The Role of Child Sexual Abuse Images in Coercive and Non-Coercive Relationships with Adolescents: A Thematic Review of the Literature

The objective of this paper is to present a thematic review of the fragmented literature that pertains to the role of child sexual abuse images in online coercive and non-coercive relationships with adolescents, to synthesise and contextualise current research on this topic, and to identify some of the complexities in the self-production of sexual images by adolescents and their potential use by offenders. To date, the literature has largely considered the role of child sexual abuse images of minors of all ages in relation to the offending process, and in particular the offender. In contrast, adolescent studies have focused on ‘sexting’ and the risks of harm that follow from the self-production and sharing of sexual images. This review examines why there is a trend for child abuse image production to be increasingly associated with adolescent self-produced sexual images, and how this may be related to individual coercion, as well as changing social and Internet contexts. Practitioners need to understand the technological and social affordances offered by the Internet, particularly in relation to the ability to produce sexual images, as part of a more ecological approach to understanding online abuse and exploitation.