The practice of “stealthing,” or removing a condom during intercourse without verbal consent, is now outlawed in California.
On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation designating the removal of a condom without consent as “sexual battery.”
“By passing this bill, we are underlining the importance of consent,” the governor’s office said in a tweet.
Cristina Garcia, a California assemblywoman who proposed the bill, said it assures that “stealing is not only immoral but also illegal.”
The California law is the first in the country to expressly prohibit “stealthing,” which can result in an unexpected pregnancy or the transmission of sexually transmitted illnesses to a partner.
A person who “causes contact between a sexual organ from which a condom has been removed and the intimate part of another who did not verbally consent to the condom being removed” commits sexual battery, according to the bill.
Punitive damages are damages that a court can give to an offender.
The practise of “stealthing” attracted attention in the United States after a paper was published by a doctoral student, Alexandra Brodsky, in 2017 in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.
According to Brodsky’s paper, there were internet forums that offered advice on how to successfully commit “stealthing,” some of which were later shut down.
