Deviant Men, Prostitution, and the Internet: A Qualitative analysis of Men who killed Prostitutes whom they met online

IntroductionThe Internet offers endless opportunities to whet the appetite of a sexually deviant person. Components of the Internet offer easy, limitless access to the sex industry including cyber sex chatrooms, pornography and websites dedicated solely to escort services and prostitution, e.g., Backpage.com. Because each interest can be pursued with perceived anonymity, the likelihood of deviant sexual experimentation increases (Bell & Lyall, 2000). The types of people that are drawn to sexually deviant Internet content may enjoy sadomasochism. Because sadomasochistic fantasies and behaviors have become more common, it is possible that the number of sexually-driven crimes has increased. Studies of criminal sadists have found serious psychopathic tendencies in addition to sadistic sexual preferences. Substance abuse and personality disorders are also common in these individuals (Forensic Panel Letter, 2001). Studies of serial sexual murderers have shown deviant sexual interests and deviant sexual fantasies (Forensic Panel Letter, 2001). The purpose of this study is to analyze men who have preyed on prostitutes and determine if similarities exist between the offenders who used the Internet to find sexual partners with sexual killers who did not utilize the Internet. Our research will answer multiple questions. First: Is the Internet enabling dangerous sexual behaviors by acting as the medium through which sexually-deviant individuals are able to connect with vulnerable women, i.e., prostitutes? Second: Is there a correlation between men who are obsessed with violent or obscene pornography and those who browse the Internet to contact prostitutes to act out desires? Third: Has the Internet created a new type of offender? We will use life course theory to examine newspaper articles that describe the offenders, their cases, and their life histories in order to assess their sexual pasts and compare them to sexual killers who have not used the Internet. First, we review the literature on prostitution and violence, men who buy sex, and paraphillias and their causes.Literature ReviewProstitution and ViolenceViolence is commonly associated with prostitution. Homicide, then, is unsurprisingly the leading cause of death of prostitutes (Brewer et al., 2006). Between the years 1967 and 1999 prostitutes who worked in Colorado were found to have the highest homicide victimization rate of any other set of women ever studied, with nearly all of the homicides occurring on the job (Potterat et. al., 2004). Clients committed about 65% of prostitute homicides in Canada and the United Kingdom (Kinnell, 2001). Although little research has been conducted on violence against prostitutes, one study by Brewer et al. (2006) discovered that between the late 1980s and early 1990s, large increases in prostitute homicides occurred, with lone perpetrators accounting for the majority of these murders.Violence against sex workers is executed by a small proportion of exceedingly violent men (Lowman & Atchison, 2006). Men target prostitutes because they perceive them as vulnerable and available (Egger, 2002). Due to the fact that prostitution is illegal, the men have a perceived anonymity; believing law enforcement will not notice when the victim is murdered. However, it is still unknown if the slaying of prostitutes occurs because of the profession itself, i.e., hatred of prostitutes (women), or if it is a crime grounded solely on availability-meeting-opportunity, or the combination of a convenient time and location that helps to avoid detection and thus increase offending (Salfati et al., 2008). Many men select prostitutes due to the fact they will not be reported as missing (Quinet, 2011). Examining prostitute homicides committed by clients reveals unclear motives (Brewer et al., 2006). However, various motives may include arguments over the sex/money exchange, victim's attempted robbery of the client, verbal insults, demands or requests by the victim, clientele misogyny, clientele hatred of prostitutes, client's sadism, client's psychopathology, a combination of these factors, or no precipitating factor whatsoever (Brewer et al. …