the woman had AIDS and the man didn’t know that until after he took off his condom. Does that turn his rape of her into her rape of him? Mutual rape?

  • Fraser Orr

    @bobby b
    There are so many bad – dangerous – life-threatening consequences that can come from sexual intercourse that, if you engage in it willingly with someone whom you know so little about that you can be taken advantage of, that’s your own fault.

    See I don’t agree with that. It is certainly true that condoms don’t eliminate all risks, they don’t, for example, eliminate the risk of heartbreak, but the fact is that condoms do greatly reduce some very, very serious risks associated with sexual intercourse. So if one agrees to engage in it contingently on the use of a condom, you are assuming a different level of risk than if you agree to such without. So you are enforcing a risk on somebody against their will and that should indeed be in the criminal code. To me it is no different than a car manufacturer telling you their seat belts work well, when they are in fact defective. Driving a car with seat belts is dangerous, but we all chose that risk, driving without them is considerably more risky, and if we do the latter because a fraud has been perpetrated on us then the fraudster certainly should suffer liability.

    Now, I certainly agree there are certain other frauds that might cause extra risk “Hey I’m billionaire, I’ll buy you diamonds if you come back to my place!!” or “I’ll love your till the end of time”, but the risk there is considerably less lethal.

    One point which I think is definitely worth considering is if she claims to be on OCPs and gets pregnant from the engagement. I think there is a reasonable claim from a man in those circumstances that the pregnancy is not his responsibility. Here he took the risk of conception based on fraudulent information. And even though no contraceptive is 100% effective, het fraud here did significantly change his risk assessment, and so the situations are quite similar IMHO.

    Now of course whether these things are “rape” or not is a matter of definition. It is certainly different than dragging someone into the bushes in the park at knifepoint. But this is a classic tactic of certain victimhood classes, which is to apply a word so broadly that dramatic distinctions in the different actions become blurred, and for sure minor matters become conflated with major ones, to the great detriment of victims of the major ones. “Racist” and “misogynist” are two such terms twisted beyond measure. Which isn’t to suggest that stealthing is a “minor” matter, I think it is in fact quite serious, but it is certainly far less serious than some types of rape.

  • Ian

    I imagine the term “stealthing” was invented by some journo sitting at a keyboard. In my experience men prefer consequence-free sex and women are more interested in relationships and children. Too obvious?

  • APL

    It also occurs to me that one unused but ( what’s the word ) unfurled condom on the floor, is not evidence that the man did not use a condom during coitus, merely that he did not use that condom. Maybe that condom was uncooperative in the heat of the moment, and discarded in favor of getting a new one out of the packet, that happens.

    Perhaps her real complaint is littering?

    Either way, absent an actual allegation of rape reported to the Police, who’d write this feminist boilerplate in a National newspaper, except a paid up national feminist with an agenda.

    And matress girl? Well Emma Sulkowicz is still an “heroine”, and Nunguesser is still a rapist, according to the Media.

    I score this times article ‘FAKE NEWS’.

    pete: “I can’t see a way around this.”

    Women might choose their partners with more care, and less alcohol.

  • William H. Stoddard

    It has seemed to me for some time that “sex without consent” is not a sufficient definition for rape. When we say “rape,” we are thinking of a paradigmatically violent crime: beating the victim into submission, or threatening them with a deadly weapon, or forcibly holding them down. But a lot of things that are now called “rape” are not violent in that way. Administering drugs, or pretending to be someone else, or pretending that the act is something else (as in many varieties of medical rape), or not meeting the conditions for consent—for example, not paying a prostitute’s agreed on fee—are nonconsensual but not violent.

    In crimes against property, we distinguish between robbery, which is violent, and larceny or theft, which is not, but is based on stealth or deception. I think it would add clarity if we distinguished between violent sexual crimes, rape in the classic sense, and crimes of stealth or deception.

