A man has been found guilty of 'stealthing' by removing a condom during sex without his partner's knowledge or consent.
Khaldoun F, whose full name has not been disclosed, has become the first man in the Netherlands to be convicted of the crime.
The 28-year-old was found guilty of removing a condom during sex and received a suspended jail sentence, but was cleared of rape by the Dordrecht District Court as the sex itself was consensual.
While his partner consented to intercourse, she was not aware of, and did not consent to, it being without a condom.
The court revealed that Khaldoun had exposed the woman "to contracting sexually transmitted diseases and an unwanted pregnancy."
It added, via NBC Los Angeles: "By his actions, the suspect forced the victim to tolerate having unprotected sex with him. In doing so, he restricted her personal freedom and abused the trust she had placed in him."
According to reports from the Daily Mail, Khaldoun had sent a message to the woman to tell her she would be "fine" following the incident.
Khaldoun was given a three-month suspended prison sentence and a €1,000 ($1,061) fine.
The act of a partner secretly removing a condom during sex has become known as 'stealthing' and has become punishable by law in many places in recent years.
California became the first US state to outlaw stealthing in 2021, amending the civil code to allow victims to sue the perpetrator for damages if they did not give verbal consent to a condom being removed during sex.
Stealthing is also illegal in parts of Australia, including Tasmania, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, and Victoria, while South Australia is also set to introduce a maximum penalty of life in prison for stealthing.
Connie Bonaros, a politician for Australia's SA Best, introduced the Private Member’s Bill in October, saying at the time: "You can’t begin to imagine the level of damage to both a person’s physical and psychological well-being.
"This includes the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and/or disease, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, severe mental health/depression, and in some reported cases, post-traumatic stress disorder.
"And that doesn’t take into consideration the absolute sense of shock and betrayal of someone who’s agreed to have consensual sex with another person only to have that trust utterly betrayed."
The term 'stealthing' has been in use in the gay community since at least 2014 to describe the deliberate and criminal transmission of HIV.
A 2018 study by Monash University also found that one in three women and one in five men worldwide have been the victim of stealthing.
While the majority of perpetrators are men, it is also possible for a woman to stealth her partner too, either by removing or sabotaging the condom to render it ineffective.
The legal ramifications can be complex depending on the country, and despite there being no specific legislation enacted in the UK, there have been a handful of convictions, leading to case law establishing that non-consensual condom removal is considered rape.
