Case Studies of Men’s Perceptions of Their Online Sexual Interactions With Young People: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Robert

At the time of the study, “Robert” was in his 40s and lived alone. Up to his arrest, Robert lived with his wife and children, and was in full-time employment. He had access to a laptop as part of his work. Robert used Internet communication platforms to engage in sexually explicit chat and activity with adolescent boys. Of note were interactions that progressed to exchanging sexual images via mobile phone and developed into physical meetings, where sexual activity took place.

Steven

At the time of the study, “Steven” was in his 30s. Up to his arrest, Steven lived alone and was in full-time employment. He had never been married. Steven frequently worked in the evenings and at night from his home computer. He used Internet communication platforms to engage in conversations and sexually explicit activity with adolescent girls. One interaction progressed to physical meetings, where sexual activity took place.

Robert

Robert described first noticing a sexual attraction toward boys of his age as a teenager, which developed into a sexual attraction toward sexually mature young males as an adult.

When I was growing up when I was teenager I was attracted to boys my own age . . . my sexual interest has or is younger men erm and so I think erm my interest is not prepubescent I don’t I’m not erm sexually attracted to anyone who is not developed sexually erm that doesn’t interest me.

Although Robert committed offenses against adolescent boys, he emphasizes (above) that his sexual interest does not lie with prepubescent children, thereby differentiating himself from “pedophiles” as they might conventionally be represented. In doing this, he adopts a narrative tone of anticipating disapproval and judgment, and defends himself. Despite Robert’s sexual attraction toward young males, he had occasional sexual encounters and some brief relationships with women, eventually getting married to his wife.

I was married, I had [children], I was working full-time, erm, yeah, it was a normal, normal family life, I guess. I mean, me and my wife weren’t particularly getting on that well, erm, but that was down, although she didn’t know it, but that was down to my sexuality, that I didn’t [live out] pretty much all my life.

Here, Robert takes a stance of inviting empathy by describing his life as an “existence,” suggesting passive rather than active participation in living it. He makes it clear that his sexuality had been an issue all his life, and that this also stood between him and his wife, preventing him from experiencing their relationship as satisfying.

Having to live my life as a straight man erm it’s . . . it’s . . . it was hard it was hard in one way but easy in another because the only sexual contact I was getting was with either a friend or a partner I had and I hadn’t had many—or my wife because that was my only sexual outlet my only sexual contact. It was easy to keep up the pretense because it doesn’t matter how it is you can close your eyes and think of something then you can put yourself into a different situation and that’s how I have coped with it.

Robert describes the difficulty of living as a homosexual man prior to the Internet, with physical sexual encounters being the only form of sexual activity. He was able to cope with engaging in sexual behavior that conflicted with his sexual identity (i.e., with his wife) by putting himself into a different situation mentally, enabling the pretense of living the life of a straight man. To an extent, the narrative acts to normalize Robert’s experience through his presentation of sexual contact as a human need, which he merely “coped with,” rather than experienced as sexually gratifying. He thereby chose a narrative that protects him from accusations by attempting to destigmatize his offending behavior through presenting himself as a homosexual man. Yet, Robert’s narrative uncomfortably blurs the line by shifting readers’ attention between two sexual identities that are unrelated; homosexuality has no direct bearing on a sexual attraction to young males under the age of consent (which constitutes behavior for which one is charged with an offense).

Robert argues that the experience of “being trapped in a lie” caused his marital relationship to deteriorate. He suggests that his distress (at both the feeling of entrapment and the deteriorating relationship) was the motive for subsequently seeking online interactions with males.

It might start off with “how has your day been,” etc. etc. but it would quickly develop into a sexual conversation . . . And there might be some masturbation going on as we are talking, and sort of when that was finished that pretty much ended the conversation, as it were . . . but it was quick it really was just a sexual gratification tool.

