A new study published in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law is offering a disturbing look at a sexual practice called “stealthing,” or the removal of a condom during penetrative sex without a partner's consent. The study, conducted by Alexandra Brodsky, includes interviews with survivors of stealthing, an exploration of an online community of men who practice it, and ideas about how to help stealthing survivors in the legal system.

Brodsky uses the term “rape-adjacent” in the title of the study itself ("'Rape-Adjacent': Imagining Legal Responses to Nonconsensual Condom Removal"), and many of the stealthing survivors she interviewed echo this take on the practice. Rebecca, a sexual violence crisis hotline worker, told Brodsky she had taken many calls about stealthing that started with the phrase, “I’m not sure this is rape, but...” Rebecca reports feeling similarly confused about what to call it when her boyfriend did the same thing to during her freshman year of college. “Victims like Rebecca say they do not know what to call the harm and the United States courts have not had occasion to name and address the practice,” Brodsky writes.

To dive deeper into these questions, Brodsky took a look at the comments of the online community of men who not only practice stealthing but give each other tips on how to do it. During this process, she became convinced that the act is one of gender violence: Men who practice it believe in male dominance and their right to “spread their seed,” and thus in their right to override their partners' boundaries. “One can note,” Brodsky writes, “that proponents of ‘stealthing’ root their support in an ideology of male supremacy in which violence is a man’s natural right.” Even if two people have been engaged in consensual sex, when one removes the condom without the other's consent, an agreed-upon boundary has been crossed — that's not just rape-adjacent, that's sexual assault.

However, many don’t see it this way, which is why it’s so hard not only to bring these cases to court but for survivors to articulate and come to terms with what has happened. Potential pregnancy, STIs, and HIV aren't the only possible long-term repercussions of stealthing: Survivors also report shame, confusion, and the feeling of lack of agency. Brodsky points out that none of the women she interviewed considered pursuing legal action — and that there's no record of a U.S. court ever considering nonconsensual condom removal. Nonetheless, she writes, "survivors experience real harms — emotional, financial, and physical — to which the law might provide remedy through compensation or simply an opportunity to be heard and validated."