Adult-Adult and Adult-Child/Adolescent Online Sexual Interactions: An Exploratory Self-Report Study on the Role of Situational Factors

Abstract

Alcohol intoxication, sexual arousal, and negative emotional states have been found to precede certain sexual behaviors. Using data from an online self-report survey distributed to adults (N = 717; 423 men and 304 women), we compared adults with adult online sexual interactions (n = 640; 89.3%) to adults with interactions with a child or an adolescent (n = 77; 10.7%) on how much they reported being affected by the following factors surrounding the time of the interactions: alcohol intoxication, sexual arousal, sadness, boredom, stress, and shame. We found that those with a child or adolescent contact reported higher sexual arousal and more shame before the interaction, compared with those with an adult contact. In addition, the levels of negative emotional states varied when levels before the interactions were compared with levels after the interactions, suggesting that engaging in online sexual interactions alleviated negative emotional states, at least temporarily. The alleviatory effects, however, were accompanied by higher levels of shame after the interactions. Overall, adults that engage in online sexual interactions have remarkably similar perceptions of the situation surrounding these activities, independent of the age of their online contacts. Limitations of the study are discussed.

Sexual Disinhibition Under Sexual Arousal: Evidence for Domain Specificity in Men and Women

“…Maybe even more relevant, in a study on online sexual solicitation, adult men who self-reported having engaged in sexual conversations with children and adolescents reported to have experienced sexual arousal not only during but also before the communication (Bergen et al, 2013). This possible etiological pathway remains speculative at present but, nevertheless, constitutes an important research agenda to gain a better understanding of situational factors in sexual offending.…”

Visión criminológica del delito Online Grooming

“…La literatura especializada ha definido a los sujetos que perpetran online grooming como un grupo muy variado (Bergen et al, 2014), en oposición a lo que se estimaba, es decir, un individuo "violento, compulsivo, reincidente y pedófilo" (De Santisteban y Gámez-Gaudix, 2017a, p.88). Sin embargo, la seguridad empleada por parte de los groomers como medida de precaución, resalta un conocimiento de ilegalidad en sus acciones (Kloess et al, 2017).…”

Transnational Child Sexual Abuse: Outcomes from a Roundtable Discussion

“…The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children [15] survey of online child victimization showed that nearly a quarter of minors who reported having received an unwanted sexual contact online were also asked by the offender to meet in person. Consequently, the research to date has mainly focused on the use and function of online networking in the victim grooming process [16,17,18], offender characteristics [19,20], the role of sexual arousal, emotion regulation, shame, and deception in the online solicitation of a minor [21,22], or the “personas” adopted by offenders in the grooming process [23,24], without a specific focus on transnational child sex offending. While previous research, including Harkins and Dixon [1], identified some behavioural characteristics of child sexual abuse networks, to date, there is no detailed account of the demographic characteristics of offenders, and the role these networks play in the normalization and facilitation of child sexual abuse, given that these provide users with an environment to explore their sexual interests [25,26,27].…”