The rise of digital sexual violence

This week we presented the main findings of the Survey on Sexual Violence by the Department of the Interior. These are alarming figures that should shake anyone to their core, but at the same time, they allow us to construct a clear picture of the serious problem and the impact of this violence. The fact that two out of every three Catalan women (67.3%) have suffered sexual violence at some point in their lives, and that 15.5% have experienced it in the last year, definitively shatters the myth that sexual violence is exceptional or circumstantial. It is structural, persistent, and deeply rooted, and even today, only 6% of those affected report it. This violence, as the data indicates, transcends generations, public and private spaces, and intimate relationships, and it remains silenced. This silence is not resignation or passivity on the part of women, but rather a response to institutional distrust, the difficulty in identifying situations of violence (many of which are normalized and internalized), and a reflection of the fear of reprisals and the social burden that still falls on those who suffer it in the form of guilt or shame.

But the second layer of the problem is also striking: digital sexual violence is becoming entrenched and increasing. Almost one in four women over the age of 15 has been a victim of digital aggression: unwanted sending of images, online sexual pressure, extortion, dissemination of intimate content, or degrading comments. These forms of violence are real, and the only thing that changes is the mechanism, because now all it takes to commit an attack is a mobile phone, a screen, and the sense of impunity that anonymity provides. And all of this causes immense harm. In fact, the threat of disseminating intimate content appears as the second most psychologically impactful event, second only to rape.

This increase in digital violence is not happening in an ideological vacuum. It is part of a parallel ecosystem: the machosphere. Digital spaces that, with the complicity ofinfluencers and YouTubers They colonize the virtual space with disinformation, for example, with denialism regarding gender-based violence, normalizing misogyny, rewriting inequality as if it were a "female privilege," or constructing narratives that blame women for their own victimization. This discourse is neither trivial nor anecdotal, because it seeks to shape mindsets, especially among adolescent boys and young men. The machosphere not only amplifies contempt. It also provides justification, offers a sense of community, and legitimizes behaviors that lead to violence (physical, sexual, or digital).

It is a subculture that dilutes individual responsibility within a collective discourse that rebounds against equality: it is easier to think that women have gone too far with equality, that the accusations are false, or that they are "exaggerating," and thus deny gender-based violence, than to examine ourselves to see what we are doing wrong. It's always less costly and more comfortable to think the problem lies outside, not within, thus maintaining one's privileges and remaining comfortably ensconced. As bell hooks warned: "Patriarchy doesn't need to reinvent itself; it only needs to adapt to survive." And today it adapts perfectly to the virtual world.