It is completely normal to demand a condom

She was pretty laid back about it, the French girl I met on my trip through New Zealand. We stayed at the same hostel and had known each other for a few days when she told about her vacation boyfriend she met here in this town. And that she was “so so relieved” to have had her period that morning. “Could you have been pregnant then?” I asked him. She shook her head. “We used a condom,” she said. “Although he took it off once, without my knowing.

She took another careless sip of her beer, I choked on mine, the yeast burned my throat, ’cause I’m a visual thinker and I just imagined it, how he secretly got rid of of this song behind his back – literally – and I called Asshole!connard, the only dirty French word I know.

The French went into defense, only for the bad part. “But a condom isn’t comfortable either.” And: “Maybe I didn’t say it clearly.” And also: “I slept with him myself, didn’t I?”

This is what I recognize, in myself, in others: throwing the blame, in any cross-border situation, on the author and laying it on oneself. “I had to ask.” “I was probably wearing too short a skirt.” “Maybe I didn’t mark my boundary correctly.” This self-doubt is unwarranted. If boundaries are crossed, it is never the fault of who owns those boundaries.

And it’s perfectly normal to require a man to wear a condom, because, well, I think every human being with two functioning hemispheres knows that sex without a condom can cause a woman to have an unwanted pregnancy and that both men and women can get STDs from having sex without a condom. Thuisarts.nl is a refreshing list, do not read during dinner).

Yet there seem to be men on this globe who forget this feat of arms, like this asshole in New Zealand and the two men who were tried yesterday in Dordrecht court (hopefully with a blush of shame) for secretly removing their condoms.

Stealth is called. It is not yet included in Dutch law and is not yet a term in Dutch criminal law. It was a first that the Crown demanded a one-year prison sentence, and it was perhaps also a first that the word was used.

There is something sad about the fact that it took victims to push the term through the courtroom and into the world, but their courage was essential. The line defended by the victims yesterday – you can’t secretly withdraw a condom against agreements – already existed, but because these women filed complaints, this line suddenly became more visible. Now everyone going through the same thing will have better ammo to shoot.