Digital Sexual Grooming

AbstractThis chapter considers the relevance of a growing body of research into the different components of digital sexual grooming and their interrelations. This is an area to which linguistics scholarship has only comparatively recently contributed but in which the results can have important practical applications for detection and prevention purposes. The chapter also provides an overview of the components of digital sexual grooming, which are aligned to groomer tactics, such as deriving sexual gratification from their online interaction with their victim, isolating them, developing a sense of trust in the groomers, and, in the case of those groomers also seeking sexual abuse offline, approaching the victim for a physical meeting. Additionally, the chapter reviews recent scholarship that has discerned some cross-goal tactics, such as the use of vague language to mask sexual intent. This chapter thus sets the scene for the detailed analysis of offenders’ identity performance in digital sexual grooming, which is provided in Chapter 4.