    And, in fact, there is a traditional name for such crimes: “seduction.” The word might have been irretrievably softened, to mean simply being persuasive or alluring; but its older use seems often to have involved elements of deception. Perhaps we need to revive the concept, if not the name, and punish fraudulent sex as a category of its own, distinct from violent sex.

  • Natalie goes on about a newly named crime whilst completely missing the point – those women were putting it about with anyone. Were it their husbands, then those hubbies would have been trained and the situation would be far less likely to occur.

  • bobby b

    Everyone made fun of Whoopi Goldberg when she defended some lefty by explaining that he might be guilty of “rape”, but it wasn’t “rape-rape.” (Statutory – maybe Polanski?)

    But maybe there is some nugget of wisdom there that we need to explore. If you devalue “rape” and apply it to “he didn’t tell me he was a Republican!”, perhaps you need “rape-rape” for the distinction.

  • Tim Worstall

    The actual definition of rape – rather than the legal one – is what a jury will convict upon. It would be interesting to know whether 12 average folk would convict, for rape, on the evidence of stealthing. They almost certainly wouldn’t on the pinball fortune and dope dealing example. Definitely don’t on the “Of course I’ll still respect you” idea.

    As to trans and women. I take PJ O’Rourke’s view on gender differences. There are indeed differences and sometimes they’re not important – like trading bonds* – and sometimes they are – when making babies. The differences between transwomen and women are just that, sometimes important and mostly not. The problem is when for each? At one end we might have a rapist, physically intact and not on gonad shrinking hormones, and trying to decide which prison estate they should serve their sentence in. At the other perhaps which honorific should be applied, Ms. Mr, Miss, Mrs, to the individual presenting themselves at the reception desk wearing a dress and lipstick.

    *There’s an amusement to Harriet Harman’s jest about Lehman Sisters. Either single sex trading environment is less risk taking than a mixed sex trading environment. This should not be a surprise, much risk taking is sexual display. It’s that it was, in fact, Lehman Brothers and Sisters that made it as risk loving as it was.

  • Now of course whether these things are “rape” or not is a matter of definition. (Fraser Orr, July 12, 2021 at 5:31 am)

    As often in this day and age, this is probably not “a matter of definition” but a matter of re-definition – radical redefinition pushed by a faction who oppose free speech and deny objective truth.

    That is a different thing. The analogy with “it’s not the voting but the counting” is: it’s not the defining, it’s who gets to redefine versus who gets arrested for defending yesterday’s view.

    This attempt – second time round if commenter Eric at July 12, 2021 at 12:32 am is recalling correctly – may fizzle and die, or it may become a future PC fashion. In the latter case, it will have been morally prudent but practically risky to clarify one’s view now (in this thread and thinking about it) before the pressure to adopt Olivia’s becomes strong.

  • Jim

    You can bet your bottom dollar that if sexual intercourse by way of deception is codified as a crime of rape, then the only people who will ever be convicted of it will be men.

  • As to trans and women. I take PJ O’Rourke’s view on gender differences. There are indeed differences and sometimes they’re not important – like trading bonds* – and sometimes they are – when making babies. The differences between transwomen and women are just that, sometimes important and mostly not. The problem is when for each?

    When is the “bloke in a dress” tranny thing okay and when is it not okay? If the legal argument is “self-definition” rather than “post-gender reassignment” then you’re going to get lots of loser pervs doing the “Wax my balls bigot” routine because they can.

    Are you woke enough to force women to wax testicles?

    Same applies to the “male rapist in a dress” going on to be banged up in a women’s prison and screwing as many of the inmates as he can get away with, all fully enabled by government regulations.

    Apparently there is even a problem from the lesbos because of vast numbers of “loser blokes in dresses” signing up to lesbian electronic dating services as lesbians.

    The Feminazis have enabled this behaviour and now they’re complaining about the world that they created.

    Tough shit sisters. You broke it, you bought it.

  • Paul Marks

    Natalie – yes interesting point.

    A women may pretend she is “on the pill” and not be so – so the man has sexual relations with her and then finds he is liable for decades of child support.