Robert adopts a rather blasé narrative tone when describing the process of establishing contact with someone for the purpose of sexual gratification, referring to it as a “tool.” This might be viewed as minimization, or demonstrate a lack of emotional connection to the experience. He explains that sexual gratification was his main motivation. For the first time in his life, Robert was now able to live out his homosexual identity (as part of the online interactions), which may explain his rather strategic approach to fulfilling his sexual need.

That was really, other than the pornography but the actual first interaction with another gay person or someone who was bisexual or someone who was whatever was on the internet and that was the first sort of time because it made it easier because it was so anonymous.

Here, Robert adopts a defensive stance, claiming that he would have never engaged in sexual interactions online if it was not for the anonymous nature of the Internet. He believed that he would be unidentifiable, which lowered his inhibitions and enabled his engagement in such interactions. Robert further attempts to explain his behavior by describing it as his first sexual experience with another homosexual person, something he had long desired.

Steven

Steven described his difficulties in forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships with adult women. The Internet therefore provided a platform for him to form new relationships during a time of loneliness.

. . . all my friends had got married and a couple now had a kid as well and had started their own families and so my kind of friendship circle had changed quite a lot dynamically and which meant I was spending a lot of time on my own . . . I had been sort of resorting to the internet, you know, and forming relationships using the internet.

Steven describes a change in his circle of friends as a result of their marital and familial commitments, which led to feelings of disconnectedness in him. He further explains that spending increasingly more time at home by himself gave rise to feelings of self-doubt and loss of confidence, accessing the Internet to develop new relationships.

Mum and Dad got married early 20s, had a family and that’s what you see as being normal so when you . . .when that doesn’t happen, you know, it makes you feel kind of abnormal . . .

It can be seen here that marriage and children are considered by Steven to be normal; it is something he has grown up with and longs for. The experience of “losing” his friends to this desired ideal triggers feelings of abnormality due to unmet social expectations. This may be indicative of his vulnerability and a deep desire to belong.

In addition to the decrease in social contacts, Steven described an increasingly stressful employment situation, ending up working long hours in the evening, which allowed for an easy transition to seek out online contacts, replacing his interpersonal relationships in the physical world.

. . . I’d work and work and work and then because you’re on the computer then it’s very easy then to go straight online . . . whatever it was, the connection or the friendship whatever it was you had with that person you obviously want to maintain that or develop it . . . so you go onto a sort of a mix and a form of er, so (private IM provider), er, so then you get that sort of regular contact straightaway . . .

Steven states that he experienced a connection and/or friendship with his online contacts, an aspect which was absent in the interpersonal relationships in his physical world. He was eager to maintain and develop them. The use of “obviously” serves to contextualize Steven’s decision to pursue the relationship (via a private instant messaging provider for regular and more immediate contact) within his awareness of wider social norms. The technology itself is presented as if its use follows an inevitable and normative progression (“you go onto a sort of a mix . . ., then you get that sort of regular contact” [emphasis added]). He acknowledges that the victim is below 18 years, but this has little effect on the position he takes in this narrative—it does not prevent him from representing his interactions with the victim as a “relationship,” thereby not recognizing the power differential between them.

Throughout, Steven employs a narrative tone of inviting empathy by describing his Internet use as a way of coping with his loneliness. The extract demonstrates Steven’s retrospective sense of himself as having been vulnerable, as he describes being “knocked back” on conventional Internet dating sites. In his view, this led him to search out younger people, who he experienced as more responsive and engaging, making him feel “wanted,” “needed,” and “good,” albeit in the short term. This not only highlights the importance of these relationships for Steven in fulfilling his need for a connection but also appears to defend and humanize his stance against disapproval and judgment in light of the victims’ age.

Both Robert and Steven felt disconnected interpersonally and sexually at the time when they started to interact with young people via Internet communication platforms. Although both used it as a way of coping with their personal problems and a sexual outlet, there were clear differences in the meaning Robert and Steven attached to their experience online. While Robert sought to fulfill his need for sexual gratification, Steven described a need for a relational connection with another person. Both of them presented these needs in ways that conformed to the conventional ways in which people justify taking up “relationship-seeking behaviors.” They further focused on the role technology had played in the rapid progression and escalation of their behavior.

