Johannesburg - If in rounding up August (as supposedly the month when South Africa is supposed to up the tempo in fighting the scourge of gender-based violence) we are to drag all men to some confessional – we will mostly discover that there are many who sometime in their life had engaged in what has come to be known as stealthing.
This is the act of removing a condom during sex without the consent of the partner.
Stealthing is perpetrated by men of all sexualities who feel entitled to “spread their seed” or simply because they feel sex is better without the latex barrier.
This act of surreptitiously removing a condom during sex without consent isn't something new it is just that now it has been given a name.
It is part of the sick, power-hungry game of male supremacy that many of us men who are beneficiaries of patriarchy do play or have some time in our lives.
If we are true to ourselves many of us can confirm memories of how when we were growing up having sex was a game of conquest. As a male, one was respected among one’s peers according to one’s prowess to lead as many “doe-eyed and unsuspecting lasses” to one’s lair – for bouts of unprotected sex. Hence in township parlance having sex with a condom was like “eating a sweet without removing the wrapping.”
On the other hand, research has shown that women who have gone through this have been left traumatised the same way survivors of extreme sexual violence have. Beyond the trauma, survivors also face the burden of an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.
In highlighting the impact on the victims of this pernicious practice the research is a confirmation of how stealthing deprives women of their rights to sexual and bodily autonomy and their right to control their sexual and reproductive choices, all without them knowing. The research also reveals that apart from sexual and reproductive rights, men who practice stealthing impose on the women’s right to choose whose penis gets to have direct skin on skin with their vaginal walls.
The brighter side of this horror story is the fact that stealthing has come under legal scrutiny in countries including Germany and Britain, both of which have convicted people for the act. Califonia outlawed stealthing last year. Last month a top Canadian court ruled that a man accused of not wearing a condom during sex with a woman who consented only to protected sex should be charged with sexual assault.
“Since only yes means yes and no means no, it cannot be that ‘no without a condom’ means ‘yes, without a condom’”, the court ruled in a majority decision.
Such decisions bring to the centre stage how South Africa – as a country ravaged by the scourge of gender-based violence - deals with the practice of stealthing. One way of doing so is to take the lead from the already mentioned countries and explore a legal route that will ensure that the rights of the women of this country – who are victims of a scourge that deprives them of a multiplicity of rights as citizens of a democratic society – are protected.
In doing so the lawmakers must be cognisant of the fact that those who engage in stealthing are driven by their desire to exert power and control over their partner. They see their victims as possessions rather than people who have the right to make their own consensual decisions about sex.
They must also accede to the fact that the keyword in any sexual relationship is consent – every sex act should always be consensual – removing a condom without one’s partner’s knowledge is not consensual and is always wrong.
Most importantly, the lawmakers must be cognisant of the fact that stealthing is in fact part of gender-based violence.
They must, as previously stated, understand that given the way our law is set up: when it comes to gender-based violence, many women have been reluctant to speak up, as a lot of victims aren’t even sure whether to call this rape or not.