The Dangerous Liaison between Rape Culture and Information Technologies: Reality, Virtuality, and Responsibility in Cyber-rapes

The aim of this chapter is, on the one hand, to dismantle the idea that there can be such a thing as a virtual agency that is “less serious” than the real one, and on the other hand, to explore the ways in which digital technologies affect the perception of personal responsibility. After the introduction and a brief discussion of the different forms of cyber-rape, the chapter will address the topic of the nature of sexual and gender-based online violence acts. Three sections will be devoted to dismantling those arguments that cyber-rape cannot be considered a moral wrong on the same level as rape. Then, having established that the seriousness of a “virtual” rape is comparable to that of a physical rape, it will show how the former occurs more frequently than the latter because of an asymmetry between the seriousness of the act and its common perception. Finally, the chapter will question the reasons for this asymmetry, first exploring the hypothesis of anonymity as a catalyst for violence, only to reject and replace it with a more convincing explanatory hypothesis.