Abstract
Citation: Upholding the sexual and reproductive rights of all women and girls has been flagged as a global
priority. However, the
hetero-patriarchal actions and systems within which female sexuality and reproduction is situated
not only disenfranchises women of these rights, but it sometimes usurps these rights from them,
without them knowing. One such act, is the practice of stealthing. This conceptual article argues
that the stealthing trend is a relevant construct in the human and social sciences because it has a
detrimental impact on female sexuality and gender-based sexual violence. Through both a conceptual
scrutiny of the construct and through online narratives of stealthing, this article not only
establishes stealthing as a distinctive form of gender-based sexual violence, it also establishes
it as a practice that deviously subjugates female sexuality and reproduction
under the guise of sexual autonomy and sexual consent.