Is Poking Holes in Condoms a Sexual Assault?

I’m not sure if most of you remember Craig Jaret Hutchinson? He is the 42-year-old Canadian man (and by man, I mean psycho) from Clyde River, Nunavut, who poked holes in an entire pack of condoms in hopes of knocking up his girlfriend so that she would be forced to stay in a relationship with him.

Hutchinson and his girlfriend (who, for obvious reasons, has kept her name private during this long, complicated trial) began dating in 2008 and when things got rocky, Hutchinson executed his genius plan to sabotage condoms so she would get pregnant. It worked. His girlfriend got pregnant and they struggled through the relationship for the sake of the unborn child, but (big shocker) it eventually fell apart. When the couple split, Hutchinson broke down, called his girlfriend and admitted what he had done to the condoms because he was afraid she might contract an STD from another partner if she used the ruined condoms. The girlfriend called the police and scheduled an abortion.

Hutchinson was charged and went to trial in 2009, but the Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge found him not guilty of aggravated sexual assault.

Not guilty of aggravated sexual assault.

I’m going to stop right here. By definition, aggravated sexual assault means that the victim’s life was put at risk. Somehow, a judge found that this was not true. Excuse me? The woman had to have an abortion (which left her with an infection in her uterus and two weeks of “painful complications”). She had to endure the beginning stages of pregnancy without consent on her behalf, plus she had to deal with the emotional, mental and physical trauma of not only this very public case, but the abortion and severed relationship to this pathetic low life. Yes, there was no gun held to her head. Yes, there was no gag rope strangled around her mouth. Yes, the actual sex was consensual, but the absence of valid contraception was not. So was this an assault?

When we think about sexual assault, we have this very specific and limiting image in our mind: a stranger raping a woman in some dark alley way, or a child being molested in the privacy of his/her family home. However, sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault comes in forms beyond this archaic and Hollywood-inspired image of an attack.

After escaping the aggravated sexual assault charge in 2009, Hutchinson went to a second trial in 2011 and was, again, found not guilty. However, in a decision released Thursday, Chief Justice Michael MacDonald said, “it is clear that protected sex was an essential feature of the proposed sexual act and an inseparable component of (the woman’s) consent.” The court agreed that Hutchinson will serve a 18-month jail sentence.

This case is interesting because the stereotype is usually a “crazy, desperate woman” who pokes a hole in the condom to impregnate herself, for whatever reason. According to this piece of hard-hitting, factual and totally not sexist journalism in Shy magazine women are psychos who will poke holes in condoms at any chance possible so, dudes, always bring your own dome bags, OK?

It is fucked up for anyone, man or woman, to mess with a condom for their own personal gain. Period. But it seems just that much more insane to inflict the pregnancy on another and not yourself. Was Hutchinson planning to take this pregnancy to term and just keep this lie up with this woman for the rest of his life?

In short, Hutchinson: I feel sorry for you, you pathetic, sad, cowardly, man. Have fun in jail. You'll be lucky if you can find a condom at all in there.