Legally, stealth, or stealthing — non-consensual removal of a condom — constitutes sexual assault. However, the victims who confided in the To have to testify to the difficulties encountered in filing a complaint.
“You feel like you’re not believed. It was the cross and the banner, ”says Alicia* at the end of the line.
The young woman filed a complaint in 2017 against her alleged attacker at the police station in her neighborhood, a few days after the latter had removed her condom without her consent during an intimate relationship.
“Everything was fine, we were going to sleep together, there is no doubt. I gave her a condom. He opened it, pretended to put it on. But I saw him make a move with his arm. We had reached the stage of penetration, he is on top of me, but it rang a bell, so I took his penis with my hand to check that he had put it in correctly. As a matter of fact, he didn’t, but kept trying, even though I told him to stop. This is where it got more violent: he “pinned” my arms next to my head quite forcefully and kept trying to penetrate me. He’s a triathlete, he’s stronger than me! I had bruises on my arms,” recalls Alicia.
Two days later, when she decides to file a complaint, the police send her to the hospital for a forensic examination, come to her home to pick up the condom left on the floor as well as her clothes, and ask her to design his room. “I’m finally going to give my statement. I feel that, without saying that I am not taken seriously, the investigators are already closed. I tell over and over what happened. I know that the fact of having said that I was not 100% certain that there was effective penetration when I asked him to stop harmed me, ”laments Alicia.
The investigators then meet her and tell her that they will not submit her case to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP).
” Investigator asks me what I expect from the process, because it’s serious and could earn him up to 10 years in prison, and wonders if that’s really what I want. Made here, I cry and I can’t wait for it to end. I say I want him to know it’s serious, that it doesn’t happen, that he doesn’t do it again. Finally, I leave, more discouraged than when I arrived,” confides Alicia.
After a few months of feeling anger and sadness, but above all having difficulty working, Alicia ends up receiving a diagnosis of post-traumatic shock and will be put off work for a year, benefiting from compensation. compensation for victims of criminal acts (IVAC), according to the documents consulted by The duty.
Some cases before the courts
Although few in number, complaints in cases of stealth are making their way to the courts. This is the case of the case of Ross McKenzie Kirkpatrick, on which the Supreme Court ruled last week after considering the notion of consent surrounding the use of condoms. The complainant had consented to safer sex with him. After having sex with a condom for the first time, the 22-year-old believed that Mr. Kirkpatrick had put on a condom when they began having sex a second time. She wouldn’t have realized he wasn’t wearing one until he ejaculated. In 2018, Mr Kirkpatrick was initially acquitted of sexual assault, as the judge found there was no evidence the complainant had not given her consent. The British Columbia Court of Appeal disagreed and ordered a new trial, prompting Mr Kirkpatrick to appeal to the Supreme Court last year.
“The Supreme Court’s decision clarifies aspects of a sexual relationship that were perhaps less understood. What must be remembered is that wearing a condom is not an incidental detail, underlines criminal lawyer Me Walid Hijazi. The condom is really part of the sexual activity that I consent to or refuse to do. It’s not a two-step analysis where I consent to sex and then you wonder if I was manipulated into using a condom or not. If there is a requirement for a condom, it is part of the act and if there was no condom, it is sexual assault, it is violent behaviour. »
The DPCP specified to the To have to that “the Kirkpatrick case confirms a position already adopted” by its prosecutors, and that stealth cases are currently before the courts, including one involving sex workers. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) also supports handling cases of stealthingbut could not, at the time of this writing, quantify them.
Little recourse for sex workers
Sex workers are indeed frequently confronted with this kind of sexual assault, but they very rarely file a complaint, according to Sandra Wesley, director of the organization Chez Stella.
“There are almost never any women who go to the police for something like that. Sex work is criminalized, so the consequences are far too great. We know that the police are not going to focus on the assault, but on the fact that it was sex work, investigating the co-workers, trying to shut down the place. Generally, we will publish in our monthly newsletter for other sex workers the identity of these clients “who could commit stealth, indicates Ms.me Wesley.
A sex worker for a few years now, Jenny* told the To have to having been the victim of stealth, “like a large majority of sex workers”.
“Just last week, a man offered to meet him in his truck. I accepted because he seemed super nice and sweet. We start. Comes the penetration, I put the condom on myself. After three minutes, he asks me: “Do you offer it without a condom?” I didn’t even have time to answer a really clear ‘NO’ that he pulls out, takes it off and puts it back on without the condom,” she recalls.
“He didn’t really care about my answer. In his mind, I’m just a sex worker, I’m not worth much and I’m here to satisfy. I don’t have to say no or nothing,” she adds.
“Often, customers won’t want to have these conversations until they’re private with us and have established that we’re not a police officer,” says Sandra Wesley. This means that we receive clients in our spaces who may arrive expecting not to use a condom. It’s when they’re in front of us that we have to negotiate that. It can be difficult. »
Sandra Wesley reminds us that communication for the purpose of making a transaction between a sex worker and a client is a crime. The organization Chez Stella actively fights against the laws in force which appear to it to be unconstitutional, because they are contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“One of the reasons is really that sexual consent is a right as a human being. We should be able to decide when and with whom we want to have sex,” concludes Sandra Wesley.
* Fictitious names. The speakers chose to testify on condition of anonymity to prevent their assault from being known to those around them.