Robert

Robert explains how he kept his Internet use secret from his family and at work, “organizing” it around times when he would be by himself.

It just depended on the opportunity . . . if it was quiet if I had done all my work and there was nobody else about . . . it was every day . . .

For Robert, his Internet use was dependent on when the opportunity presented itself, and yet as time progressed, he began to create opportunities daily. A change of job facilitated opportunities through increased Internet access.

I guess I sort of changed jobs where I was more office-based, so I had more Internet access, erm, and I guess as things deteriorated between me and my wife, erm, I tended to go on gay websites more.

Robert explains that as the (sexual) relationship with his wife deteriorated, his Internet use intensified and escalated in terms of content of sexual material, moving from adult pornographic websites to online contact with adolescent boys. His narrative seeks to invite empathy and humanize his need for a sexual outlet and gratification by describing how he purposively avoided sexual encounters with his wife.

I used to make excuses [about my health] and everything else erm so I wouldn’t have to have had any sexual relationship with her so my only . . . this was my only sexual outlet erm was looking at pornography . . . obviously sometimes the opportunity wouldn’t be there to get the gratification I was looking for . . . so I’d have to stop and then I’d look again later on because I obviously I hadn’t fulfilled that need . . . I’d watch more porn and that and so it was a progression and as one went up one went down.

Here, the “compulsive” nature of Robert’s behavior becomes apparent, as he describes returning to “complete” fulfilling the need in situations where this process was disturbed. Robert also recognizes that his behavior progressed, and as it did his marital relationship became increasingly challenging. He describes how he coped with this and his arising depressive mood by engaging in more extreme offending behavior. His account of this behavior takes on the structure of an account of a poor coping strategy. Robert describes how his interaction with one particular victim escalated to several physical meetings, where sexual activity took place.

. . . the first meeting, we met in the car park, . . . I could see that he was . . . he wasn’t 17, . . . so I went but we carried on messaging and contacting each other via text erm and then stupidly I went back and I did meet him . . . Um, and then probably the fourth or fifth meeting that was the first time we had sexual contact. . . . I felt safe in a way that I thought okay he’s . . . he’s . . . he’s younger so he is not going to want me to leave my wife . . . but I also felt flattered . . . but yeah it was mainly sexual gratification.

Here, Robert explains how he left the initial meeting after finding out that the victim was below the age of 16 years. He presents himself as responsible and “stupid” (when returning to meet him again) through adopting a narrative tone of anticipating disapproval and judgment. Robert explains that the victim’s young age made him feel safe and comforted in the sense that there would be no negative consequences for his marriage, nor would he be revealed. While Robert acknowledges that his main motivation was fulfilling his need for sexual gratification throughout, meeting with the victim made him feel “flattered” and “wanted.” Through describing the victim as “interested,” he normalizes the sexual activity, representing it as a mutual experience between two people.

Steven

Steven described a job move and the remainder of his friends getting married as significant factors that fed his insecurity about his different life situation and unmet expectations.

When the last of my friends got married and they all had kids . . . and I’d been told that I was being moved about my job which I was having relied on for a lot of my life up to that point . . . I guess just feeling, I guess almost beaten by the . . . by the depression and . . . and by the need to. . .to do what I was doing, that period I didn’t think I could get myself out of it.

This extract highlights a time of instability and lack of control in Steven’s life, and how this contributed to his downward spiraling into depression. He describes his experience of how he came to offend as a coming together of multiple factors, giving the impression that he was propelled toward the behavior by circumstances. When having to move his job, he narrates the process of losing perspective, and feeling overwhelmed by the experience of the depression and the need to go online. As the situation intensifies, he describes feeling incapable of breaking the cycle of need. Steven adopts a narrative tone of inviting empathy throughout, using “extreme case formulations” (i.e., semantic ways to legitimize claims) that serve to strengthen his case (Pomerantz, 1986).

This is like a fix you want to get, you know, a feeling that someone’s out there. Yo—you’re on your own, I lived on my own, that was fine, er, you know, that becomes your go to, you know, there’s going to be someone there that wants to talk to you.

Steven adopts a humanizing narrative tone here, to describe his experience of becoming dependent on his online interactions as a “fix you want to get,” and how striving to fulfill his need intensified into a cycle of Internet use.

You just kind of get into that cycle . . . it becomes very difficult to get out of and you rely on it more and more I guess. . . if you don’t find someone to talk to if you don’t feel at that sort of . . . that need . . . I was lucky or not lucky to have a job where I could go to work and keep my mind occupied . . . so you don’t feel the need to talk to someone online.

Steven’s hopeless situation becomes clear as he narrates the difficulty of breaking out of the cycle of Internet use. He appeared to be trapped in the cycle and only able to escape from it during the time he spent at work, describing himself as lucky to have that time to be occupied and focus on other things in order not to “feel the need.” The online interactions progressed to physical meetings, escalating in sexual activity taking place, which Steven recalls experiencing as a real conflict, highlighting the desperate situation he was in.

. . . the relationship online then it got to the point where it wasn’t so much an ultimatum but they would say, you know, “What’s this relationship? Where is it going?” um, er, I don’t think well for me that relationship online didn’t seem completely real . . . I didn’t want to lose that relationship it felt like it was all I had at the time, you know, and that’s when you can then say if it’s a choice between moving from online contact to . . . to meeting them or losing that relationship then that was . . . that was the real sort of conflict.

The beginning of the extract highlights that the online contact was clearly construed by Steven as a “relationship” by the time a physical meeting was first mentioned. Steven normalizes this, presenting it as a natural next step after a period of time of getting to know each other online, and describing it as an ultimatum placed on him by the perceived desire of the victim, rather than himself. He thereby humanizes his decision to attend the physical meeting in light of otherwise losing an important relationship in his life. Within his account, the conflict which he claims to have experienced is psychologically plausible, and this has the narrative effect of diffusing responsibility for the meeting. However, it is of course a form of victim blaming. Steven is clear that he was aware throughout that the relationship was not “real” and had no future. His description of experiencing an inner conflict, however, suggests that he may also have felt a genuine connection with his victims, and that, to him, his interactions with them resembled aspects of a “real” relationship. His claim is that this impeded his ability to make a responsible decision.

Both Robert and Steven experienced a similar progression in terms of frequency and intensity of Internet use, spiraling into a cycle of “compulsive” aspects that encouraged their continued engagement. For Robert, this progression appeared to be predominantly related to a newfound way of experiencing sexual gratification and fulfilling this need in a much more efficient and satisfying manner. The physical meeting is suggested to have arisen out of opportunity, with the victim living in close proximity to Robert. Steven’s progression of Internet use appeared to have largely been affected by situational factors, and him experiencing a connection with his online contacts, which he lacked in interpersonal relationships in the physical world. He therefore became increasingly dependent on the online interactions to cope with and escape his personal life, as well as fulfill his need to be wanted and needed by someone. However, the escalation of offending behavior in the form of physical meetings led to a process of de-escalation in the form of discontinuation of contact between Robert and Steven and their victims. In Robert’s case, the process of arrest had commenced following disclosure by the victim to the police, whereas for Steven, the physical meetings acted as a catalyst and a shocking realization of the consequences of his actions.

Robert

Robert’s account features a more passive process, whereby a change of life situation was triggered by the revelation of his offending behavior and subsequent arrest.

I think by after the last meeting I think the process of me getting arrested had started . . . then contact stopped, I just thought he’d lost interest or whatever because he was a young lad . . .

Robert initially assumed that contact stopped as a result of the victim having lost interest, which may have been a sign of how safe he felt that he was not going to be revealed. However, he later learnt that the process of his arrest had started, and Robert’s sexual orientation became common knowledge, ending his marriage.

