California Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Prohibiting Secretly Removing Condom During Sex

California Governor Gavin Newsom approved bill on Thursday prohibiting removing a condom during sex without consent. This practice is known as “stealthing,” Reuters reported. The new law makes this a civil sexual battery offense, language in the bill specifies.

“I have been working on the issue of ‘stealthing’ since 2017 and I am elated that there is now some accountability for those who perpetrate the act,” Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement on her website. “Sexual assaults, especially those on women of color, are perpetually swept under the rug.”

AB 453 is the first anti-stealthing law in the country, according to Garcia’s press statement. It is not specified in the bill or analyses how this new law will be enforced. Notably, “This bill is sponsored by the author and supported by the Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project, and UCLA Sexperts,” the Judiciary Committee analysis says.

Assembly Floor Analysis explains:

A number of recent studies on the problem of “stealthing” – and, more generally, male resistance to the use of condoms during sexual intercourse – suggest that the problem is more widespread than one might expect. For example, one study found that almost 10% of male participants “reported engaging in nonconsensual condom removal since the age of 14 years, with an average of 3.62 times and a range of 1-21 times.”

“Stealthing” is a “new name for an ancient, sneaky practice,” Garcia said in the analysis.

Inserting itself in the bedroom of California residents is nothing new to the Legislature, and serves to further demonstrate the unseriousness of this legislative body, which has rebuffed every attempt to repeal sex crimes Democrats supported in propositions 47 and 57.

Proposition 47, unbelievably titled by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act, reduced a host of felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, and all thefts under $950, even for repeat offenders who steal every day. It did not create safe neighborhoods.

Proposition 57, also titled by California Attorney General Kamala Harris, The California Parole for Non-Violent Criminals and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements Initiative, was billed to the public as criminal justice reform, allowing early release for “non-violent offenders,” but the initiative not only failed to define who qualified as a “non-violent offender,” numerous heinous crimes qualified as “non-violent” under Prop. 57.

Notably, the crimes Harris considered to be “non-violent” include Rape by intoxication of an unconscious person (date rape), Human trafficking involving a sex act with minors, Arson causing great bodily harm, Drive-by shooting, Assault with a deadly weapon, and Hostage taking.

Proposition 47, Proposition 57, and A.B. 109, reduced a host of felonies to misdemeanors, allowed early release for newly redefined “non-violent offenders,” and shifted responsibility of repeat, newly classified “nonviolent” offenders from state prisons to county jails, as well as releasing others assigned to county probation officers rather than state parole officers, and were enthusiastically supported by California’s legislative Democrats as well as Gov. Jerry Brown and then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Perhaps ironically, Assemblywoman Garcia, the author of this latest sex-related bill, was credibly accused of sexual harassment of a lobbyist in 2017 during the rampant “Me Too” accusations inside the State Capitol. Lobbyist Daniel Fierro said as a 25-year-old staffer to Assemblyman Ian Calderon, she (Garcia) cornered him alone after the annual Assembly softball game in Sacramento as he attempted to clean up the dugout. Fierro, who said Garcia appeared inebriated, said she began stroking his back, then squeezed his buttocks and attempted to touch his crotch before he extricated himself and quickly left,” Politico  reported. Garcia denied the accusations, and Fierro sued her.

Ludicrously, while women were being sexually harassed inside of the Capitol during the “Me Too” era in 2017, then-Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) had already authored and passed the “Yes Means Yes” bill SB 967, signed into law by Gov. Brown, which reclassifies consensual sex on college campuses as “rape,” I reported. The bill now allows California colleges and universities to bypass proper police procedures and deal internally with campus sexual violence. California was the first state in the U.S. to require public colleges and universities to adopt a “yes means yes” standard of affirmative sexual consent when dealing with sexual assault crimes on campus.

So according to California Democrats, date rape and human trafficking involving a sex act with minors is “non-violent,” but removing a condom during sex is “civil sexual battery offense.”