In recent years, the use of dating and hook up apps has become an increasingly socially acceptable and commonly used method of seeking romantic and sexual partners. This has seen a corresponding rise in media and crime reports of sexual harms facilitated through these services, including sexual harassment, unsolicited sexual imagery, and sexual assault.
Emerging empirical research shows that experiences of sexual harms in this context are common and predominantly impact women and girls. This chapter also considers how the discourses that minimize and legitimize sexual harms are encoded within the responses undertaken by dating and hook up apps to sexual harms. Cama, E. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these chapters for both commercial and non-commercial purposes , subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors.
Although it is difficult to determine the number of people using dating and hook up apps, data indicate that use of these platforms is common. One of the most popular apps, Tinder, has approximately 57 million users worldwide, 10 million active daily users, and around 1. However, alongside the potential benefits of dating and hook up apps, it is also clear that these platforms have served as sites for the perpetration or facilitation of sexual harms, such as the sending of unsolicited or unwanted sexual imagery and contact-based sexual offenses.
I first briefly outline the literature on sexual harms perpetrated or facilitated via dating and hook up apps and websites, then turn to the sociocultural and sexual norms that underpin online dating and which perpetuate rape culture. Online dating has its origins in personal ads placed in newspapers from the late s Lee, The first online dating website, Kiss. Despite dating apps and websites being available for more than two decades, it is only more recently that researchers have begun to examine experiences of sexual harms in the context of modern dating platforms.
This approach is influenced by the work of feminist scholars who reject linear, hierarchical conceptualizations of harm and move instead toward continuum-based approaches to women's safety and experiences of sexual harms Kelly, , , ; Stanko, , This approach also recognizes the diverse range of harms that may be experienced and demonstrates how the categories that are typically used to define sexual harms are not discrete, but rather overlap in their nature and impacts Kelly, , , ; Stanko, , Sexual harms in dating and hook up app contexts may include, but are by no means limited to, unwanted requests for sex, unwanted sexual comments, unsolicited sexual imagery or video, image-based sexual abuse, and contact-based harms.
