"Stealthing," the recently publicized and widely condemned phenomenon of men secretly removing a condom during intercourse, has already been given the cutesy first-person editorial treatment in the NY Post. And now a legislator in the New York State Assembly has introduced a bill that would criminalize the despicable practice.
Assembly Member Francisco Moya introduced his bill in the Assembly yesterday, spurred on by reading the accounts of survivors who have experienced getting stealthed. "It's a phenomenon that most people aren't aware of, but when you see men are creating blogs teaching others how to get away with this, it's problematic. We have to make sure we provide for and protect victims with stronger laws," Moya told Gothamist.
The bill in front of the Assembly would put stealthing in the same category of crime as sexual assault, and on the level of performing a sex act without consent, which is a Class E felony. If convicted of stealthing, the bill prescribes a one to four year prison sentence and mandatory registration on the state sex offender registry.
Two other states are debating legislation that would criminalize stealing as well. In California and Wisconsin, lawmakers introduced bills that would classify stealthing as rape and sexual assault.
"When anyone is consenting to having protected sex, and a person removes a protective device such as a condom without the partner's knowledge, now what we're seeing is that's a case of sexual assault," Moya told Gothamist.
Moya said that his office is still looking for a partner in the State Senate and is currently having conversations to see who could make the best partner in the chamber. He's undaunted at the prospect of the bill getting caught in the State Senate's internal power struggles. "This is based on issue, not on the politics of the Senate," he told Gothamist. "We're going to see who's the right partner. We're trying to protect both men and women and ensure this isn't a common occurrence."
One of the now-dropped rape charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange involved an accusation that Assange tampered with or ripped the condom he was wearing during sex, despite a woman insisting he use a condom.
And while the NYPD has been criticized for its handling of rape and sexual assault investigations, Moya said that he doesn't expect a new law to prove problematic for law enforcement. "What I think is, just like sex without consent, it will ultimately fall on the prosecutors to sort through the conflicting accounts to kind of make that determination, and that's what we're looking to do with this."
