Sexual harassment is a well-known social problem that affects people at work, school, military installations, and social gatherings (Barak 2005). A worldwide phenomenon (Barak 1997), it has been thoroughly investigated in recent decades in terms of prevalence, correlates, individual and organizational outcomes, and prevention; the range of studies provides an interdisciplinary perspective covering psychological, sociological, medical, legal, and educational aspects of the phenomenon. Although men face harassment, women are the most likely victims.¹

In many environments on the internet, some users find themselves so captivated by their cyberspace lifestyle that they want to spend more and more time there, sometimes to the neglect of their in-person life (Suler 1999). They may not be entirely sure why they find themselves so engrossed. They can’t accurately verbalize an explanation for their “addiction.” The humorous substitution of words in the Palace Spa suggests that it is an unnameable “thing”—a compelling, unnameable, hidden force. It’s not the chat room or the newsgroup or the e-mail that is eating one’s life, but the internal, unconscious dynamic it has ignited (Ibid). Indeed, the internet has two faces, positive and negative (Barak and King 2000). Its positive aspect is that it enables the enrichment and improvement of human functioning in many areas, including health, education, commerce and entertainment. On its negative side, the internet may provide a threatening environment and expose individuals to great risks (Ibid).

In the context of women using the internet, Morahan-Martin (2000) noted the “promise and perils” facing female Net users. Sexual harassment and offence on the internet is considered a major obstacle to the free, legitimate, functional, and joyful use of the Net, as these acts drive away Net users as well as cause significant emotional harm and actual damage to those who remain users, whether by choice or by duty.

Sexual harassment is a prevalent phenomenon in face-to-face, social environments (Barak 2005). The harassment of women in the military (Fitzgerld et al. 1999), at work (Richman et al. 1999) and schools are receiving increased attention from both policymakers and the popular media. Sexual harassment is not a local phenomenon, but exists in all countries and cultures, although its perceptions and judgment, and consequently definitions, significantly differ from one culture to another (Barak 2005).

Till (1980) classifies sexual harassment behaviors into five categories: (1) sexist remarks or behavior, (2) solicitation of sexual activity by promise or rewards, (3) inappropriate and offensive, but sanction-free sexual advances, (4) coercion of sexual activity by threat of punishment, and (5) sexual crimes and misdemeanors. Following extensive pilot work, suggestion was made by (Fitzgerald et al. 1995) to change the classification of types of sexual harassment into three different categories: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion.

Gender harassment involves unwelcome verbal and visual comments and remarks that insult individuals because of their gender or that use stimuli known or intended to provoke negative emotions. These include behaviors such as posting pornographic pictures in public or in places where they deliberately insult, telling chauvinistic jokes, and making gender related degrading remarks (Barak 2005).

Unwanted sexual attention covers a huge range of behaviors from being touched without permission, causing fear, or distress, sexual name calling, harassment to rape and sexual assault. Unwanted sexual attention can happen to both women and men and happen between people of the same and opposite sex.

Sexual coercion exists along a continuum, from forcible rape to nonphysical forms of pressure that compel girls and women to engage in sex against their will. The touchstone of coercion is that a woman lacks choice and faces severe physical or social consequences if she resists sexual advances.²

All three types of sexual harassment may exist offline or on the internet. However, because of the virtual nature of cyberspace, most expressions of sexual harassment that prevail on the Net appear in the form of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention. Nevertheless, as sexual coercion is the type that occurs the least often offline, too, it is impossible to conclude whether its relatively low prevalence in cyberspace is a result of the medium or its very nature. In terms of virtual imposition and assault, sexual coercion does exist nonetheless on the Net, though without, of course, the physical contact.

Gender harassment in cyberspace is very common. It is portrayed in several typical forms that internet users encounter very often, whether communicated in verbal or in graphical formats and through either active or passive manners of online delivery (Barak 2005). Active verbal sexual harassment mainly appears in the form of offensive sexual messages, actively initiated by a harasser toward a victim. These include gender-humiliating comments, sexual remarks, so-called dirty jokes, and the like. This type of gender harassment is usually practiced in chat rooms and forums; however, it may also appear in private online communication channels, such as the commercial distribution through e-mail (a kind of spamming) of pornographic sites, sex-shop accessories, sex-related medical matters (such as drugs such as Viagra and operations similar to penis enlargement).

