ABSTRACT
Up until a few years ago, the only sources of information available to those attempting to understand adult sexual attraction to children were dusty medical tomes or sensationalised tabloid reports. Today we have the Internet, and this has revolutionised how we can now go about looking for information, and the sorts of information we can find. Most significantly, the Internet has broken down geographical barriers. The physical location of a person, or a computer, becomes, on the Internet, both unknown and irrelevant. Of the approximately 2 billion people on Earth who are able to communicate
in some form of English, there are 380 million who use English to communicate on the Internet. English is the most popular Internet language, with just over 30 per cent of all online communication now conducted in English (Internet World Stats 2007). The disappearance of geographical barriers, together with the prevalence of English as a global language, means that it now matters very little whether I am physically based in Australia, Canada, Britain, the Indian subcontinent, Ireland, New Zealand, southern Africa, the USA, the West Indies, or any of a huge number of other countries: provided I can access the Internet and communicate in basic written English, the same information will be available for me to access wherever I live and, in turn, the information I choose to post on the Internet can be accessed and can influence the beliefs and the behaviour of, potentially, millions of other people. There are therefore no longer any effective barriers or boundaries to the spread of information, for good or for ill. This chapter is divided into three sections, each dealing with a specific
aspect of the online experience. Section I examines file-sharing in the ‘Darknet’ and how people may guard their online privacy. Section II is specifically about sharing child pornography and other forms of graphic art which portray young children sexually, while Section III is concerned with legal and visible aspects of the ‘online paedophile community’. Information on the Internet, provided by a mere handful of individuals, is potentially capable of affecting the views of literally millions of people, and so this chapter ends with a brief examination of the ways in which pro-paedophile arguments are presented
and contested online. Later on, in the chapters dealing with paedophiles’ own experiences, this book explores in more detail the ways in which the Internet is used as an ‘online community’.
