Stealth breeding: bareback without consent

ABSTRACT

‘Stealth breeding’ describes a stealth form of condomless sex between men (known as ‘bareback’). While ‘stealthing’ as a practice of non-consensual condom removal affects both men and women, ‘stealth breeding’ is explored here in the context of sex between men. Despite a growing corpus on bareback – as a practice and increasingly popular genre in gay pornography – scholarship on ‘stealth breeding’ remains scant. This article addresses this by theorising the term in various contexts, namely fantasy, accounts of crimes, and gay pornography. Crucially, I argue against viewing the practice as necessarily connected with the transmission of HIV – known as ‘gift-giving’ – so as to not limit the potentialities and motivations of ‘stealthing’, as is supported by online commentary and important in light of HIV preventative technologies now available. Through textual analysis of online discourse, the article pursues a qualitative, holistic understanding of the stealthing phenomenon from the perspective of those men in favour and opposed to it, pointing to the structures of power and abuse that underpin the term.

KEYWORDS:

• Bareback
• bug chasing
• consent
• cultural studies
• discourse
• gay pornography
• gift-giving
• homosexuality
• stealth breeding
• stealthing

Acknowledgement

I am deeply indebted to Todd G. Morrison and the anonymous reviewers for thoughtful suggestions that have greatly improved this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I acknowledge that ‘breeding’ may sometimes happen as an outcome of complex (mis)communication: where one partner perceives a situation of tacit consent and the other perceives deceit and intent to wrong. Yet, for the purposes of this article, ‘stealthing’ is defined as a more deliberate intent to breed/be bred and deceive, as is supported by online discourse on the topic.

2. As part of their study of the ‘bug chasing’ phenomenon, Moskowitz and Roloff (2007) call for research into ‘involuntary seroconversion’, which they label ‘sneaking’ (p. 36).

3. For accounts of this phenomenon, see Gauthier and Forsyth (1999) and Moskowitz and Roloff (2007).

4. For more on the relationship between bareback and subjectivity, see Adam (2006) and Holmes, O’Byrne, and Gastaldo (2006).

5. I acknowledge that these sources construct the issue from a Western, American-centric position.

6. I limit myself to the comment feeds only due to the questionable legality of the videos, which were not viewed.

7. https://breeding.zone/topic/14463-bottoms-first-time-you-got-stealth-bred-what-were-circumstances-how-did-you-feel/ (Accessed 29 April 2016).

8. For such metaphoric imagery, see http://iblastinside.com/2012/06/top-10-stealthing-tips/ (Accessed 29 April 2016).

9. Bentson’s stealthing philosophy and his use of the Twitter hashtag #BBBH – short for Bareback Brotherhood – has attracted scholarly (see Brodsky, 2017) and media attention. In 2017, for instance: http://bostonreview.net/gender-sexuality/judith-levine-stealthing-sex-crime, http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/what-is-stealthing-rape-sexual-assault/ (Accessed 10 September 2017).

10. http://iblastinside.com/2012/06/top-10-stealthing-tips/ (Accessed 29 April 2016).

11. Viewers’ comments are included as is complete with typographic errors.

12. Jayachandran’s (2015) analysis of reader discourses in response to rape news – following a brutal gang rape in Delhi in 2012 – is a good illustration of the range of responses that such events of sexual violence inspire.

13. http://iblastinside.com/2012/06/top-10-stealthing-tips/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

14. https://breeding.zone/topic/17169-the-stealth-bomber-episode-1-welcome-to-the-poz-team/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

15. It is worth noting that although stealth barebacking among men needs to be considered as a specific activity, it cannot be separated from the broader landscape of sexual and gender relations, where going stealth and deceiving one’s sexual partner is viewed as part of the sexual thrill. It is here that parallels can be drawn between stealth barebacking among men and between men and women (see Brodsky, 2017); however, this is generally beyond the scope of the present study.

16. http://iblastinside.com/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

17. Harmless, that is, in contrast with straight sex, where unplanned pregnancy is an ever-present risk (see Brodsky, 2007).

18. For an account of the impact of advancements in treatment for HIV and the potential implications this has for certain connotations associated with bareback, see Dean’s (2011) essay ‘Bareback Time’.

19. http://iblastinside.com/2012/06/top-10-stealthing-tips/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

20. http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/cas/5535186828.html# (Accessed 22 April 2016).

21. For more on Grindr and sexual risk, see Rice et al. (2012).

22. https://www.reddit.com/r/askgaybros/comments/29rlvw/just_got_stealthed_i_need_guidance/ (Accessed 22 April 2016).

23. http://fagmaster.com/stealth-the-faggot/ (Accessed 22 April 2016).

24. http://www.realjock.com/gayforums/3117186 (Accessed 20 May 2016).

25. https://breeding.zone/topic/110-important-whats-allowed-here-whats-not/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

26. https://breeding.zone/topic/110-important-whats-allowed-here-whats-not/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).

27. https://breeding.zone/topic/11789-i-just-stealth-barebacked-a-straight-guy/ (Accessed 22 April 2016).

28. http://maxsohlblog.com/2011/12/19/stealth-breeding/ (Accessed 22 April 2016).

29. I (Brennan, 2017b) found something similar in my reading of ‘microporn’ circulating decontextualised across the web.

30. My decision to consider discourse on such videos, rather than the videos themselves, is in line with certain ethical challenges that face the research of videos that claim to be recordings of ‘actual’ stealth breeding.

31. https://breeding.zone/topic/18348-real-stealth-breeding-video-on-xtube/ (Accessed 22 April 2016).

32. http://www.realjock.com/gayforums/3117186 (Accessed 20 May 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Brennan

Joseph Brennan is a Lecturer of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, where he was awarded his Ph.D. He has published extensively on gay pornography in leading scholarly journals, including: European Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Homosexuality, Porn Studies, Sexuality & Culture and Psychology & Sexuality, where he also serves as editorial board member. In addition to his work on gay pornography, he is active across the fields of fan and celebrity studies. His doctoral research used textual approaches to theorise a queer fan practice known as ‘slash manips’, the remixing of male popular and pornographic imagery using digital tools. In his post-doctoral work, he has taken an interest in the analysis of extreme and fetish pornography; in the conditions of porn stardom and porn ‘aesthetics’; in celebrity scandals and homosexual stereotyping; and in fan activism. Writing about fans and celebrity, his work has appeared in such venues as: Arthuriana, Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, Celebrity Studies, Continuum, Disability & Society, Discourse, Context & Media, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Fandom Studies, M/C Journal, Media International Australia, Popular Communication, Refractory and Sexualities. He is guest editor of the Journal of Fandom Studies’ thematic issue on ‘queerbaiting’ – to be released in 2018 – and is also compiling an edited book collection on the topic for a university press. Queerbaiting is a fan activist term employed to criticise homoerotic suggestiveness in contemporary television and film when this suggestiveness is not actualised in the program narrative. He has a number of chapters in-press, including for publishers University of Chester Press, University of Iowa Press, and University of Regina Press.