Exploring Restorative Justice Approaches in Addressing Stealthing

The frequency of the phenomenon is also alarming. Latimer et al. (2018), through their research in a sexual health clinic in Melbourne, Australia, found that 32% of women and 19% of men who had had sex with men reported having experienced stealthing. One significant approach could be restorative justice, a process that focuses on healing, accountability, and dialogue. This article explores how restorative justice can be applied to cases involving stealthing, with a survivor-centred perspective.

Victim-survivors of stealthing often experience feelings of violation, confusion and emotional distress. Recognising the sexual harm is essential for crafting a comprehensive response that promotes both justice and healing.

Stealthing is not just a breach of consent; it is a betrayal of the person’s trust and autonomy (Brodsky, 2017). It raises critical questions about the boundaries between consensual and non-consensual acts, emphasising the importance of addressing this issue both legally and emotionally. Victim-survivors of stealthing often experience feelings of violation, confusion and emotional distress. Moreover, stealthing is and should be treated as a form of rape, as mentioned above. Recognising the sexual harm is essential for crafting a comprehensive response that promotes both justice and healing.

Stealthing could be characterised as an offspring of the rape culture that many individuals are still being brought up in, a culture that does not acknowledge consent as a vital process of any sexual conduct, a culture that is not properly tacked due to improper or non-existent sex education towards children from an early age. This perpetuates the insignificance and indifference surrounding the phenomenon and, as a result, young people continue to begin their sexual lives without being equipped with the necessary knowledge of sexual intercourse boundaries and rules.

Another phenomenon that could be liable for this behaviour is the pornography industry. Rarely do the actors use condoms; there are also specific categories that praise stealthing as a practice, with videos that demonstrate individuals ‘enjoying’ and endorsing their lack of consent and privacy invasion by their partners.

Stealthing victim-survivors rarely converse about their experiences, as they are often manipulated and gaslighted by their sexual partners, that it is not a ‘big deal,’ that what happened is frequent and logical, that condoms do not offer the same sexual pleasure when put on and that they were being safe along the process. As a result, victim-survivors are getting involved in self-shaming and self-inefficacy thoughts (Jones et al., 2022). Nevertheless, being reckless towards one’s health and jeopardising both STD transmission and pregnancy could result in serious conditions and emotional damage.

Stealthing may occur in a marital/relationship setting as well as in more casual or spontaneous circumstances. Some records of stealthing are mentioning partners taking off their condom during intercourse, with the intention of leaving their girlfriend/wife pregnant, in order to maintain their relationship which was going through rough times. Moreover, stealthing appears as a common phenomenon towards the sex workers’ population, with professionals of this domain being at a higher risk (Latimer et al., 2018).

Therefore, restorative justice could function as a nursery to raise awareness and foster healing for victim-survivors and accountability among perpetrators. Moreover, it may function as a vessel towards national legislators embracing initiatives to criminalise stealthing.

Victim-survivors of stealthing are able to express the non-consensual invasion of their body autonomy, their sexual trauma, to pinpoint the exact moment of their victimisation and confront the perpetrator with their wrongful and pervasive behaviour.

As in cases of sexual abuse and rape, when in court, victim-survivors of stealthing could experience secondary victimisation, slut-shaming or/and self-blame (Marsh and Wager, 2015). Furthermore, the communication with the police could also result in disappointment for the victim-survivors, since the phenomenon is not yet fully acknowledged and criminalised. Restorative justice could provide fruitful processes — such as mediation, conferencing or circles — in addressing the sexual harm experienced by the victim-survivors, in acknowledging the accountability of the perpetrators and in tackling the problematic nature of the phenomenon in general, which is the rape culture (Koss, 2014).

Victim-survivors of stealthing benefit through shifting the blame from themselves towards the perpetrator. They are able to express the non-consensual invasion of their body autonomy, their sexual trauma, to pinpoint the exact moment of their victimisation and to confront the perpetrator with their wrongful and invasive behaviour. It should be up to each victim-survivor’s decision whether mediation or a broader participation would be most appropriate, as stealthing is a sensitive matter, full of private details. In conferencing or circles, a greater number of people could benefit, as the phenomenon is not yet commonly known as a rape practice; therefore awareness could reach a larger community. After all, stealthing is most commonly perpetrated out of ignorance and entitlement rather than malice. This means that it is preventable through public awareness about this specific type of consent.

Moreover, a conference or a circle could foster an environment for past victim-survivors to join and help the individual in need to process the emotional and psychological trauma. By building a community of individuals who have previously experienced stealthing, the practice is not seen as harmless any more but acknowledged as a problematic and malevolent strategy forced upon partners.

Before any mediation, conference or circle, the restorative justice practitioner should focus explicitly on the needs of the victim-survivor, on establishing who may join and who should be excluded, on receiving the consent of the victim and the reassurance that the perpetrator acknowledges and accepts their problem behaviour and wants to repair the situation.

This fact, of course, may pose some difficulties, as perpetrators of stealthing might not be aware that they are committing a crime or that their behaviour is insulting and harmful. The people who commit stealthing may even despise individuals like sexual assaulters, rapists, etc., and yet fail to acknowledge that their actions are causing the same emotional/physical distress and trauma. Therefore, a challenge for restorative justice would be to foster the perpetrator’s admittance of wrongdoing. And it consists of one of the most important features of the process, as sexual abuse victim-survivors need to be reassured that the person who caused the harm understands clearly the suffering they caused.

By fostering empathy, accountability, and education, restorative justice offers a pathway towards healing and growth for survivors and offenders alike.

The issue of stealthing highlights the need for comprehensive approaches that promote healing, accountability and prevention. Restorative justice, with its survivor-centred approach and focus on dialogue and understanding, holds promise in addressing the harm caused by stealthing. By fostering empathy, accountability and education, restorative justice offers a pathway towards healing and growth for survivors and offenders alike. As society continues to grapple with evolving understandings of consent and sexual boundaries, restorative justice provides a valuable tool for addressing the emotional and psychological impact of sexual misconduct.

Georgia Lagkadinou is a Project Manager at the Cyber Security International Institute, Scientific Associate, Hellenic General Secretariat of Anti-Crime Policy 

Contact:ginalagkadinou@gmail.com 

Baker, C.N. (2022). Proposed federal law prohibits nonconsensual condom removal: ‘a dangerous form of sexual assault’.

Brodsky, A. (2017). ‘Rape-Adjacent’: imagining legal responses to nonconsensual condom removal. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 32(2):183–210.

Jones, H., Bogen, K.W. and Lorenz, T.K. (2022). Sexual wellness outcomes associated with experiences of stealthing. The Journal of Sexual Medicine Supplement  19(8):S9.Https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2022.05.022.

Koss, M.P. (2014). The restore program of restorative justice for sex crimes: vision, process, and outcomes. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 29(9):1623–1660. Doi: 10.1177/0886260513511537.

Latimer, R.L., Vodstrcil, L.A., Fairley, C.K., Cornelisse, V.J., Chow, E.P.F., Read, T.R.H. and Bradshaw, C.S. (2018). Non-consensual condom removal, reported by patients at a sexual health clinic in Melbourne, Australia. PLOS ONE 14(2):1–16.

Marsh, F. and Wager, N.M. (2015). Restorative justice in cases of sexual violence: exploring the views of the public and survivors. Probation Journal 62(4) 62(4):336–356. DOI:10.1177/0264550515619571.

Shapiro, M. (2021). Yes, “stealthing” is sexual assault ... and we need to address it. Touro Law Review 37(3). Article 16.

Published on 16 October 2023.