A 19-year-old Spanish influencer who has 26 million followers on TikTok has reportedly sparked outrage by saying he avoids using condoms by telling his sexual partners he’s sterile.
Naim Darrechi told local YouTuber Mostopapi that he found sex difficult with the latex contraceptive — so “I never use one,” the BBC reported.
He said that when none of his partners had gotten pregnant from unprotected sex with him, “I started thinking that I had a problem.”
Darrechi elicited laughter from the interviewer when he added: “So I tell them, ‘Relax, I’m sterile.’ It’s true.”
The youngster drew condemnation from many angry women and girls on Twitter and mainstream media for his reckless comments.
“I’m really sorry… it’s just crazy what I said,” Darrechi said on Instagram after his interview went viral.
“I want to apologize, really. Sometimes I don’t realize the responsibility that is mine,” he said.
“I made a comment that really is out of place and that is not right. Sometimes I say things and sometimes I exaggerate, but here it’s just crazy what I said, I wish it had been cut at the edit and no one would ever have heard it,” Darrechi added.
Irene Montero, Spain’s equality minister, has asked a prosecutor to launch an investigation into the influencer.
She said in a tweet that she has asked the prosecutor to find out whether Darrechi had told the truth and, if so, to identify possible victims of his deception, which would constitute sexual abuse under the country’s law.
Montero noted that a new bill also defines unprotected sex without consent as an assault.
“To take off the condom or ejaculate during intercourse without consent is sexual abuse today and the ‘only yes means yes’ law will recognize it as assault,” Montero wrote, adding that “to show off about such a thing in front of 26 million followers demonstrates the urgency of putting the consent issue center stage.”
Darrechi also sparked a social media storm in May, when he denounced abortion in a TikTok video.
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