Sexual offending happens in the offline and online world. But some people we work with often tell us they would not have offended without the internet, apps or smartphones.
A huge majority of people have access to the internet but not everyone offends online.
This means that the internet doesn’t cause offending; people who have offended online made a choice to do so. But it is important to consider how the internet might make offending easier for some people.
Sex and the internet
For some people the internet can feel like an good place to engage in sexual behaviour. But why is that? Some people think the ‘Triple A Engine’ helps answer this question.
‘Triple A Engine’ (Cooper, 1998)
- Accessibility: pornography and sexual experiences are easily accessible online, anytime, day or night.
- Anonymity: people might feel that they are anonymous and unknown online. This might result in a person detaching their online behaviour from their offline life and identity.
- Affordability: pornography and sexual experiences online may come at a low cost or free.
Exercise 1: Sex and the internet
What other aspects of the internet might make it feel like an attractive place to engage in sexual activity? Use the template to think about why the internet became a place for sexual behaviour for you.
Think about the examples below:
Now that you have identified why you used the internet as a place for sexual behaviour, it is important to think about why that might be a problem in some circumstances.
Think about the ideas you had above, but now think about what the difficulties with these ideas might be. For example:
