Online interactions involving suspected paedophiles who engage male children
Open accessAbstract
This paper summarises the results of a small-scale study into the online interactions of suspected paedophiles with undercover Australian police officers posing as male children. The study provides insight to an under-researched area of how persons with a sexual interest in male children interact with potential victims and whether these interactions differ from online engagements with female children. The findings provide an interesting and persuasive case to further examine online strategies used by persons wishing to exploit male children, as it highlights potential differences in approaches when compared with interactions between suspected offenders and female children. The differences include less aggressive online behaviour and language, with an emphasis on the male child’s sexuality and sexual experience. These strategies appear to assist the formation of an online friendship which precedes sexual topics, rather than the reverse as is largely reported in literature. These findings are likely to have implications for law enforcement and child protection initiatives.
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Offenders tend to be less aggressive when chatting with boys.
“while they tend to be less aggressive when chatting with boys (Grosskopf, 2010).”
From “It’s just a joke”: gender, sexuality and trivialisation in adolescent online violence such as cyberhate, cyberbullying, and online grooming (2025) · cites this paper as Grosskopf, 2010
The majority of research focuses on female victims, with limited attention paid to male victims.
“Furthermore, the majority of research focuses on female victims, with limited attention paid to male victims, despite claims that interactions involving female and male children are qualitatively different (Grosskopf, 2010;van Gijn-Grosvenor & Lamb, 2016).”
From A discursive analysis of compliance, resistance and escalation to threats in sexually exploitative interactions between offenders and male children (2021) · cites this paper as Grosskopf, 2010
The sexualized nature evidenced in our data contrasts with other research that has argued that interactions with boys are less sexually explicit, aggressive and coercive.
“The sexualized nature evidenced in our data contrasts with other research that has argued that interactions with boys are less sexually explicit, aggressive and coercive (Grosskopf, 2010).”
From A discursive analysis of compliance, resistance and escalation to threats in sexually exploitative interactions between offenders and male children (2021) · cites this paper as Grosskopf, 2010
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- Authors
- Grosskopf, A.
- Corresponding author
- Grosskopf, Angelique
- Venue
- Australian Institute of Criminology eBooks
- Publisher
- Australian Institute of Criminology
- Published
- 2010-12-02
- OpenAlex
- W213472833
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Australian Institute of Criminology eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian Federal Police
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime, Deviance, and Social Control
- Keywords
- online grooming, online interaction, child sexual abuse prevention, child protection, law enforcement
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