By Jenna

The first time I was a victim of stealthing (the removal of a condom during sex without knowledge or consent), I didn’t know it had a name. I just knew how it made me feel: violated, dirty and scared of the consequences. It happened while I was working in a brothel and I came to learn from the other women there that it was something of a common occurrence. Much later I was given the tip to always be in front of a mirror just in case I could prevent it from happening.  

The first case of a conviction in the UK for stealthing (the crime itself is rape) was in 2019. More recently, a high-profile case, the first of its kind in Scotland, has brought this issue to light again. Luke Ford was convicted of seven counts of rape, one of which was considered stealthing. 

When I consider how disempowered I felt the first time it happened to me, I am grateful that this crime is being taken seriously as rape and not just some kind of “sex gone wrong”. I still can’t shake the feeling that this crime is happening in brothels and saunas up and down the UK. I didn’t think of it as rape when it happened to me, none of us did. Just something that happens, one of the bad parts of the job that you don’t talk about. 

What other job is there where sexual assault and rape are seen as something that you have to put up with or get good at avoiding? Just par for the course. There are so many aspects to the sex industry that can make you feel like you’re not like other women. It not being recognised as rape when you have been, is just one. Having your body treated like it never gets tired, like you’re always aroused, like it’s not really your own.

I was working in a brothel when I got my first tattoo. I had it done in the morning and went straight there afterwards. I remember telling all the men that day that I’d just had it done so please don’t touch it. It was a simple request but one that a lot of them ignored.  

Every boundary a woman has in the sex industry gets broken. Or they change to fit the buyers’ desires. There comes a point where you barely have any left.

But the big one, the one that keeps you safe from disease, the one that feels like an actual physical barrier, you think you can hold on to that one. That’s a line they cannot cross. You provide the condoms for them. They are in plentiful supply. When you don’t even know it’s been taken off, how can you possibly maintain that boundary? You can never feel safe.