    Or a woman may be on the pill and pretend she is NOT – sneering at her husband for failing to father a child.

    All sorts of weird things are done – by both men and women.

  • bobby b

    Fraser Orr – I just don’t see it. Continuing sex after removing a condom ought to subject one to to private civil lawsuit – it’s a basic breach of contract – but not to the power of the state to imprison you.

    It’s the difference between having to make someone whole in an agreed-upon transaction versus a legal prohibition with loss of liberty as a penalty.

  • Lee Moore

    When we say “rape,” we are thinking of a paradigmatically violent crime: beating the victim into submission, or threatening them with a deadly weapon, or forcibly holding them down. But a lot of things that are now called “rape” are not violent in that way. Administering drugs, or pretending to be someone else

    This seems to me internally inconsistent. I appreciate that one might perceive a distinction between force and violence, in that one might “forcibly” hold someone down, without actual violence, eg a blow. But even with that distinction, I don’t see how “administering drugs” could escape being called, at least, force, in the same way that forcibly holding someone down is called force. The force deployed uses chemicals rather than mechanics, but it still incapacitates the victim.

    It doesn’t seem to me that forcibly holding someone down, or drugging them so they cannot resist, are significiantly different for the purposes of defining rape, than actual violence. Nor for that matter is threatening violence without actually using it. That is coercion rather than direct force or violence, but it still looks pretty rapey to me.

    It’s deception where the waters begin to get a bit murky. And there’s a big range of deceptions all the way from impersonating the husband or boyfriend in the dark, to “of course I’ll still respect you in the morning” – some of which are considerably more reprehensible than others.

    I might add, en passant, that the typical media description of a “peaceful demonstration” in which participants deliberately obstruct streets, intersections, building entrances and exits and so on, or occupy rooms or buildings, is, oh what’s the word – ah yes, …deception.

    Obstruction may not be “violence’ but it’s certainly “force”. No good Italian defender launches into a scything hack at a forward’s legs, when a bit of obstruction will do.

  • Deep Lurker

    Other crimes commonly make a distinction between “by force,” “by stealth,” and “by fraud.”

    Money may be stolen by robbery or by embezzlement. Cars may be stolen by carjacking, by theft or by various forms of fraud.

    So why does “rape” legally dump these things together? Possibly because sex between two people not married to each other was historically considered criminal (or at least quasi-criminal) even with consent on all sides? Or because all sex is considered an act of violence, with consent making that violence legally excusable?

    By the way, I’ve heard of “stealthing” before – the concept if not the word – but almost always with examples of the woman secretly removing, sabotaging, or otherwise bypassing the condom to get pregnant when the man doesn’t want to father a child with her.

  • William H. Stoddard

    Lee:

    If A drugs B, without B’s consent or knowledge, and then takes B’s wallet and watch, would you classify that as “robbery” or as “larceny”? It doesn’t seem to me that B is either being hit, physically restrained, or threatened with violence, and consequently B isn’t being put in physical pain, or in fear of death or injury.

  • staghounds

    Robbery.

    Putting poison in someone’s system IS using a weapon, a chemical one. The effects are as risky as those from being struck. Someone drugged into unconsciousness is as physically restrained as one held down or tied.

  • William H. Stoddard

    Does the law classify drugging someone into unconsciousness without their consent, and taking their possessions, as robbery or as larceny?

  • Lee Moore

    Does the law classify drugging someone into unconsciousness without their consent, and taking their possessions, as robbery or as larceny?

    I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.

    http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-robbery-and-larceny/

    This suggests that robbery requires force, threat thereof etc.

    If I were sitting on a jury, uninstructed by the judge as to any special legal meaning of “force”, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in concluding that drugging someone into unconsciousness and then taking their possesions involved the necessary force to make it robbery.

  • Flubber

    Yes it is.

  • Mr Ed

    I’m a bit late to this thread, I have been too busy ignoring Association Football, my apologies:
    1. ‘UK law’ isn’t a thing here, there are 3.5 jurisdictions in the UK: Northern Ireland, which more or less copies England; England and Wales (the latter is the 0.5, as it is devolved in some areas of law and bilingual); and Scotland, which has an almost entirely separate criminal legal system from the rest of the UK.

