Sexual Sabotage is not a phrase that is often heard unless it’s in reference to some wealthy entertainer who unwillingly impregnated a groupie because she punched holes in the condom or “forgets” to take her birth control. We teach young men with bright futures to watch out for unscrupulous women looking for an upgrade in lifestyle but why don’t we teach our young women the same? We use fear tactics on women to avoid rape, STDs, and unwanted pregnancy but we hardly ever educate them about men who will use sexual coercion techniques as a form of abuse and sabotage.
As a culture we discuss sex ad nauseam but have a very immature and narrow view of the topic. There are thousands of public service campaigns about sexual health, rape, women’s rights, but they never touch the grey areas like sexual sabotage. Sex education rarely addresses devious people who use sexual sabotage to manipulate emotions and abuse their victims. Sex requires maturity and a healthy set of boundaries that the person isn’t afraid to enforce. Awareness about sexual sabotage will allow people to make better choices about their partners and intimate activities.
Sexual sabotage is when a person uses dubious means to control and entrap an intimate partner. These saboteurs lack respect which is essential to healthy relationships. Vetting a sexual partner is important because there are people out there who will use sex to manipulate and abuse. We live in a society full of highly damaged people who will not think twice about destroying another person’s life.
Sexual saboteurs often control their victim through coercion and manipulation. For example if two people agreed to use protection and during the sexual act and one of the partners removes the condom unbeknownst to the other person, that is a form of sexual sabotage. The laws in the United States are behind when it comes to sexual sabotage. To my knowledge the act of removing a condom without consent is not illegal. In the rape case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, he allegedly removed the condom during sexual intercourse without the victim’s consent. Assange’s case sparked debate about whether removing a condom during sex without consent is a form of sexual assault.
Condom removal without the woman’s consent is probably one of the most common forms of sexual sabotage. The Huffington Post published an article about reproductive coercion and how medical professionals should handle those situations. Women on various discussion boards shared war stories about their own experience with sexual sabotage. There are women who had promising futures come to a halt because they ended up with a pathetic man who practice sexual sabotage. There are sociopathic men who purposely target highly desirable women who are beautiful, educated, upwardly mobile, or all the above just to knock them down a few notches. Sexual saboteurs often know the value of their prey and will take steps to decrease their victim’s pool of potential suitors because they are unable to compete. These men are jealous and intimidated because their victims are out of their league so they attempt to degrade her social status by forcing her to have a child out-of-wedlock, giving her a disease, or sexually humiliating her. The course of these women’s lives was forever changed because they ended up stuck with partners they didn’t want because some sick man decided to sabotage her birth control or condoms. Some women don’t keep the unwanted child and choose to abort which has its own set of ramifications. Regardless of what side of the argument you are one, no one takes abortion lightly. The worst story I heard was a woman’s ex-partner purposely gave her herpes because he didn’t want her to leave him and now she has to deal with outbreaks for the rest of her life.
Sexual saboteurs are morally bankrupt people who lack respect for their victims and have poor self-worth. Someone who is genuinely happy and adds value to the lives of others does not need to use deception to keep people around. It’s imperative that women properly vet any potential partner by getting to truly know their character. Watch out for signs because they are often there if you pay attention. Sexual intimacy clouds one’s judgment so it’s best to wait until you know who you are dealing with. With sex comes great responsiblity so please take the necessary measures to protect your choices in life. You are responsible for your own sexual choices, not the government, your doctor, society, or even your partner.
Is there a reason that this piece does not address sabotage perpetuated by women against men? Without knowing the stats, I would wager that it is far more common for women to “skip their pills” or say that they are using birth control when they are not, simply to entrap the man in their lives. I do not mean this to diminish the experiences of women, but it is important that we complicate our conversation and include the ills of both genders so that we can come to a full understanding of the nature of “sexual sabotage”. Women have a choice to have an abortion if they end of pregnant. A man can be lied to about birth control, and still end up responsible for the resulting child. Sexual Sabotage is wrong, no matter who is perpetrating it.
If you had been READING, you would’ve seen that in the first sentence. But that isn’t the issue, is it? The issue is your little man ego was hurt by this article, so now you’re bitching.
I almost didn’t let his comment through because anyone with reading comprehension skills knows that I address the issue often getting trapped in the very first sentence. Some guys are so egotistical and think everything has to focus on them. Thanks Sandra for pointing that out.
I’m sorry, Sandra and Moxie but the way I see it, 2cents isn’t entirely wrong. You start that article presenting sexual sabotage as a thing touching both genders but after pointing it out at the beginning, most of the article focus on the sexual sabotage of women by men. The word MEN in this article is often associated with the aggresion, while WOMEN is associated with victim. The overall image we remember of the article once we are done with it is unconsciously biased toward that direction. Most of the examples go toward that. I think it would have more neutral to keep pointing the fact it’s not gender-specific through the whole article, especially at the end. Don’t look at 2cents argument as a male egoistic point of view please, that weakens your own.
I hope I was not disrespectful in that comment and hope you are gonna treat me with the same respect.
Thanks
Well in the first sentence I mentioned that on the topic of sexual sabotage, the topic is about men and how they avoid getting trapped. There are always discussions about women behaving in devious ways to keep a man around so I wanted to discuss the other side. Also if a man is silly enough to not wear condoms when having sex with a woman he isn’t married to then his bad if she gets pregnant. People lie all the time which is why people have to take personal responsibility.
And this is one of the main problems, people, men in particular who do not want the secret epidemic of sexual sabotage done to women by men to become well known. It is already too much discussion of what (some) women may do to a man, but this needs to be brought up more in mainstream to make all women aware especially young girls. I’m sure this will help end a lot of unwanted, unplanned pregnancies, and abortions, as well as diseases. Whoever thinks for even a moment that ALL or even most young girls and women want and plan to get pregnant, want to randomly have a child/ren or abortions, or harbor an std is very narrow minded and foolish-as well as those who don’t want some of men’s dirty tricks toward women to become well known and discussed.
To the Author and distributor / poster of this article: THANK YOU + kudos. We all need to continue to spread awareness.
Exactly! We always hear stories about men getting trapped but these situations happen to women all the time, especially ones in abusive relationships.
So true!
The situation of the (sarcasm) “helpless trapped male who was forced into reproduction” is so old and non-existent, and sadly for the ones this does actually happen to they never learn their lesson and go back out hunting for another female to “trap” him. Then they have the nerve to complain and blame when they are mandated to financially take care the *multiple* responsibilities they made.
Thank you moxie for adding to the discussion and bringing it to light. There is another blogger who has also mentioned the same topic and tried to warn young pre-teen and teen girls of boys (or sadly paedo men) who know that the girls are on their way up in life and will impregnate them on purpose so that they can always keep tabs on the girl even when they’ve broken up with her! But I’ve forgotten the name of the website and the name of the blogger. Sorry!
Reblogged this on Black Female Culture and commented:
This is an article that every Black woman of reproductive age needs to read and share.
Wow, I guess I never realized this was a widespread social phenomenon but it makes sense. When it happens to you or someone you know because society doesn’t shed light on it, you end up thinking your case is an anomaly. Good to see you bringing attention to it here. I think this is definitely something that should be discussed more openly and frequently!
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