Miz Cracker argues for broader understanding of stealthing in the gay community, but fundamentally misunderstands the actual implications of her argument.

Miz Cracker, author of :Is Criminalization the Best Approach to ‘Stealthing’ in the Gay Community? ”finished 5th Place in RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10

Because this tackles an extremely personal topic, I guess I should start out with a little bit about me. I’m a writer, lesbian, recent college graduate, and RuPaul’s Drag Race fan. I grew up in the South and lived here my whole life, though I’ve lived in at least two states. I like to think I don’t have an accent, but at the end of the day, I do, and I actually kinda like it even though I’ve been told I shouldn’t. I have a dog and a cat. One of them is named after a drag queen, but I won’t tell you which. I’m still looking for a job doing anything so the feeling of existential dread I have can finally go away, and I hope it’ll be one in writing. I’ve been sexually assaulted and, long story short, it isn’t fun. It was by a man, but that doesn’t mean that if it was by a woman, it would be any more fun. At the time, I thought I was straight. I would go around kissing boys and then leaving them the moment anything started to happen. I felt like if I kept doing it, even if I never settled down, I was at least proving I was straight. I could handle five minutes of kissing a guy every now and then in exchange for a lifetime free of homophobia. One night, though, my plan went wrong. I tried to end it, and I couldn’t. It didn’t get to rape or anything, but it was traumatizing nonetheless.

Being gay, all of my friends are gay, and my best friend in the entire world is a gay man. I’d do almost anything for him. He’s also been assaulted, except it’s happened to him multiple times. I don’t feel like going into more details because it’s his story, and he doesn’t like to talk about it much. It wouldn’t be right to talk about it to strangers, even if this is anonymous. The only comment he would like to provide is “Miss Vanjie” — partially because he’s basic (jk), but mostly because he doesn’t watch the show so this is the only reference he knows. That’s kind of how we got onto the topic that inspired this article.

Because he’d been seeing a lot of stuff about Drag Race around — particularly on Grindr, for reasons my lesbian heart does not want to ponder — he had been asking me questions about the queens and the show so he could know the tea and what the proper opinions were. I went through all of the queens — giving a rundown of my thoughts on their performances and personas, as well as a primer on how they were perceived, if at all. I probably gave him more information than is acceptable for a supposedly-grown woman to know. When we got to fan-favorite Miz Cracker, after giving him the rundown, I mentioned that she had been asserting herself as the most popular queen of Drag Race Season 10 queen with the largest following in response to Asia O’Hara’s claim that she wasn’t a star. Part of her argument was that she could teach Asia about being relatable.

Now I’m not going to go into my opinions on the other queens because I know that will significantly alter how this article is perceived, and that is not the point of this article; however, I do not like Cracker’s popularity, and I told my friend this. There are many reasons, but her comment that she is more relatable than Asia really brings this into focus. However despite her supposed relatability, she does not seem to understand the reality that many gay and bisexual men deal with on an everyday basis, as well as straight and bisexual women. This is epitomized by her article defending “stealthers” in the gay community. In it she — keeping in mind that she is really a man performing drag as a woman — says

“. . .for [some] guys, removing a condom can feel like removing a yoke of fear and shame. And yet, due to that same shame, many gay men feel unable to talk openly about their desire for condomless sex (which, of course, can be perfectly safe if negotiated in a mature and rational fashion)”

I sent my friend this article because I thought it would be the best way for him to understand her as a queen. When my friend read the article, he was disgusted — particularly in light of his previous assaults. I hadn’t planned on writing anything, but upon seeing his reaction, I realized this was an issue that needed to be discussed within the fandom. Before going further, I recommend reading Cracker’s article so that you can understand my argument. I want this to be a conversation and not angry fans sending me hate for not understanding the full argument. However, for those who do not wish to the views, I will provide a summary and address it point-by-point. From this point on, I will refer to Cracker using “he” pronouns to highlight that he is a gay man so that his position in this discussion can be fully understood.

The article — titled “Is Criminalization the Best Approach to ‘Stealthing’ in the Gay Community” — begins by criticizing The Columbia Journal of Gender and Law for focusing only on victims of stealthing and not the perpetrators. Cracker claims that if we look at stealthing, we need to look at it from all angles, though he dismisses the voices that actually were included for being too troll-like. Cracker’s point here does have merit. One of the issues in social justice nowadays is that we don’t try to understand those who commit violence. If we try to at least understand why oppressors and bigots what they do and say what they say, we can understand how to prevent further oppression and injustice in the future. The problem in this instance, however, is that Cracker’s insistence on hearing from the perpetrators is primarily meant as a way to humanize admitted perpetrators, with a side goal of “expanding our definition of the act” rather than trying to address it as a community issue.

Published on Slate.com, Miz Cracker argues for a broadened understanding of stealthing.

I agree 100% that we need to look at things from all sides, but when we look at all sides, we need to understand why it happens so that we can make the proper interventions to prevent stealthing in the future. The discussion that Cracker tries to incite, however, is too reminiscent of trying to make excuse for rapists. There are plenty of articles on why that is wrong, but I will make my case for the impact it has. After my assault, having heard claims of “well maybe he didn’t mean to”, I tried to rationalize to myself that he probably didn’t mean to keep his hand in my panties despite me trying to pull his arm up. Asking assaulters why they assault is asking survivors to ask ourselves why we are overreacting to our assault. Cracker’s investigation, however, is to find out if stealthing victims are crying wolf, and we should have more empathy for the perpetrators.