Now it’s a strange thing is perversely it’s one of the best things that happened to me because now I’m honest with people I’m more open, before even my family knows and before I didn’t really say much because I was frightened I would slip up and say something . . .

In this sentence, we can see that a problematic sexual offense is reframed as if it were merely a prelude to a “coming out” narrative, in one respect highlighting how fearful Robert was of being revealed to his family and friends as homosexual. He describes the subsequent openness about this aspect of his sexuality as positive (i.e., “I’m honest with people I’m more open”). Despite this, there are also indications that Robert realizes that this reframing is only partially possible: If this was a good outcome for him “in that small bit” (i.e., the openness), it was “not [good] for everyone else.” There is tacit recognition here that his behavior toward young people was directly at odds with a conventional account of “coming out.” Other people were harmed during this transition. Robert therefore concludes, “If I could turn back the clock I would still go back to live as I was and wouldn’t have committed the offense.” The ambiguity cannot be resolved here. In this interview, we may be hearing from someone on the point of recovering a new and acceptable identity for themselves, after a disastrously mishandled transition out of a suppressed sexual identity. Alternatively, we may be seeing someone who is simply attempting to present a more acceptable narrative of his offending behavior, or failing to confront its existence at all.

Steven

Steven narrates how the physical meetings acted as a catalyst and a shocking realization of the consequences of his actions. This triggered a mental process, whereby a decision to change his life was generated.

. . . in the end that was kind of what shook me out of that cycle, it was the sort of catalyst that started with, you know, me thinking really about the implications and where it possibly could go, you know . . . and the fact that it wasn’t, um for me a long term solution to my problems but the fact that it was going to harm somebody else, you know . . . it felt very different to being online, there was no barrier there it was right in your face, it was uncomfortable.

Steven describes how the confrontation of the physical meetings not only prompted him to realize the implications of his offending behavior but also that his online contacts were not going to truly fulfill his desire for a satisfying relationship. There is a sense of disappointment in Steven’s narrative tone that this realization did not occur earlier on in the process. He explains this by referring to the absence of online barriers at physical meetings as very threatening and uncomfortable, which mirror Steven’s earlier claims about his difficulty in forming interpersonal relationships. This catalyst led to Steven taking immediate action to shut off this part of his life.

I closed down my (private IM provider) and deleted everybody off it, I deleted everything on my computers, everything I could think of that had any connection with that period. And I suppose that initially was a quick fix, it made me feel better. There was a real sense of relief to shut that part of my life off and there was still a lot of pressure, there was still a lot of feelings of unease about there not being any contact . . .

Steven describes how deleting his account and anything in connection with it acted as a “quick fix” that made him feel relieved. He thereby gains back control (after having been out of control) and removes this shameful aspect from his life. Yet, the frequency and intensity of his engagement in online interactions left a mark, with Steven describing experiencing sensations of pressure and uneasiness. These may be understood as withdrawal symptoms or feelings of the unmet need resurfacing, again highlighting the compulsive nature of this experience. Steven made a conscious decision to change his life and describes reconnecting with his family and friends, as well as looking for more positive things to fill the void, such as taking up leisure activities. By doing so, Steven began making steps to help him meet people in a more appropriate and healthy way.

Both participants experienced the process of arrest as life-changing. Whereas Robert initially appeared to lack insight into why contact with the victim was discontinued, Steven experienced the physical meetings as a catalyst, which motivated him to take active steps toward changing his life for the better. Specifically, Robert presented his role more passively, as if his actions were an inevitable consequence of hiding and suppressing his homosexuality for many years. He offered an account which aimed to reframe the offense as a pivotal step in recognizing his own sexual identity, but which was undermined by the harms he had caused to others in the process. In both men’s cases, the transformational experience of being caught and stopped (i.e., arrested) is complex, and involves intertwined emotions, which are both positive (e.g., liberation, change) and negative (e.g., regret, guilt).