Sex is rarely about sex. And abuse is rarely about sex either. It’s about power, to see how much power you can hold over someone. So when men abuse women, they’re trying to prove just how much control they can have over the lives of their victims. And the thing about power is that those who wield it, love to boast about it. Luckily, while social media gives such creeps a platform to do that, it also gives other people and even law enforcement authorities the power to prosecute such people. In the recent case of a Spanish TikTok star Naim Darrechi who claimed to have resorted to stealthing (unprotected sex without consent), it was the outrage from people that taught him a valuable lesson.
19-year-old Naim Darrechi is a TikTok star from Majorca, Spain, with some 26 million followers on the short video sharing app. An aspiring singer, Naim also has his own YouTube channel with close to 4 million followers. Recently, he was interviewed by a Spanish YouTuber who talks to influencers about their sex lives. During that interview, Naim boasted about his sexual conquests, which turned into a downright creep show when he made claims that he tricked several women into having unprotected sex with him. Why? Because he found it difficult to have sex without a condom. Ladies, where have we heard that shitty excuse before? *rolls eyes*
What’s even more ridiculous is when the interviewer asked him about how the women reacted when Naim told them about not wearing a condom, Naim said that he lied to them about being sterile, simply because none of his previous sexual partners got pregnant after unprotected sex with him. WTF?
i captioned the video i leave it here
(the tiktok account isn’t mine credits to them) pic.twitter.com/iy6L8eHnj8
— ana (@fallinthebraves) July 13, 2021
Also Read: UK Man Got Sentenced For Intentionally Piercing The Condom Before Use. Why Is Stealthing Still Not Illegal In India?
His comments caused a massive outrage on Twitter, with people criticising him for stealthing, which isn’t just some harmless trend but amounts to sexual assault now.
Even Spain’s Equality Minister, Irene Montero, caught wind of it and tweeted about it, saying that she has launched an investigation to see if what Naim Darrechi claimed was indeed true and whether he actually did trick women into having sex without a condom with him. She stressed on just how important it was to understand consent, especially when someone with such a huge following was so recklessly advocating its violation.
“Taking off the condom or ejaculating inside without consent is today sexual abuse. Bragging to 26million followers of something like this reflects the urgency of putting consent at the center. We will inform the Prosecutor’s Office.”
Quitarse el preservativo o eyacular dentro sin consentimiento es hoy abuso sexual y la Ley #SoloSíesSí lo reconocerá como agresión
Presumir ante 26mill de seguidores de algo así refleja la urgencia de poner el consentimiento en el centro. Lo pondremos en conocimiento de Fiscalía pic.twitter.com/SSMM7FOzvb
— Irene Montero (@IreneMontero) July 12, 2021
Spain has a new law passed earlier in the month that will classify all non-consensual sex as rape. And stealthing, which is the act of removing a condom during sex without consent, will also amount to rape. If the prosecutor’s investigations prove him guilty, Naim Darrechi could then face anywhere between one to 12 years of jail time for what he has done.
Meanwhile, the TikTok star has issued an apology on Instagram. He said, “At times I don’t realise the responsibility that I have and I get into trouble for my views. I am sorry.”
This is your standard celebrity apology, which we’ve seen enough of during the #MeToo wave when so many famous men were called out for abusing their power to violate consent and not ‘realising’ that they were committing rape or sexual assault. The fact that men don’t have to give even a second’s thought to their actions and how the consequences of a simple action of not putting on a condom could lead to a host of problems for the women—from sexually transmitted diseases to unwanted pregnancy—is disgusting. To top it off, if they think bragging about it on social media is okay, then they need some serious rehabilitation, and accountability.
If this world really does take women’s rights and empowerment seriously, it needs to drop everything and focus first and foremost on proper sex education for every single child, and in countries like ours, for the adults too.