Investigating the Effects of Stealthing Justifications on Rape Perceptions.

The current research aimed to investigate justifications behind the perception of stealthing-the act of nonconsensual condom removal in previously consented intercourse. Based upon an article by Brodsky that conducted real-life interviews of stealthing activities, justifications for the act were experimentally manipulated after the participants read a scenario involving a depiction of stealthing. A four (Justification: Control, Instinct, Right, Pleasure) × two (Participant Gender: female, male) multivariate analysis on the assessment of various criminality, morality, harm, blame/responsibility items yielded a significant difference in terms of rape determination, but not other criminality measures. Implications for future research are discussed.