Violencia de género y otros fenómenos delictivos en el contexto de las aplicaciones afectivo-sexuales

Abstract

The «Enrolla2. Security Perceptions and Risk Attitudes in Millennials» (2018/ UEM34) project, carried out by the Knowledge-Research group on Social Problems at the European University of Madrid (UEM), aimed to study the perception of security, its impact on the level of victimization and the risks to public health, in relation to the use of affective-sexual applications by people aged 18-35 of all sexual orientation and gender identity. The methodology consisted of a mixed methods design: digital ethnography in different affective-sexual applications, interviews with users, survey for users, and focus group with professionals. The study reveals that many of the actions that happens in the applications are constitutive of crime, although they seem to be normalized by the active and passive subjects; the project concludes the importance of gender and sexual orientation as fundamental variables when perceiving and living victimization and the risk associated with these applications. From a legal perspective it´s important to account: the abuse of sending unsolicited auto-erotic photographs, harassing attitudes based on gender and the use of threatening language. However, it is difficult to classify certain behaviors that are developed in the use of these applications such as so-called revenge porn, creepshots, doxing or cyber stalking, threats of violence or sexist hate as describe in the Criminal Code, so its prosecution mainly depends on the jurisdictional criteria.