Just prior to the previously quoted passage, he makes the typical arguments women are used to hearing for why men need to take their condom off. Some tops can’t maintain an erection (too big) and others feel that a condom is comparable to that same yoke of “fear and shame” (everybody does it). The most disturbing part of this, however, is that he uses the background of the AIDS crisis to justify these actions. As stated earlier, I am a lesbian — not a gay man. Though we have roots in the AIDS crisis, primarily through supporting gay and bisexual men, I can not speak for the trauma the crisis has caused or gay and bisexual men. However, though I am not a gay man, I am able to call bullshit. If anything, the trauma of the AIDS crisis makes this even worse — you are subjecting a man who is potentially traumatized by the crisis to the fear that he will soon be HIV+. Past trauma does not excuse current abuse or assault.

Cracker seems to have some awareness of this, or at least he should. After describing a time during which his friends perceived condoms as only being a ceremonial thing, he goes on to describe a gay stealthing victim who later tested HIV positive. Cracker says that when he went to write the article, he was met with dead ends because the people he spoke to earlier no longer wanted to talk about it. The stories he did encounter were vague stories from perpetrators about “seemingly receptive partners” who showed signs of disinterest. He concludes from this not that he needs better friends but rather that

I spoke to a few friends of mine and one of them — a black gay man who has asked that his alias be “Death Blade” — acknowledged the symbolic meaning behind removing condoms, particularly among generations older than him — he pointed out that the safe way to do this is through consensual barebacking after being tested rather than succumbing to the “HIV stereotype” that has plagued his community. The community should take steps to get tested and have open discussions about their expectations in sexual encounters. Another friend — another gay man who has asked to be referred to as “Ephraim” — admits that there have been times when he and his sexual partner mutually decided to remove the condom. While it may not have been a “full-blown discussion,” he says that a discussion of some sort always happens and always should. The desire for liberation is valid, but the only way to properly achieve this liberation is through discussion.

The point of Cracker’s article is to supposedly reframe stealthing in the gay community. Cracker argues that previous stealthing dialogue has centered on heterosexual narratives, with mentions of gay and bisexual men being only parallels. There’s a few issues with this however, the most important one being that being a gay man does not automatically mean your consent is more negotiable. If anything, the trauma of the AIDS crisis should be a reason not to submit more people into that trauma. The fear that the AIDS crisis has instilled in the community must be addressed by taking extra care, not to take less care in order to forget the trauma.

Even if we buy Cracker’s argument that stealthing is less malicious in the gay community, he still uses this supposedly different meaning to cautioning that stealthing should not be criminalized. I want to be clear — this is rape. In the State of Texas, and many other states, you can be charged with a felony for failing to disclose that you have certain STIs. The idea behind these laws is that failing to disclose STIs, similar to taking off a condom, creates a sexual encounter that your sexual partner did not consent to. You present your partner with a lifetime of risks without even giving them option to say “no.”

The second problem with his argument that stealthing should not really be compared between the two communities is that the broader implcations still impact women. Though he seems to have some awareness of the impact that stealthing has on women, he wants to use the supposed-symbolism of stealthing is a gay community to caution against criminalizing it for everyone — straight and gay alike. I bring women in, not to act as if the harm it causes to gay men is not enough, but rather because my words will probably be dismissed by Cracker because I am not a gay man.

Birth control sabotage is an incredibly common form of domestic violence. The California Law Review surveyed many women who had been subjected to various forms of birth control sabotage — throwing away birth control, not pulling out, and, yes, condom removal. One of primary purposes of reproductive coercion is to trap women in a relationship with a child. This permanently ties the woman to her abuser because the will forever had a child to care for together. Intimate partner violence is closely tied with condom removal in heterosexual relationships. Even men can be victim of it if a woman falsely claims she is on birth control in order to have a child with her partner. If we caution against criminalizing for gay men, the same sentiment will cross over to heterosexual relationships and expose women to a higher risk of domestic violence.

This abuse isn’t exclusive those able to get pregnant, however. Even in the absence of fear of STIs or pregnancy, the violation alone causes trauma. One woman described her experience with stealthing as follows

My feelings of violation weren’t caused by the experience of unprotected sex itself, despite having been exposed to potential STIs and pregnancy; it was my perpetrator’s abuse of my boundaries and his perceived entitlement to my body.

This principle still applies to gay men. Even when there are negative physical impacts, this is still a violation of trust and a way for someone to assert ownership over the victim’s body. Though I am not a gay man, the gay men I spoke to all echoed the sentiment of the above quote. While Cracker and his friends may see this as healthy, they do not speak for all gay and bisexual men. The ones I spoke to and who have spoken out on it all have negative things to say about it. A handful of people finding abuse normal does not mean that we should stop prosecuting and demonizing those who violate trust and and assault their sexual partners. If we stop doing this and follow Cracker’s advice, we are letting down all of the victims of stealthing and reproductive coercion.

I agree with Cracker’s argument that we need a broader discussion of this, but the discussion should not be with an intent to humanize stealthers and convince victims that it isn’t that big of a deal. It should be done so that we can change the behavior of the perpetrators and end sexual violence. Being gay doesn’t suddenly mean someone should be subjected to sexual violence and being “woke” doesn’t mean making excuses for sexual assaulters.