Hello everyone! Since the election is done and all that is left is for the people to start working together I will be turning my attention to Computer and Crime and regulating the amount of time I spend blogging about politics. Not that I will stop completly but we will have to see what pops up. (Pun INtended)
Computers today are being used for many crimes that they were not being used for as little as 6-10 years ago. Murder, Prostitution, Bad Checks, Child Pornography, Child predators, the list goes on and on. In todays world the computer is used by criminals of all types to gain access to their victims as well as to actually comit the crimes. I have worked cases from Computers being used to by dope from overseas and have it shipped inot the US to Murder where the victim sent e-mails out 1 hour before she was killed saying she was "concerned" for her safety to a friend. COmputers have become an everyday part of life for many people and that also means the criminal element of our society.
Today I am going to cover the rising trend of Sociological factors that have come to light in the recent years about these very types of issues. One of the rising trends I have seen recently is the reporting of people who say they are Addicted to the the internet. This is even a new form of Psycological problem that has been included now in treatment of psycological problems. There are even whole websites and research centers devoted to this new area. And Cybersex being one of the fastest greowing areas that I can find.
Sexual compulsivity over the Internet is not just a result of deviant individuals engaged in acting out, but with remarkable speed, the mental health field has witnessed those with no prior criminal or psychiatric history engaged in such behavior online. The ACE Model of Cybersexual Addiction is used to explain how the Internet creates a cultural climate of permissiveness that actually serves to encourage and validate sexually deviant behavior. The ACE Model examines the Anonymity of online interactions that serves to increase the likelihood of the behavior, the Convenience of cyberporn and sexually-oriented chat rooms making it easily available to users, and finally, the Escape from mental tension derived from the experience which serves to reinforce the behavior leading to compulsivity.
The anonymity of electronic transactions provides the user with a greater sense of perceived control over the content, tone, and nature of the online sexual experience. Unlike real life sexual experiences, a woman can quickly change partners if her cyber-lover isn't very good or a man can log off after his orgasm without any long good-byes. What if a man privately wondered what it would be like to have sex with another man? What if a woman always wanted to try bondage? Within the anonymous context of cyberspace, conventional messages about sex are eliminated allowing users to play out hidden or repressed sexual fantasies in a private lab, without the fear of being caught. For anyone who has ever been curious about bondage, group sex, urination, homosexuality, or cross-dressing, cybersex offers a private, safe, and anonymous way to explore those fantasies. Therefore, individuals are more likely to sexually experiment as online users feel encouraged to engage in their adult fantasies and validated by the acceptance of the cyberspace culture.
This leads to the second variable of the ACE Model, the convenience of cyberporn and adult chat sites provides an immediately available vehicle to easily fall into compulsive patterns of online use. Industry estimates that 9.6 million users, or about 15% of all Web users, logged on to the 10 most popular sex sites in the month of April 1998 alone. There are an estimated 70,000 sex-related Web site with 200 new adult web sites that include pornography and interactive chat rooms are being added per day (Swhartz, 1998). The proliferation of sexually oriented chat rooms provides a mechanism that encourages a person’s initial exploration. A curious husband or wife may secretly step into the "Dominance and Submission Room", the "Fetish Room", or the "Bisexual Room", only to be initially shocked at the erotic dialogue, but at the same time, sexually stimulated by it. The ease of availability serves to promote sexual experimentation among those who normally would not engage in such behavior. The most vulnerable individuals seem to be those who suffer from low self-esteem, a severely distorted body image, untreated sexual dysfunction, or a prior sexual addiction.
Many people may automatically believe that the primary reinforcement of the online sexual act is the sexual gratification received from the experience. Studies have shown that sexual stimulation may initially be the reason to engage in cybersex, however, over time, the experience if reinforced through a type of drug "high" that provides an emotional or mental escape or an altered state of reality. For example, a lonely woman suddenly feels desired by her many cyber-partners or a sexually insecure man transforms into a hot cyberlover that all the women in the chat room want. The experience not only provides sexual fulfillment, but allows a subjective mental escape achieved through the development of an online fantasy life where a person can adopt a new persona and online identity. The courts have already argued the role of online compulsivity as a mental disorder in the defense of online sexual deviancy cases. For example, one landmark case, the United States versus McBroom, successfully demonstrated that the client’s downloading, viewing, and transferring of Internet pornography was less about erotic gratification and more about an emotional escape mechanism to relieve mental tension.
Gender significantly influences the way men and women view cybersex. Women prefer cybersex because it hides their physical appearance, removes the social stigma that women shouldn’t enjoy sex, and allows them a safe means to concentrate on their sexuality in new, uninhibited ways. Men prefer cybersex because it removes performance anxiety that may be underlying problems with premature ejaculation or impotence and it also hides their physical appearance for men who feel insecure about hair loss, penis size, or weight gain.
What do you do if you suspect your spouse or significant other is engaging in this type of activity? There are several things that you can do. First and probably the one I recommend the most is to TALK to your partner and discuss why you think what you do and be open about it. Otherwise you may resort to other, covert menas of checking. You could use a monitoring program that runs in the background and reports to you at a e-mail address what is hapening on the machine. One we use quite often is E Blaster. This program records everything the computer user does, and also records every where the user goes on the internet. The reason I like this program better over some is that it also will record chat conversations and e-mails them to you right after they log off the chat. You can hire someone to check for you. A Forensic Exam of your machine can be costly depending on who you get and how good they really are. Be careful though! IF you use an outside source make sure they are reliable as you don't want to get someone that uses the information they get against you. Like account numbers and user names and passowrds. make sure you realize they will see all your information before you do and they could use it.
I will be posting more on these types fo subject in the future. I welcome questions or comments.
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