    The law on rape in England (and Wales) was heavily reworked under Blair. The offence of rape was widened in 2003 and made more inclusive:

    ‘1 Rape

    (1) A person (A) commits an offence if—

    (a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,

    (b) B does not consent to the penetration, and

    (c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

    (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.

    (3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.

    (4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.

    The offence was widened to include the anus and mouth, making three the ‘statutory orifices’, so broadening ‘rape’ to include men as victims. But the question of proof is in Section 1 (1) (c) in that the accused has to be shown to not have (objectively) reasonably believed that the victim consented to the penetration.

    And there is also Section 2 of the same Act, covering the use of any body part in two of the three ‘statutory orifices’ and any object or body part (even ears!).

    2 Assault by penetration

    (1)A person (A) commits an offence if—

    (a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina or anus of another person (B) with a part of his body or anything else,

    (b) the penetration is sexual,

    (c) B does not consent to the penetration, and

    (d) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

    (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.

    (3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.

    (4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.

    But anyway, if A shags B on the basis that B agrees that a condom is used, and A removes the condom unilaterally, then A presumably understands that the basis of the consent to shagging has gone, so A is guilty.

    And on the ‘I’m on the pill, honest‘ issue, there is Section 4 (in theory, not in practice), the shagger ‘B’ engages with the shagged ‘A’ on the basis that the shagged is on the Pill, but this is not so, ergo it is an offence by A under Section 4:

    4Causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent

    (1)A person (A) commits an offence if—

    (a)he* intentionally causes another person (B) to engage in an activity,

    (b)the activity is sexual,

    (c)B does not consent to engaging in the activity, and

    (d)A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

    (2)Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.

    (3)Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.

    (4)A person guilty of an offence under this section, if the activity caused involved—

    (a)penetration of B’s anus or vagina,

    (b)penetration of B’s mouth with a person’s penis,

    (c)penetration of a person’s anus or vagina with a part of B’s body or by B with anything else, or

    (d)penetration of a person’s mouth with B’s penis,

    is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.
    (5)Unless subsection (4) applies, a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

    (a)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

    (b)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.

    * ‘he’ and ‘she’ are interchangeable, section 6 of The Interpretation Act 1978.

  • Patrick Brady

    Interesting…

    With physical assault, the crime for poking someone with your finger 1x in anger differs from bludgeoning someone repeatedly in the head with a knife or hammer – nearly causing death. The law makes distinctions about how bad each form of assault is and how it should be punished.

    We need the same for sexual assaults.

    As for “stealthing”, that appears to be similar to fraud. All forms of sexual fraud should be punishable. And the punishment should match the degree of risk the fraud puts the victim in.

    When a man secretly removes a condom, he’s exposing his partner to STDs and an unwanted pregnancy, which she alone has the means to terminate. When a woman fraudulently claims to be “on the pill” she exposes her partner to a pregnancy he hasn’t consented to. A woman who “is” taking the pill and claims not be be has also committed a fraud – most likely on a spouse.

    All of these frauds should be punishable. For example, a woman who gets pregnant when she’s fraudulently claimed to be “on the pill” should be banned from seeking any compensation or support from the fraud victim (the biological father) OR THE GOVT. A man who fraudulently fathers a child should have his wages garnished and lose access to all govt transfer payments/housing support e.g. lose subsidized housing or mortgage interest deduction along with govt payments.

    Behavior would change fast if these rules were fairly executed. Just a matter of raising the cost.

  • DarthLaurel

    I’m sorry but banging people you don’t really know well enough to trust is dumb and risky.
    “Stealthing” is rude and ungentlemanly.
    Both people are acting like uncivilized beings.

  • ruralcounsel

    If “stealthing” is rape, then so is having sex when you’ve lied about being on the pill or having an IUD. That is the same betrayal of conditional consent.