A 19 year old social media star living in Spain has found himself in deep trouble after posting a viral video of himself making a rather disturbing claim. Naim Darrechi is the teen’s name. He posted a video of himself on TikTok bragging about his practice of tricking women into having unprotected sex with him. He might have found this amusing or as some kind of conquest, but Spanish authorities did not share this outlook. Spain’s equality minister, wanting to do more to get bad men off the street, asked prosecutors to look into Darrechi’s case in order to know what tricks exactly the social media star was pulling in order to take advantage of girls. Whatever happens, it is sure that Darrechi’s case will figure greatly in Spain’s national conversation over a new piece of legislation that is being proposed which would make any non-consensual sex considered to be rape under Spanish law.
Darrechi has one of the largest social media followings in all of Spain. In fact, with 26.8 million followers on TikTok he is Spain’s most popular TikToker. In one of his videos Darrechi told his massive audience that he often tricks women into having unprotected sex with him by lying to them and saying that he is sterile. Under Spanish law, as minister Irene Montero has pointed out, doing this constitutes sexual assault. With a video confession, Spanish prosecutors think they will be able to prosecute Darrechi for sexual assault. It is considered sexual assault in Spain to take off your condom during sex without consent. Montero took to Twitter to use the case of Darrechi to underline the importance of soon to be debated “Yes is Yes” legislation which strengthens legal protections for those who are advanced on without consent. Since Darrechi lied in order to receive consent to forgo wearing a condom, Darrechi would fall afoul of this law.
Darrechi did later issue an apology. He says that he did not take seriously enough his responsibility and that his comments were “out of place” and “not right.” He says that his comments were supposed to be cut from the video. In his apology, however, he never really apologized for his practice of lying to women in order to have unprotected sex with them. Whether he is sorry or not, though, Darrechi is facing a heap of legal trouble. Darrechi’s defense is to say that he genuinely believed that he was sterile. He says that he has slept with many women and has never gotten them pregnant. Because of this, he says, it was reasonable for him to assume that something was wrong with his ability to reproduce. It remains to be seen whether Darecchi will be convicted or not. Spanish Parliament will be debating the new legislation coming up in September. The bill would re-classify any and all non-consensual intercourse as rape. This means that, under the new law, Darrechi would be guilty of rape for lying to women in order to have unprotected sex with them.
