ABSTRACT

Pedophile hunting – abetted by digital technologies – has spread rapidly, resulting in detrimental outcomes, including suicides of hunters’ targets. The scant research on these groups adopts a functionalist argument that they have emerged to fill a security deficit – to undertake work that police are incapable of due to resource and skill deficits in policing the cybersphere. This paper adopts a critical approach to argue that the expressive nature of such activities must be incorporated into explanations for their rapid spread across the globe. Specifically, pedophile hunting can be understood as embodying the performance of masculinities in the digital realm.

摘要

恋童癖狩猎——在数字技术的怂恿下——迅速蔓延，导致了有害的结果，包括猎人目标的自杀。对这些群体的研究很少采用功能主义论点，即它们的出现是为了填补安全缺陷——承担警察由于网络领域警务资源和技能不足而无法胜任的工作。本文采用一种批判性的方法来论证这些活动的表现性必须被纳入对其在全球迅速传播的解释中。具体来说，恋童癖狩猎可以理解为体现了男性气质在数字领域的表现。