A German woman has been jailed for six months after being convicted of poking holes in her partner's condoms in the hope of falling pregnant with his child.
The 39-year-old, who has not been named, began a 'friends with benefits' arrangement with the 42-year-old after meeting him online in 2021, according to German broadcaster and media outlet Deutsche Welle (DW).
However, the woman began to develop intense feelings for her sexual parner, despite him reiterating that he was not looking for a more committed relationship. As reported by DW, the woman then decided to try and get pregnant by the man and began intentionally damaging the condoms in his nightstand, unbeknownst to him.
While the woman did not fall pregnant, she later confessed to the man that she had been deliberately tampering with his contraception in the hopes of conceiving. According to reports by local media, the woman believed she may have been pregnant at the time. Following her admission, the man pressed criminal charges.
A regional court in the city of Bielefeld, western Germany was told last week that the woman was a perpetrator of "stealthing", an act which typically involves the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex, local newspaper Neue Westfälische reported last Wednesday (local time).
Judge Astrid Salewski charged the woman with sexual assault following discussions about whether her misconduct qualified as rape. The woman was found guilty and handed a six-month suspended sentence, with Judge Salewski reportedly telling the court they had "written legal history here today".
The judge also made it clear that while an act of 'stealthing' is typically perpetrated by a male or the partner with a penis, "this provision also applies in the reverse case".
"The condoms were rendered unusable without the man's knowledge or his consent," Salewski said. "'No' means 'no' here as well."
Last year, Wellington man Jesse Campos was convicted of rape and jailed after he removed a condom without the consent of a sex worker.
