Sexual Assault Victimization in Virtual Worlds: A Cyberlifestyle-Routine Activity Theory Approach

This study explores sexual assault victimization in virtual worlds (virtual sexual assault; VSA), immersive environments where users interact through avatars. As these spaces expand, concerns about negative experiences akin to real-world sexual assault also grow. Despite this, quantitative analyses of VSA victimization remain limited. This research addresses this gap by exploring the prevalence of VSA victimization over the previous year and identifying potential predictors of VSA victimization through the lens of cyberlifestyle-routine activity theory (CLRAT). To achieve this, the current research recruited 829 English-speaking adult participants, who used/have used virtual worlds via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) using CloudResearch, which uses the sample population within MTurk but produces better-quality data. The study found that 46.44% of participants reported at least one instance of VSA victimization. VSA behaviors were categorized into unwanted sexual advances, image-based sexual abuse, and non-consensual sexual avatar manipulation. Unwanted sexual advances were reported by 35.71% of participants, image-based sexual abuse by 33.29%, and non-consensual sexual avatar manipulation by 27.99%. Applying CLRAT, the study found that higher levels of online exposure, online proximity, online deviant lifestyle, and lower levels of online guardianship were correlated with increased VSA victimization. Limitations, suggestions for future studies, and implications are provided based on these findings.