Why Reproductive Rights Are Necessary: Stealthing, Abortion Laws, and More
Let’s talk about rape/baby
Funny how a few moments of pleasure could lead to a lifetime of hell.
Clarissa* is only seventeen. Her boyfriend is twenty-one. Their sex is considered legal and consensual where they live in the United Kingdom.
Basking in the dim light of the television recently, the two set out to have sex in her boyfriend’s bedroom, as young people do. It was the kind of sex they’d had innumerable times. They always use protection to be cautious. They’re young and in the type of love they naively believe will effortlessly last forever.
She can’t wait to ditch the condoms and finally feel his bare flesh. She’s thrilled about the moment that day comes. But they’ve chosen to wait until the time is right. It’s not worth taking the gamble of becoming pregnant.
She’s young and inexperienced, so she lets her boyfriend guide her through the diverse nature of sexuality and sexual experiences. He’s always very accepting of boundaries and doesn’t pressure her if she doesn’t like something.
He’s usually patient, caring, and thoughtful.
She wondered if he was bothered by their discussion just a few hours earlier about finally ditching their condoms.
It’s not a conversation they often have, but they revisited it. He seemed perturbed after she insisted on keeping their absolute condom policy intact. He asked if she’d be open to trying the pull-out method. Seeing enough people’s lives ruined over a few minutes of pleasure, she refused.
Clarissa is the epitome of a responsible young woman.
She would soon become a victim, nonetheless.
Something about this last time they had sex was weird. He was different. She could sense it. Some things didn’t add up. He pulled out — something he’d never done before. Why pull out if you have a barrier preventing pregnancy?
It doesn’t make sense.
Suspicion tipped her off. She decided to go to the bathroom afterward. To her shock, she found a dry condom in the trash. It hadn’t been used. This was the first time she saw her boyfriend's conniving, venomous, spiteful side.
People have a way of being sweet—until they bump up against certain boundaries. Then they can turn vicious.
Her heart instantly broke.
The man she thought was so sweet, kind, and patient, turned out to be anything but, and she turned out to be an unwitting victim.
All she wanted was some safe and responsible pleasure. She got raped instead. Now she has to deal with the possibility of having an unwanted pregnancy and possibly having to put her boyfriend in jail.
But this isn’t a story to scare you away from the possible horrors of the consequences of sex. What Clarissa had wasn’t sex. It was rape.
Her story is shared by millions worldwide.
That day, Clarissa became a victim of stealthing. Stealthing is removing a condom during sex without the other partner's consent or, in Clarissa’s case, pretending to wear a condom without putting on a condom in the first place.
Stealthing is illegal in the United Kingdom.
Clarissa could press charges if she chooses, an agonizing decision forced upon her by someone she thought loved her.
Part-way across the world, in the United States, the Supreme Court struck down a nearly-fifty-year-old privacy law, Roe V. Wade, which guaranteed the right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy within the first trimester.
Subsequently, many states promptly passed “trigger laws” that “triggered” when Roe V. Wade was overturned, banning abortion in many cases. This is true even in cases of rape and incest, as has been pointed out many times over the last twenty-four hours.
But even if Clarissa lived in a U.S. state with an exemption for rape and incest, it would not apply. That’s because the only state that has made stealthing illegal is California.
Yet, stealthing is a prevalent practice.
A 2017 study by Alexandra Brodsky brought the issue to light and is still gaining traction. The paper called the practice “rape-adjacent,” discussing possible future legal recourse for victims.
There’s no doubt stealthing is sexual assault.
Consenting to one sexual behavior is not consenting to all of them. Just because I agree to have sex with a woman doesn’t give her the right to poke holes in our condoms. And just because a woman consents to protected sex with a man doesn’t mean her consent extends to unprotected sex.
Subsequently, several studies were conducted to find out how commonplace stealthing is. To researchers' surprise, it turns out that it’s much more common than you might assume.
A 2017 study found that 12% of the women interviewed had experienced stealthing. A study the following year found that 10% of men admitted to stealthing their partners.
In addition, the 2017 study found that 87% of women experienced resistance to condom use, with 58% reporting non-coercive resistance and 19% reporting being coerced.
While suggesting condom use is a choice that women can make, it does not always come without consequences. In other words, it’s a choice made under duress.
There’s always the lingering possibility that the suggestion of condom use will be met with intimidation, threats, or pressure.
A later study in Australia found that 32% of women had been stealthed and, get this, 19% of men had also been stealthed. While the studies range in numbers, it looks like about one-third of women have been stealthed while one-fifth of men have been stealthed.
All of this puts a whole new spin on the entire abortion debate erupting at the moment.
After all, the people who lean pro-life keep pounding the responsibility drum, telling us that if people were more responsible, they wouldn’t have to deal with unwanted pregnancies.
Lies!
“If you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex,” they say to legions of women whose countless rapes were recently brought to light by the #MeToo movement.
Contrary to popular delusion, the Heard & Depp trial doesn’t invalidate those stories—nor has any bearing on them or their presumed truthfulness.
“Just wear a condom, and you won’t have to deal with pregnancy,” they shout to an ocean of people who’ve experienced stealthing.
Between stealthing, coercion, and rape, it’s safe to say that every woman everywhere has been pressured into a kind of sex she didn’t want to have, then she was guilted for having it.
And now, with Roe V. Wade overturned, our society crushes women under the immense responsibility of pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing, while simultaneously stripping them of their choice to either terminate the pregnancy or even have consensual, safe sex in the first place.
Women have no recourse when a rapist stealths them, they have no recourse when they get pregnant without their intention or consent, and they have little to no help dealing with anything after fertilization.
We force women to be single moms with almost no help in one of the most expensive societies on earth, with little education and no assistance healthcare, while simultaneously condemning them to a lifetime of sexual coercion, assault, and astonishingly-legal practices like stealthing.
How dare anyone call such a society pro-life?
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Some books that I highly recommend checking out:
Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Teaches Us about Human Relationships by Jennifer L. Verdolin
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
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