"In the street they're real, in a picture they're not": Constructions of children and childhood among users of online child sexual exploitation material

Child Abuse & Neglect
Jonah R Rimer

Abstract

Research about online child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) users focuses on psychological assessments, demographics, motivations, and offending rates. Little is known about their understandings of children in CSEM. From an anthropological perspective, examine CSEM users' constructions of children and childhood online and offline, and explore how these factor into their crimes. CSEM users in UK group programs. In-depth ethnography, including 17 months of participant observation in group programs with 81 CSEM users, 31 semi-structured interviews with group participants, and inductive analysis of themes illuminated by childhood theory from anthropology. When referring to children offline, many participants claimed to align with Euro-American norms and constructions surrounding children's learning, protection, irrationality, inexperience, asexuality, and innocence. However online, many constructed children differently: as less or not "real," and as sexualized. This rendered children in CSEM fundamentally different, which facilitated offending, assisted in overcoming barriers, and allowed participants to hold conventional beliefs about children and childhood while engaging in incongruent online activity. Vital in this process w...Continue Reading

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Citations

Sep 5, 2020·International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology·Jonah R Rimer

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