A German woman has been convicted of sexual assault after secretly poking holes in her partner’s condoms.
The woman, identified as Melanie T., is the first to ever be found guilty of “stealthing” — a charge that, until now, only men had ever been accused of.
The crime of stealthing normally involves a man slipping off a condom during intercourse without a partner’s knowledge or consent. But after reviewing the case, a Bielefeld regional court judge deemed it the same class of sexual assault.
According to local reports, per Deutsche Welle, the case involved a 39-year-old woman and 42-year-old man, who were involved in a “friends with benefits” casual sexual relationship, having met online in early 2021.
However, when the woman developed deeper feelings for the man — which were not reciprocated, as he did not want to be in a committed relationship — she devised a plan to get pregnant… without his knowledge.
She began pricking holes in the condoms he kept in his nightstand and never told him, as they continued their fling.
Her attempts to conceive, however, were unsuccessful.
After a few weeks, the man decided to break it off with his “benny friend”.
That’s when she told him, over WhatsApp, that she believed she was pregnant, and confessed about the sabotaged contraceptives. He immediately pressed charges.
But exactly what charges?
Prosecutors were initially unsure. They agreed that a crime had been committed, but realized they didn’t have a definition for it.
They first investigated whether it might be classed as rape — until a judge read about the crime of stealthing while reviewing the case.
“This provision also applies in the reverse case. The condoms were rendered unusable without the man’s knowledge or his consent,” Judge Astrid Salewski said in her decision. “No means no here as well.”
“We have written legal history here today,” she added.
Melanie T. was handed a six-month suspended sentence.
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