Mitchell et al. (2003) conducted a national survey among youth aged 10–17, and their caretakers. 25 % of youth had unwanted exposure to sexual pictures on the internet in 2002, challenging the prevalent assumption that the problem is primarily about young people motivated to actively seek out pornography. Most youth had no negative reactions to their unwanted exposure, but one quarter said they were very or extremely upset, suggesting a priority need for more research on and interventions directed toward such negative effects. The use of fileting and blocking software was associated with a modest reduction in unwanted exposure, suggesting that it may help but is far from foolproof. Various forms of parental supervision were not associated with any reduction in exposure (Ibid).

Of the 73 % of respondents who unintentionally entered sex sites, most did so as a result of automatic linking, pop-up windows, and unintended results while using a search engine.

Passive verbal sexual harassment on the other hand, is less intrusive, as it does not refer to one user communicating messages to another. In this category, the harasser does not target harassing messages directly to a particular person or persons but, rather, to potential receivers (Barak 2005). For instance, this type of harassment refers to nicknames and terms attached to a user’s online identification or to personal details that are clearly considered offensive. This category also includes explicit sexual messages attached to one’s personal details in communication software or on a personal web page (Ibid).

On a different note, some scholars illustrated how flaming creates a hostile environment for women. Although flaming is not necessarily aimed at women, it is considered, in many instances, to be a form of gender harassment because flaming is frequently, typically, and almost exclusively initiated by men. The common result of flaming in online communities is that women depart from that environment or depart the internet in general—what has been termed being ‘flamed out’. “Flamed out highlights the fact that the use of male violence to victimize women and children, to control women’s behavior, or to exclude women from public spaces entirely, can be extended into the new public spaces of the Internet” (Barak 2005). A constructive solution has been the design of women-only sanctuaries that offer communities where flaming is rare and obviously not identified with men.

Graphic-based harassment can be active or passive.³ Active graphic gender harassment refers to the intentional sending of erotic, pornographic, lewd, and lascivious images and digital recordings by a harasser to specific or potential victims. Graphic harassment often occurs via email, instant messaging, redirected/automatic linking, and pop-ups.⁴ Passive verbal sexual harassment does not target a specific person, but potential receivers. Nicknames and terms or phrases clearly attached to personal details often encompass this form of sexual harassment (Schenk et al. 2008).

Another area of research that has provided insight into cyber sexual harassment is cyber-stalking. Bocji (2004) defined cyber-stalking as a group of behaviors in which the use of information and communications technology is intended to cause emotional distress to another person. Behaviors associated with cyber stalking include making threats, false accusations (false-victimization), abusing the victim, attacks on data and equipment, attempts to gather information about the victim, impersonating the victim, encouraging others to harass the victim, ordering goods and services on behalf of the victim, arranging to meet the victim, and physical assault (Schenk 2008, p. 83). Many of the same behaviors found in cyber-stalking have been linked to cyber-sexual harassment. Furthermore, behaviors seen with cyber-stalking would be considered sexual coercion on the internet (e.g., explicit threats to harm the internet user or the user’s friends or family, threats to harm the user’s property, or even following the user’s internet activity; Barak 2005).

Many authors refer to sexual harassment on the internet and describe it as prevalent and risky. No empirical survey on the scope and prevalence of sexual harassment on the internet has been conducted to date; accordingly; scholars refer to general impressions and sporadic reports. Cooper et al. (2002) refer to sexual harassment by email as a common abuse of women in workplaces.

Leiblum and Döring argued that the internet provides a convenient vehicle, commonly used, to force sexuality on women through non-social (logging into web pages) and social (interpersonal communication) uses of the Net (Barak 2005). McCormick and Leonard (1996) contended that because of the Net’s so-called boys club atmosphere (apparently more relevant up to the mid-1990s than today), this environment is typically characterized by anti-women attitudes and behaviors, including sexual harassment. Following the same conception, Döring states that men’s created sexualized online atmosphere, mainly through pornographic materials, make unwanted sexual advances more likely (Ibid).

Adam (2001